On January 6, 2021, President Donald ("Tweety") Trump incited a mob of domestic terrorists to storm the Capitol. As a result, five people died, including one police officer. But are there now any Trump voters who are ready to undertake the hard work of recovering from Trump and rehabilitating themselves as attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible Americans committed to our democratic republic and the rule of law?

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) January 24, 2021: Yale history professor and public intellectual Timothy Snyder is the distinguished author of the 2010 book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books).

Now, in Snyder's accessible and incisive 2017 book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (New York: Tim Duggan Books), he explicitly rejects the contemporary philosophical movement known as post-truth and the American political movement known as nationalism (also known as America First - a slogan often associated with Charles Lindbergh [1902-1974]).

In effect, Snyder implicitly defends the broad tradition of philosophical realism - against the philosophical movement of post-truth, on the one hand, and, on the other, the non-philosophical practitioner of spirit of post-truth, now former President Donald ("Tweety") Trump.

Now that former President Tweety Trump is no longer in office, Snyder's 20 key lessons are still important for turning his anarchist and nihilist followers away from their wayward ways.

As noted, whatever else may be said about Snyder's still relevant 20 lessons, he does not happen to advert explicitly to the broad tradition of philosophical realism.

Now, my favorite scholar is the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955). For an accessible discussion on his philosophical thought, see my lengthy OEN article "Walter J. Ong's Philosophical Thought" (dated September 20, 2020):

Click Here

Whatever else may be said about Ong's phenomenological and personalist philosophical thought, his philosophical thought falls well within the broad tradition of philosophical realism.

Now, whatever else may be said about the contemporary philosophic movement known as post-truth, it does not fall within the tradition of philosophical realism.

For a relevant defense of philosophical realism, see Martha C. Nussbaum's scholarly article "Human Functioning and Social Justice: In Defense of Aristotelian Essentialism" in the journal Political Theory, volume 20, number 2 (May 1992): pages 202-246.

Now, in Snyder's succinct "Prologue: History and Tyranny" (pages 9-13), he operationally defines and explains what he means by tyranny: "In founding a democratic republic upon law and establishing a system of checks and balances, the Founding Fathers sought to avoid the evil that they, like the ancient philosophers [Plato and Aristotle], called tyranny. They had in mind the usurpation of power by a single individual or group, or the circumvention of law by rulers for their own benefit. Much of the succeeding political debate in the United States has concerned the problem of tyranny within American society: over slaves and women, for example" (pages 9-10).

Then Snyder's accessible short book unfolds in the following 20 short chapters:

(1) "Do not obey in advance" (pages 17-21).

(2) "Defend institutions" (pages 22-25).

(3) "Beware of the one-party state" (pages 26-31).

(4) "Take responsibility for the face of the world" (pages 32-37).

(5) "Remember professional ethics" (pages 38-41).

(6) "Be wary of paramilitaries" (pages 42-46).

(7) "Be reflective if you must be armed" (pages 47-50).

(8) "Stand out" (pages 51-58).

(9) "Be kind to our language" (pages 59-64).

(10) "Believe in truth" (pages 65-71).

(11) "Investigate" (pages 72-80).

(12) "Make eye contact and small talk" (pages 81-82).

(13) "Practice corporeal politics" (pages 83-86).

(14) "Establish a private life" (pages 87-91).

(15) "Contribute to good causes" (pages 92-94).

(16) "Learn from peers in other countries" (pages 95-98).

(17) "Listen to dangerous words" (pages 99-102).

(18) "Be calm when the unthinkable arrives" (pages 103-110).

(19) "Be a patriot" (pages 111-114).

(20) "Be as courageous as you can" (page 115).

Followed by the "Epilogue: History and Liberty" (pages 117-126) and "About the Author" (page 127). But the book does not contain an index. However, among the most frequently recurring terms are democracy (and democratic), fascism (and Hitler and Nazi[s]), communism (and Stalin), and tyranny (and the president, meaning now former President Tweety Trump). Among the most frequently recurring names are Hannah Arendt, Vaclav Havel, and George Orwell, among others.

Each chapter begins with a paragraph in boldface print, followed by a succinct explanation based on relevant historical information about the tyrannical twentieth-century totalitarian regimes of fascism and communism, both of which were opposed to democracy - in favor of tyranny, as Snyder operationally defines and explains this term in his "Prologue: History and Tyranny," mentioned above.

For example, Chapter 10: "Believe in truth" begins with the following paragraph in boldface print:

"To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights" (page 65).

Amen, I say to that.

Now, Ong's most relevant article about what Snyder refers to as the lesson "Believe in truth" is his 1958 essay "Voice as Summons for Belief: Literature, Faith, and the Divided Self" that is reprinted in the 600-page 2002 anthology An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pages 259-275).

But also see my article about the philosophy of science and epistemology, "Rehg admirably takes the science wars to a new level" in the online and print journal On the Horizon, volume 18, number 4 (2010): pages 337-345 (Emerald Group Publishing Limited).

In Snyder's Chapter 11: "Investigate," he notes that "in the age of the internet, we are all publishers, [so] each of us bears some private responsibility for the public's sense of truth" (page 79).

In Snyder's Chapter 18: "Be calm when the unthinkable arrives" - as the unthinkable arrived on January 6, 2021, when President Tweet Trump incited domestic terrorists to storm the Capitol. In Snyder's first paragraph, he says, among other things, "When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such event in order to consolidate power" (page 103). However, thus far, now former President Tweety Trump has not been able to exploit the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol in order to consolidate his power.

In Snyder's "Epilogue: History and Liberty," he says, "National populists [e.g., President Tweety Trump] are eternity politicians" (page 122). "In the politics of eternity, the seduction by a mythicized past prevents us from thinking about possible futures" (page 123).

In the politics of eternity, "We stare at the spinning vortex of cyclical myth . . . you think time moves in repeating cycles" (pages 124 and 125).

As the antidote to a mythicized past, Snyder advocates studying history. "History allows us to see patterns and make judgments. It sketches for us the structures within which we can seek freedom. . . . History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something" (page 125).

The classic study of cyclical myth is Mircea Eliade's book The Myth of Eternal Return, translated from the French by Willard R. Trask (New York: Pantheon Books, 1954; orig. French ed., 1949).

Ong's most relevant publication is his 1960 essay "Evolution and Cyclicism in Our Time" that he reprinted in his 1967 book In the Human Grain: Further Explorations of Contemporary Culture (New York: Macmillan, pages 61-82).

In conclusion, if there are now any Trump voters who want to rehabilitate themselves, Snyder has provided them with a 20-step program of rehabilitation for recovering Trump voters.

(Article changed on January 25, 2021 at 22:38)

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview