{"id":22907,"date":"2016-11-20T22:46:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-20T22:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/Theres-an-old-Soviet-joke-Dont-think"},"modified":"2016-11-20T22:46:55","modified_gmt":"2016-11-20T22:46:55","slug":"theres-an-old-soviet-joke-dont-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/2016\/11\/20\/theres-an-old-soviet-joke-dont-think\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s an old Soviet joke: “Don’t think."},"content":{"rendered":" \n

Originally shared by Yonatan Zunger<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There’s an old Soviet joke: “Don’t think. If you think, don’t speak. If you speak, don’t write. If you write, don’t sign. If you sign, don’t be surprised.” While it may encode some good advice for keeping out of Siberia, the realities of living in an autocracy are somewhat more subtle. The most important rules aren’t about not attracting the notice of the secret police \u2013\u00a0they’re about how to keep track of your sense of reality, when you are subject to a continuous and concerted effort to redefine it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I was reminded of this just a few days ago by my Peruvian mother-in-law, who described how Fujimori would engage in elaborate public shuffles of his cabinet, making “who’s in and who’s out” the center of all media attention, whenever he was up to something particularly nefarious behind the scenes. The media is hungry; if you feed it, it will eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Behind here is an essay by Masha Gessen, who grew up in Russia under Brezhnev, about what you need in order to survive. She gives six slightly different rules: “1. Believe the autocrat; 2. Do not be taken in by small signs of normality; 3. Institutions will not save you; 4. Be outraged; 5. Don\u2019t make compromises; 6. Remember the future.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There’s a great deal of subtlety behind each of these, especially the first three. The art of surviving in an autocracy, whether it be the USSR or a tinpot banana republic, is the art of recognizing when you are being told the simple, unvarnished truth, and when you are being treated to a spectacular song-and-dance designed to distract you from what’s really going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What’s particularly important here, and why you should read Gessen’s essay, is that the instincts you have developed for understanding democracies will lead you exactly astray when trying to understand autocracies \u2013\u00a0the instincts to search for a rationalization when you hear something extreme, or to treat “small signs of normality” like stock market stability or a “normal” news story like a cabinet reshuffle as a sign that things really are normal, for example. In a democracy, this habits are frequently correct; to an autocrat, this tendency of people to assume that everything is normal is a basic part of operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are many good books on the theory of propaganda, but Gessen’s essay is perhaps one of the most concise and useful introductions. You will likely find it very useful when understanding anything you see or hear from a dictatorship anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n

http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/daily\/2016\/11\/10\/trump-election-autocracy-rules-for-survival\/<\/a><\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s an old Soviet joke: “Don’t think.
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