On Tyranny Lessons 13-16 Summary & Analysis

13: Practice corporeal politics

Lesson 13 promotes the idea that people should spend more time outside and more time interacting with strangers. (Corporeal means having to do with one’s body). Governing bodies want their citizens to become sedentary. This lesson discusses two factors that are important for resistance to succeed. First, the ideas of a resistance must appeal to people of many different backgrounds, not just a single group. Second, the resistance must mobilize people so that they interact with people from other groups, forming new alliances and friendships. The Solidarity labor movement of Poland (1980–1981) is given as an example, where intellectuals joined labor workers in protest and were successful, creating a labor union and establishing alliances across different groups. Despite being forcibly disbanded in 1981, the Solidarity labor movement later became instrumental in establishing elections when communism fell in 1989.

14: Establish a private life

Lesson 14 opens with a warning against using email or other digital communication, if it will give tyrants leverage. People should have conversations in person and limit their engagement with digital communication or any other medium that will supply oppressive regimes with fodder for blackmail. Borrowing from 20th-century political theorist Hannah Arendt, Snyder defines totalitarianism as a lack of separation between public life and private life. Few citizens would be unaffected by having their private lives revealed by a malicious entity. News media also have a tendency to latch on to any humiliating information that gets leaked, despite it rarely being relevant to public concerns.

15: Contribute to good causes

Lesson 15 opens with an encouragement to the reader to become involved in charities or other organizations that contribute to a civil society. Authoritarian regimes of the last 100 years have all opposed non-governmental organizations and charities. Many tyrannical and communist regimes seek to transform such organizations into centers of control where they can reinforce the party-state. The regimes do not tolerate the free transmission of ideas. By supporting and engaging with such groups, people will meet others and experience democratic interactions. These can be as simple as finding other people who are interested in similar hobbies.

16: Learn from peers in other countries

Lesson 16 opens with a statement that Americans should make friends with people in other countries and keep their own passports current. This lesson contrasts the way Russian misinformation attacks were handled by the United States in 2016 with the way they were handled by Ukraine in 2013. When Russian propaganda targeted Ukraine before invading in 2014, Ukraine made every effort to counteract the stories. On the other hand, a Russian-fabricated story that Hillary Clinton was ill during the 2016 presidential campaign was repeated by American media. Snyder states that while Russia did have difficulty with Ukraine, they achieved a victory in the election of Donald Trump. The lesson closes by mentioning that a passport allows one to travel abroad and learn about how other cultures deal with challenges.

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