Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: OBEY!
The purging of Eich from Mozilla is making it clear that we are living in what Vaclav Havel termed the “post-totalitarian system” which “demands conformity, uniformity, and discipline.”
“To explain how dissent works, Havel introduced the manager of a hypothetical fruit-and-vegetable shop who places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ He’s not actually enthusiastic about the sign’s message. It’s just one of the things that people in a post-totalitarian system do even if they ‘never think about’ what it means. He does it because everyone does it. It’s what you do to get along in life and live ‘in harmony with society.’ (For our purposes, you can imagine that slogan is a red equal sign that you put up on your Facebook page.)
“…
“In the greengrocer scenario, Havel notes that if the text of the sign read ‘I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient,’ he might be embarrassed and ashamed to put it up. The dissidents are the ones who, by refusing to put the sign up, or refusing to recant, shine a huge light on the system, including the ones who go along to get along. All of a sudden those Facebook signs, those reflexive statements, those cries of ‘Bigot!’ look less like shows of strength and more like shows of weakness.”
How does this relate to Eich?
“Consider first the response of one of the activist’s calling for Eich’s head. After he resigned, activist Michael Catlin wrote that he never thought his campaign against Eich would go ‘this far” and that he wanted ‘him to just apologize.’ So he was ‘sad’ that Eich didn’t say the magic words that would have allowed him to keep his job. Yeah, he really said that.
“And then think about how horrified people were that Eich lost his job for his views that men and women are different in important ways. Regardless of our previous views on marriage, we saw in Eich a dissident who forced us to think about totalitarianism and our role in making society unfree. Did we mindlessly put up red equal signs when we hadn’t even thought about what marriage is? Did we rush to fit in by telling others we supported same-sex marriage? Did we even go so far as to characterize as ‘bigots’ or as ‘Hitlers’ those who held views about the importance of natural marriage?”
Havel understood the nature of the beast by experiencing it. We have the dubious honor of the same.
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