There is no doctrine called extremism. When tyrants speak of extremists, they just mean people who are not in the mainstream — as the tyrants themsel… - Timothy Snyder

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There is no doctrine called extremism. When tyrants speak of extremists, they just mean people who are not in the mainstream — as the tyrants themselves are defining that mainstream at that particular moment. Dissidents of the twentieth century, whether they were resisting fascism or communism, were called extremists. Modern authoritarian regimes, such as Russia, use laws on extremism to punish those who criticize their policies. In this way the notion of extremism comes to mean virtually everything except what is, in fact, extreme: tyranny.

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About Timothy Snyder

Timothy David Snyder (born 1969) is an American historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust.

Biography information from Wikipedia

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Timothy David Snyder Timothy D. Snyder T.D. Snyder Tim Snyder
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Additional quotes by Timothy Snyder

The Nazis treated health care as a way to divide the humans from the subhumans and nonhumans. If we see others as bearers of ailments and ourselves as healthy victims, we are little better than they. If we truly oppose the Nazi evil, we will try to think our way to its opposite, to the good. A part of that effort is to understand that all humans are subject to malady, and have an equal claim to care.

We find it natural that we pay for a plumber or a mechanic, but demand our news for free. If we did not pay for plumbing or auto repair, we would not expect to drink water or drive cars. Why then should we form our political judgement on the basis of zero invetsment? We get what we pay for.

For tyrants, the lesson of the Reichstag fire is that one moment of shock enables an eternity of submission. For us, the lesson is that our natural fear and grief must not enable the destruction of our institutions. Courage does not mean not fearing, or not grieving. It does mean recognizing and resisting terror management right away, from the moment of the attack, precisely when it seems most difficult to do so. After the Reichstag fire, Hannah Arendt wrote that “I was no longer of the opinion that one can simply be a bystander.

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