Reading some of the comments on that Reddit thread, I think a lot of folks need to come to terms with how illiberal society can become, particularly how hard wo

Reading some of the comments on that Reddit thread, I think a lot of folks need to come to terms with how illiberal society can become, particularly how hard won individual freedoms are, how easy they are to lose, and how diligent folks have to be to protect them. Often protecting rights means standing up for folks you may not identify with, who you might have difficulty tolerating, since rights can be eroded subtly over time on the back of reasonable concerns. Nelson Mandela spent almost 30 years of his life in prison, a huge percentage of his life, practicing civil disobedience to affect change. Navalny is likely to suffer a similar fate, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll affect change in Russia. Those two men are so inspiring because of their raw courage and equanimity, but that doesn’t mean that you have to have that to make some difference, society is upheld by people making small brave decisions every day; James C. Scott remarks in Two Cheers for Anarchism an exercise he calls “anarchist calisthenics” wherein you break small, insignificant rules so that you’re ready when you need to make the big decision in the name of humanity. Arendt’s term the “banality of evil” in reference to Eichmann’s trial in Israel is relevant here insofar that evil is often mundane and a result of falling in line, though I’m simplifying the argument a little. What I’m reminded about today in the west with its challenges is that old Scott Alexander essay “I can tolerate anything but the outgroup”: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...?? …what that essay reminds me of is the importance of local social participation, the vacuum of political discourse from the loss of the public square and third places, and the expansion of the ingroup and expulsion of the outgroup—you can really go through life nowadays avoiding any disagreement, even in college where exposure to challenging ideas is the whole point. I typed this on my phone, so bear with me and my sloppy ideas, I just wanted to throw some interesting discussion in this thread.