Anne Applebaum’s History Will Judge the Complicit: A 2025 Reminder
Anne Applebaum’s piece in The Atlantic came out in the summer of 2020; amidst the rapidly changing political and social landscape of COVID protocols and the election season. But given the recent inauguration of our new President, it stands as a good reminder about the cautious tightrope between democracy and autocracy. And the historical parallels that have consumed Europe and the rest of the world for decades. America’s situation is not new; humanity has been here before. And we can tread cautiously or continue down the path of tyranny, anger, and lack of empathy for humanity.
Her essay cleverly weaves through recent and ancient histories from Europe and beyond, with the various people that have endured through intense hardships. It leaves the reader with a sense of appreciation and hope that if they can live on in an uncertain world, trying their best to be decent humans despite the cards given, that we can all do the same.
Near the center of her essay, she elucidates the various internal stories that those near political power tell themselves as justifications of collaboration using the work of Czesław Miłosz’s the Captive Mind as a guide.
First, the thought that we can use this moment to achieve great things. Using someone as leverage to achieve greatness is certainly nothing new to humanity. But overlooking atrocities and dehumanizing political tactics to achieve anything is a slippery slope to despair. The quiet thought that we will personally benefit if we remain silent is not a side of humanity that is glorified. But for the cynical among us, this idea relating to those surrounding egotistical people of power makes sense.
But as the truth surrounding the “Trump First, America Second” started to unfold during his first impeachment hearings, a friend of Anne’s made a comment. He deflected his questionable motivations of support for Trump to using Trump’s criticism of China to help the Uighurs, the oppressed Muslim minority in Xinjiang. Anne disclosed her own opinion that the Trump administration’s words in the United Nations and letters to China did not change the outlook of the Uighurs; unfortunately, that did not dissuade the conversation regarding if supporting his administration was a good thing.
Relating to this anecdote, Anne talks about Wanda Telakowska, a Polish activist that joined the Polish Ministry of Culture in 1945 to help “use her position inside the Communist establishment to help Polish artists and designers, to promote their work and get Polish companies to mass-produce their designs.” Unfortunately, the leaders forced Wanda to write Marxist propaganda and forced her to resign, causing her to be remembered among the artists that she attempted to promote as a Stalinist in history; forgotten by time.
Second, the notion that we can protect the country from the President is certainly a comforting but naive thought. After the 2017 inauguration of President Trump, Democrats had many attempts to limit the growing power of the Executive Branch of the Federal government. The Mueller report, or the Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, that was meant to provide a smoking gun to impeach the President yielded no definitive results.
However, based on disclosures from personnel surrounding Trump’s inner circle in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury expose into the first nine months of his Presidency, there were numerous daily activities that were used to steer Trump clear of destructive acts. It is certainly uplifting that there were “adults in the room”, based on the comments by an anonymous source in the White House. But we should be utilizing the separation powers of the Federal government to keep tyranny at bay, not at the whims of a President’s support staff.
Third, the unfortunate mindset that the side in power might be flawed, but the political opposition is much worse. The televised mass media and the siloed social media algorithms have certainly played a role in increasing the political divide. It is much harder to learn and appreciate others’ struggles when it requires a sense of willpower to navigate to other sources, unsure how and what to trust. The slowly chiseled non-partisan media outlets over the past couple decades eroded American’s trust in these institutions, allowing “independent” sources to fill the void.
Unfortunately, when there are more voices out in the world, it makes it easier for lies to spread, especially as the social media algorithms rapidly grew to encompass how Americans read and watch the news. And the way social media companies are monetized, eyeballs and views are a top priority, forcing companies to adjust their algorithms to increase engagement. But there is a way to change your way of participating in social media without being deluged with a ton of morally suspect information and still find the social connections that these platforms provide: limitations.
I am still implementing this wonderfully freeing social media limitation on my phone using Screentime with a passcode that only my partner knows. 10 minutes a day on each platform is more than enough. And I find that with the limitation, the way I use them has changed. Instead of using it as a mindless distraction and never-ending on slot of news, I actively look for updates or connections from people, businesses, and community events. But to each their own, and I hope that all of us can learn to instill a more mindful use of technology.
Forth justification is fear of speaking out, though not usually out of a sense of fear of dying but a fear of social isolation. Humans have evolved to be social creatures, and social isolation was, at a time, deemed disastrous for survival. But we live in an age of so many people and places to live, if a particular area becomes distressing. Speaking out, even with the fear of social isolation, can be scary, unnerving, with unknown outcomes. But the dangers of not speaking out on atrocities leads horrible events, not only of which relates to the Holocaust.
The Catholic Church has a, now fully known and understood, history of hiding and deflecting Child Sexual Abuse scandals. For decades, it was a well-kept secret, especially in very Catholic-oriented cities and towns in Massachusetts. As the Boston Globe’s Spotlight group found in the early 2000’s, the local Catholic Church hid dozens of Child Sexual Abuse, with many more people too afraid to speak up. But the diligent work among, what is known as the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative journalist unit in the United States, helped to shed light on the atrocities, sparking a movement of childhood survivors to voice their stories and help change the church for the better.
Those stories would have been lost to history if brave men and women did not find the courage to speak up. We should never let the justification of fear of those deemed as powerful prevent us from speaking our truths. As the writer Ursula Le Guin said in a panel discussion, “[its] power seems inescapable. So did the divine rights of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.” She later goes on to empower young artists, mentioning that resistance and change begin in art, especially the art of words to inspire alternatives to a life never imagined.
There was a movie recently called, Transatlantic, created by Anna Winger and Daniel Hendler, based on the 2019 novel The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer. The novel and movie explore the historic Emergency Rescue Committee, led by Varian Fry, that operated in Marseille, Spain, and Portugal in 1940 after the fall of France. They helped to smuggle artists, intellectuals, and celebrities to America that had potentially life-threatening implications during WWII. Charles Fawcett, one of Fry's assistants, commented, "They wouldn’t listen to you. They thought, 'We were so famous, nobody will do anything to us.' Some of them said that! 'The French wouldn’t dare to do anything to us—there’s world opinion.' World opinion—can you imagine that? Let me tell you, world opinion wasn’t standing behind them much in those days.”
Lastly, Anne Applebaum provides a bit of a laugh, noting that we find that our situation means nothing. Cynicism, nihilism, relativism, amorality, irony, sarcasm, boredom, amusement— these are all reasons to collaborate, and always have been. But hope for change will never dissipate, as long as there are people that can defy the human tendency to justify their actions, especially cruel ones.
She ends the essay with a short anecdote about Władysław Bartoszewski, who was a member of the wartime Polish underground, a prisoner of both the Nazis and the Stalinists, and then, finally, the foreign minister in two Polish democratic governments. Later in his life, he summed up the philosophy that had guided him through all of these tumultuous political changes. It was not idealism that drove him, or big ideas, he said. It was this: Warto być przyzwoitym— “Just try to be decent.” And that is something we can all learn from as America embarks on a new order in our Federal government.
