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I’d argue that you’re being overly fatalistic. You call out actions you can take (talking to those close to you) and yet claim “you have no weapons to fight”. It’s just the degree of personal suffering you’re willing to risk.

I think part of the message of the writing is that thinking of what’s “feasible” is the trap that prolongs the ideology of the time.

Yep, society can crush you and there’s not much you can do about it. But it won’t get better unless you stand against it anyway.

That’s one the hardest things you can do, but countless humans have done it before you, and we praise and honour them (when we remember them). So much of commemoration and remembrance rites/ceremonies is is trying to prolong the memory of their hard, but correct choice.

We even honour those who fought against “us” when we recognise the costs they knowingly paid for their beliefs.

It’s our capacity to be noble that the essay calls out to. And sure enough, it has a cost and may not succeed.

If you are guaranteed to fail, and speak out anyway, all the more noble. And perversely enough, if enough people agree that it’s worth doing despite the certainty of failure, suddenly success isn’t impossible anymore

It's kinda meta, but I wanted to tell you your words made a lot of difference for me. I've been depressed lately with the state of the world and I didn't know what to do. I don't care about being remembered, but I don't want to be crushed, I want this world to be better. I guess it'll have to start with me.

Thank _you_ for leaving this comment :)

I've had my own issues dealing with the world as it is, so I'm very glad I could make a difference for someone.

I wish you all the best with your struggles; you do whatever you can, and so will I. Hopefully there's enough of us to make a difference :)

> your impact as an individual is limited

People such as Solzhenitsyn prove that your impact as an individual can be staggeringly large. Individuals can shift the course of nations and effect the lives of hundreds of millions.

> ignores the reality that you have no weapons with which to fight

Again, Solzhenitsyn proves that you have the written word and it can be an extremely effective weapon.

> there's not much you can feasibly do other than watch it

You should really read a bit about this Solzhenitsyn fella for some counter examples. But of course very few individuals are willing to bear the burden it entails.

On dark days, I don't know. For every Solzhenitsyn there are thousands if not millions of anonymous souls forced into the wastelands of Siberia with only the shirts on their backs to keep them warm and fed over the unforgiving winter. Solzhenitsyn himself was one of them, and only a long string of miraculous happenstances turned him into a pivotal character. The forces of history were looking for a vessel.

This perhaps is a reminder to pour a drop of wine in memory of those who didn't make it.

If participating in a society-wide delusion is killing your soul, then refusing to participate in it is spiritual life.

Giving your energy to a system you abhor, to sustain values you reject, to benefit people you oppose, for many people becomes more costly than the opprobrium, lost income, loss of status, etc. that can result from refusing to repeat the lies.

It's not even necessarily about changing the world. It's about living in a way that gives you peace and inner freedom. The essay calls it "spiritual independence".

The whole point of this essay is that you don't need weapons to fight lies. You don't even need to confront the lies with truth! The only thing you need to do is the smallest token of resistance: don't repeat the lie!

> Feel-good rhetoric aside, your impact as an individual is limited and your defenses are fragile.

Genuine question - you are from the west, am I correct? It seems to me (just my feelings, no hard evidence) that there is something that people from the west often miss. They construct their arguments about this topic as if only the external result of actions mattered. As if personal integrity did not have any intrinsic value. As if the point of "the courage to defend even his own soul" was to change something about the system and not just what it literally says.

When you say "your impact as an individual is limited", it is only true if you are talking about you impact on society. Your impact on yourself is huge. People who do not live "in truth" (whatever that means) know that about themselves. They might rationalize it, but deep down they know. You might frame it in psychological terms and talk about self-esteem, repressing stuff, loosing connection to your own emotions... my point is that the price people pay for not behaving in congruence with their true self might be high.

I feel this is why it is important to have the courage to defend your soul - because you need to defend your soul to live well (and by living well I mean "at peace with yourself", not external circumstances - those might actually get really shitty if you intend to live at peace with yourself in a totalitarian regime). Communism was horrible not just because the oppressors did bad things to the oppressed. It was also because many people, who would otherwise lived as decent human beings, compromised one way or the other, and they still have to live with themselves. There are still many people with crushed souls around here.

EDIT: I do not want this to sound like unsolicited mentoring from someone who knows better - I am thinking about my own integrity and courage with high level of doubt.

> speaking out in even the most diplomatic way leads you to being aggressively silenced for not endorsing whatever the Sacred Infallible Truth may be in the time period that you live in

Wow, that's pretty apocalyptic. I can say pretty much whatever I want with little repercussion. I see people say pretty much whatever they want.

But the parent is the Sacred Infallible Truth: You'll notice it's repeated more than any other political position despite the rhetoric of rebellion.

> Sacred Infallible Truth

Are we mocking the idea of all truth and falsehood? Good and evil? Free choice and consequences? Should everyone just say whatever, without thinking of the consequences of their actions, and everyone else just ignore them? Why speak?

>Feel-good rhetoric aside, your impact as an individual is limited and your defenses are fragile.

In the age of social media, we have witnessed the power of the collective when it comes to combating hate speech and hate entities. Sometimes all it takes is one courageous whistleblower to ignite the spark that leads to the dismantling of lies, and the deplatforming of those who spreads them.

I didn't meant to come off as being political, but the networking effect of the individual must not be underlooked.

I don't see any power of individuals in this networking effect. For every racist act that's dismantled by individuals on social media, there are a hundred new lies and rumors spread by trolls, authoritarian governments and corporations.

Even worse, though, is that those fighting for justice don't view the individual as being of primary importance. Their allegiance is to a cause, and individuals are expendable; free speech is dangerous to that cause, and even more dangerous when it comes in the form of minor criticism from someone within the group, which is harder to caricature and dismiss.

The net result is that you have ostensible liberals who fight for justice squashing individuality - even going so far as to claim "individualism is a white construct" - while fascists get to masquerade as the upholders of individual rights and liberties. It's a farce because both sides are shamelessly, boot-licking craven lovers of groupthink and authoritarianism, but it's the "network effect" of social media - both the organizing and the deplatforming on both sides - that represses the individual inwardly and outwardly, and leads to them lying in service of populism.

What are you quoting?

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22individualism+is+a+white+...

Google tip: lose the quotes, use just keywords. https://www.google.com/search?q=individualism+white 4th result, the notorious 2011 "White Fragility" by one R. DiAngelo. Let's search for the root, "individual". Something perhaps interesting:

"At the same time that whites are taught to see their interests and perspectives as universal, they are also taught to value the individual and to see themselves as individuals rather than as part of a racially socialized group. Individualism erases history and hides the ways in which wealth has been distributed and accumulated over generations to benefit whites today. It allows whites to view themselves as unique and original, outside of socialization and unaffected by the relentless racial messages in the culture. Individualism also allows whites to distance themselves from the actions of their racial group and demand to be granted the benefit of the doubt, as individuals, in all cases. A corollary to this unracialized identity is the ability to recognize Whiteness as something that is significant and that operates in society, but to not see how it relates to one’s own life. In this form, a white person recognizes Whiteness as real, but as the individual problem of other “bad” white people (DiAngelo, 2010a)."

https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116

I quoted it because it was presented as such, but thank you for sharing this.

FWIW, I think the OP used quotes to distance himself from the quoted text, not to literally quote a passage.

I should have used single quotes. I was actually paraphrasing from a course that was offered to math teachers by the Oregon Dept of Education. The coursebook was authored by an organization called "A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction"[1]. The first book of the course contains the following [2,3]:

"As a visual indicator, we italicize the terms used to identify white supremacy characteristics as defined by Jones and Okun (2001). They are as follows:

• Perfectionism

• Sense of Urgency

• Defensiveness

• Quantity Over Quality

• Worship of the Written Word

• Paternalism

• Either/Or Thinking

• Power Hoarding

• Fear of Open Conflict

• Individualism

• Only One Right Way

• Progress is Bigger, More

• Objectivity

• Right to Comfort"

And:

"While there is some value in students being able to complete work independently, when this is the only or most common avenue for learning or practicing, it reinforces individualism and the notion that I’m the only one. This does not give value to collectivism and community understanding, and fosters conditions for competition and individual success, which perpetuates the idea that if a student is failing it is because they are not trying hard enough or that they don’t care."

[1] https://equitablemath.org

[2] * https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11... *, 6

[3] Ibid, 63

As an aside, I don't even think the attempt to slander "individualism" as white supremacy is nearly the most alarming or offensive thing on a list that also degrades objectivity, promotes open conflict, and bashes writing - the most basic defining feature of civilization. As a Jewish person, I also can't help thinking that "Worship of the Written Word" is a direct assault on Judaism, a religion in which the sanctity of life and the sanctity of the written word go hand in hand. In fact, disrespect for the written word calls directly to mind the white supremacists who burned Jewish books in Nazi Germany.

In a country (and world) where racism has caused generations of horrors and white supremacy is resurgent, it's incredible to see how much effort is spent - almost all of it in forums like HN - on attacking antiracists. One book 'offered' in one state (if it was offered - what does that mean? do you have evidence?) is nothing compared to vast abuses of racism.

What are you doing about racism? As many African-Americans predicted to me, if you complain about it then people really attack you.

I'm not attacking anyone, and you can follow the citations to learn more. I'm submitting that attacking individualism, critical thinking, the written word and "perfectionism" in the service of "communitarianism" do nothing to address racism, and are actually an offense to non-white people (myself included).

Ate there any substantial recent examples of this where there were actual, materially significant consequences?

Meanwhile, every day the forces of....not good get bigger and stronger, and the public more tribally divided by various forms of media, skilfully herded around like hypnotized sheep.