On a different topic, but still involving the subject of corporeal politics: Early yesterday evening I heard a knock on the door. It was someone canvassing for a candidate for Mayor of the city of Austin. So we chatted for several minutes as she told me about her preferred candidate, when suddenly she said, "You're the only person I've met who's made eye contact with me." Which put me in mind of your own reported experience of canvassing. I told her about why eye contact and making small talk are so important. Almost all of us in Austin are Democrats--you can just assume that a person standing next to you that you've never met is a Democrat--so I was able to relate what she said to a potential Trump dictatorship. After she left, it occurred to me that I still have my copy of the old (unillustrated) edition of On Tyranny, so I found it, got into my car, found her at the end of my street, rolled down the window, and gave it to her. She was taken aback that I would get into my car to try to find and give it to her. I said, "Look at Lesson 12! Make Eye Contact and Small talk!" She told me that she is a book lover, and will read it.
Thanks, Sara. What I didn't bring up in my original comment is that I was already in my pajamas when she arrived, so after I'd stood on my front porch talking to her for about 10 minutes, decided it wasn't worth changing clothes before getting into my car. Besides, I may have missed her if I had.
This leadership! I am proud of you! Let's all take more direct action of this kind. This is how change occurs. We create conditions which influence how our brains change, and soon the whole world begins to change. Even if not soon enough perhaps!
As always, thank you for all your work and for keeping Ukraine and its history in the foreground of our lives and minds. Sometime in the Spring of 1980, while I was a graduate student in Slavic Linguistics at Yale, I had the unforgettable pleasure of visiting Prof Shevelov at his apartment near Columbia University. I had just returned from spending 6 months teaching English in Kiev and considered his book A Prehistory of Slavic as one of my favorites, and so I had many things I wanted to discuss with him, the most important of which was an idea I had for my dissertation topic. I don’t recall now whether we actually discussed my topic, but what I do recall most of all was Prof Shevelov’s fascination with owls. As our discussion progressed, he started pointing out various owl figures he had around his apartment: various carved owls, owl clock faces (if i remember correctly), large and small owl figurines and drawings - they seemed to be all over the place. Having read your article, I am reminded how much stock Prof Shevelov put in wisdom and how well this was reflected in his owl menagerie.
Thank you, Dr. Timothy Snyder, for introducing me to Shevelov and making him more real by sharing pictures of his apartment in Kyiv. I was struck by your (his) opening line. Thank you also for reminding me of the great sacrifices that the people of Ukraine are making and leading meaningful lives in spite of their terrible suffering. I am truly grateful for your dedication to their cause and to our cause as well here in America.
Oh, my husband just reminded me that that Shevelov's apartment was in *Kharkiv*, not Kyiv. I guess I was still thinking about Dr. Snyder's resolute participation in the race there. Bravo to you, sir, for that as well!
Being a person who also is involved in culture and the value of preserving cultural knowledge and artifacts as well as enriching and developing culture into the future, I wonder if anyone in other major conflict zones I s doing anything similar to this AMAZING and INSPIRING work you are doing in Ukraine? Appreciating and sharing our culture with others seems like an antidote to war which is based on erasing the existing culture and imposing the victor’s culture upon the vanquished.
I watched the virtual discussion of On Freedom. It was one of the most educational experiences I have had, and it changed my understanding of the concept of freedom. I look forward to reading the book.
I’m about half way through “On Freedom” Tim, I’m glad I have the hardback because I often re-read sentences and paragraphs to make sure I’m clearly following your train of thought 💭 My Leib feels totally supported by your valiant efforts, thank you for what you do 🙏
I do the same thing whenever I'm reading a good book. Some books are worth reading slowly. The goal should never be to get through a good book as fast as possible, but to *understand* it.
I'm always happy to learn about other people who think that reading slowly is sometimes the best way to read. Not everything is worth reading slowly, of course, but those of us who treasure the lingering when it is, know immediately when to slow down and absorb what is written, whether it's a particular author or book, or even a passage within a book.
Happy reading to you, Sara. I hope you enjoy your Simone Weil collection.
I am singling you out for reply since your contributions seem to me to be among the very best on this website. But the majority of others contributing here seem to be guilty of the same problem. So I am putting it on you as a representative of other contributors. I can't write the same thing dozens of times over! I hope you understand this.
What is my gripe?
It is this: I will not be buying a copy of Dr Snyder's book because I have no money to pay for one. I do not own copies of any of his other books, for the same reason. I am broke, fighting to keep a roof over my head while continuing with my professional work which concerns modern progressive spirituality.
People like myself are nearly entirely dependent on what we can access free on the web. Have you any idea how hurtful, condescending and elitist the current conversations on this Snyder website are to people like me?
"Oh, I just bought $100 million worth of books.. they were so valuable… aren't we the most amazing world-leading people doing so much to help Ukraine?"
In my English family, my grandparents used to say, "Handsome is as handsome does". In the folk wisdom, this means pretty much the same as the biblical injunction, "By their deeds shall ye know them".
The basic teaching here is, clean up your own act before you presume to preach and teach others.
So what I perceive and experience on this website is a bunch of privileged, entitled, wealthy Americans talking to each other, apparently without the slightest understanding that it's not just Ukrainians who experience poverty and exclusion, it is other subscribers to this website who, like me, are broke and deprived of unhindered access to resources.
There’s another saying: "Charity begins at home". But you all forgot this.
Did it ever occur to any of you that there might be some of us who need help in accessing resources? So we can continue our own contributions to human progress and positive futures in Ukraine and elsewhere?
Why have none of you, including Dr Snyder, given a moment's thought to what you can do to make all these precious other resources available to those of us who do not have the purchase price? Why do you Americans have such a prejudice against making things available free? Are you such materialists that you think "Money maketh the Man!"?
Available in public libraries in the US. Not where I live, on the other side of the world, in a place where access to such resources has been taken away from us in the past two decades by rightwing government policies.
The net is where all this is happening, and the net is where resources need to be available.
So I say again, why are you not able to expand your worldview beyond local domestic US concerns?
The web is worldwide. Dr Snyder contributes internationally. That's great. But his/your on-the-ground inputs on this website don't match that universal understanding.
Sometimes, it takes those of us living outside your national boundaries to see clearly where your nation is at. From where I stand, it seems this blindness to the plight of the poor and disadvantaged in your own country is the primary reason why you are now facing the civilisation-destroying fascist challenge of Trumpism. And that affects the rest of us all around the world, existentially.
You are of course not alone in this blindness. The whole English-speaking world is guilty of it. Plus some non-English-speaking Europeans too.
But there is, on all of the developed world right now, an imperative to see the need and respond to it in a proactive manner, equally both internationally and domestically.
So what can you do? You can help make Dr Snyder's writings available to the whole world on UTube, or on this website. And the writings of other key authors too. We want to read them all, but we can't. Because you place in our way a pricewall. Thereby, you actively exclude us from the collegium.
Universal access would be worth thousands upon thousands of dollars more than just a single self-promoting jog and a gym workout—literally, socially and spiritually.
Dr Snyder is not making art. He is, at best, enabling it.
He is an academic, a world-leading historian, worthy of all our respect for his high achievements in that field.
But in this post, he is acting as
a) a community activist
b) a journalist, documenting things, and
c) a disciple on a spiritual path.
We need to exercise discrimination in our praise.
I think he's a brilliant historian: 10/10
And a reasonably good, although overtly partisan, part-time journalist: 7/10
An excellent community activist: 9/10
But a relative junior on the spiritual path of self-knowledge: 3/10
Dr Snyder's post here exemplifies that stage on the path known as spiritual pride. It is a form of egotism, applied to things moral/ethical/spiritual. It is traditionally known as the domain of Lucifer, who presumes to shed his light on the whole world. It is prideful, and comes before a fall.
I'm sad that contributors to this website show such little inclination to constructive criticism, preferring only to demonstrate blind adulation.
Thank you for highlighting the bravery of George Shevelov and the Ukrainians who persist in their fight for freedom today. May their day of liberation come soon. 🙏
Most people, including me, have no idea of the hours of study brought to those gatherings by the participants. And then throwing all those hours into a giant cauldron and seeing what new is created. Without the creation of new ideals, the study, all those hours, are of little value. Your blending of philosophy with Freedom, I find most creative. Thanks, you have made me THINK!
Thank you, Dr Snyder for making Ukraine alive for us. It is one thing to feel sympathy for what Ukraine is suffering at the hands of the tyrant Putin, quite another to understand and empathize.
I’m very much enjoying your letters from Ukraine. They are important in so many ways helping to link our country more closely to Ukraine and its people both there an here.
On another and more bothersome note, I either heard or read yesterday where Russia can now link to Starlink and track Ukrainian fighters. If so, doesn’t this indicate just how huge a threat Elon Musk is now to the world? The fact that the US is tied at the hip to this menace is atrocious. Sell Starlink as one thing then turn it against the very ones who made its success possible.
Excellent post and thank you for everything you do to engage us with Ukrainian civic society. I hope that the injury that caused you discomfort during the run heals soon.
An enduring pop song line is “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” Janis Joplin wrote it — and lived it. It was her way of saying “take risks”. In your estimable life, Tim Snyder, that means moving outside of the comfort zone of academic life at Yale. You’ve done it and are doing it and teaching it to many of us without lecturing. We benefit as do you. I often think of old sayings like “an unexamined life may not be worth living.” More important, as Shevelov and you are saying, a life lived in fear — a life constrained by comfort — may not be worth living. Like countless oppressed populations, Ukrainian and Black among them, I think about what makes life worth living daily. We all should during the short time that we can.
This is one of your best, Prof. Snyder.
On a different topic, but still involving the subject of corporeal politics: Early yesterday evening I heard a knock on the door. It was someone canvassing for a candidate for Mayor of the city of Austin. So we chatted for several minutes as she told me about her preferred candidate, when suddenly she said, "You're the only person I've met who's made eye contact with me." Which put me in mind of your own reported experience of canvassing. I told her about why eye contact and making small talk are so important. Almost all of us in Austin are Democrats--you can just assume that a person standing next to you that you've never met is a Democrat--so I was able to relate what she said to a potential Trump dictatorship. After she left, it occurred to me that I still have my copy of the old (unillustrated) edition of On Tyranny, so I found it, got into my car, found her at the end of my street, rolled down the window, and gave it to her. She was taken aback that I would get into my car to try to find and give it to her. I said, "Look at Lesson 12! Make Eye Contact and Small talk!" She told me that she is a book lover, and will read it.
Lovely Rose. Thank you. Your story brought on a smile
Thanks, Sara. What I didn't bring up in my original comment is that I was already in my pajamas when she arrived, so after I'd stood on my front porch talking to her for about 10 minutes, decided it wasn't worth changing clothes before getting into my car. Besides, I may have missed her if I had.
This leadership! I am proud of you! Let's all take more direct action of this kind. This is how change occurs. We create conditions which influence how our brains change, and soon the whole world begins to change. Even if not soon enough perhaps!
As always, thank you for all your work and for keeping Ukraine and its history in the foreground of our lives and minds. Sometime in the Spring of 1980, while I was a graduate student in Slavic Linguistics at Yale, I had the unforgettable pleasure of visiting Prof Shevelov at his apartment near Columbia University. I had just returned from spending 6 months teaching English in Kiev and considered his book A Prehistory of Slavic as one of my favorites, and so I had many things I wanted to discuss with him, the most important of which was an idea I had for my dissertation topic. I don’t recall now whether we actually discussed my topic, but what I do recall most of all was Prof Shevelov’s fascination with owls. As our discussion progressed, he started pointing out various owl figures he had around his apartment: various carved owls, owl clock faces (if i remember correctly), large and small owl figurines and drawings - they seemed to be all over the place. Having read your article, I am reminded how much stock Prof Shevelov put in wisdom and how well this was reflected in his owl menagerie.
Thank you, Dr. Timothy Snyder, for introducing me to Shevelov and making him more real by sharing pictures of his apartment in Kyiv. I was struck by your (his) opening line. Thank you also for reminding me of the great sacrifices that the people of Ukraine are making and leading meaningful lives in spite of their terrible suffering. I am truly grateful for your dedication to their cause and to our cause as well here in America.
Oh, my husband just reminded me that that Shevelov's apartment was in *Kharkiv*, not Kyiv. I guess I was still thinking about Dr. Snyder's resolute participation in the race there. Bravo to you, sir, for that as well!
Being a person who also is involved in culture and the value of preserving cultural knowledge and artifacts as well as enriching and developing culture into the future, I wonder if anyone in other major conflict zones I s doing anything similar to this AMAZING and INSPIRING work you are doing in Ukraine? Appreciating and sharing our culture with others seems like an antidote to war which is based on erasing the existing culture and imposing the victor’s culture upon the vanquished.
Thank you so much for writing this.
I watched the virtual discussion of On Freedom. It was one of the most educational experiences I have had, and it changed my understanding of the concept of freedom. I look forward to reading the book.
Where is this found?
I’m about half way through “On Freedom” Tim, I’m glad I have the hardback because I often re-read sentences and paragraphs to make sure I’m clearly following your train of thought 💭 My Leib feels totally supported by your valiant efforts, thank you for what you do 🙏
I do the same thing whenever I'm reading a good book. Some books are worth reading slowly. The goal should never be to get through a good book as fast as possible, but to *understand* it.
Going a few pages at a time here. I ordered a collection of writings by Simone Weil.
I'm always happy to learn about other people who think that reading slowly is sometimes the best way to read. Not everything is worth reading slowly, of course, but those of us who treasure the lingering when it is, know immediately when to slow down and absorb what is written, whether it's a particular author or book, or even a passage within a book.
Happy reading to you, Sara. I hope you enjoy your Simone Weil collection.
I am so angry at your thoughtless elitism Rose.
I am singling you out for reply since your contributions seem to me to be among the very best on this website. But the majority of others contributing here seem to be guilty of the same problem. So I am putting it on you as a representative of other contributors. I can't write the same thing dozens of times over! I hope you understand this.
What is my gripe?
It is this: I will not be buying a copy of Dr Snyder's book because I have no money to pay for one. I do not own copies of any of his other books, for the same reason. I am broke, fighting to keep a roof over my head while continuing with my professional work which concerns modern progressive spirituality.
People like myself are nearly entirely dependent on what we can access free on the web. Have you any idea how hurtful, condescending and elitist the current conversations on this Snyder website are to people like me?
"Oh, I just bought $100 million worth of books.. they were so valuable… aren't we the most amazing world-leading people doing so much to help Ukraine?"
In my English family, my grandparents used to say, "Handsome is as handsome does". In the folk wisdom, this means pretty much the same as the biblical injunction, "By their deeds shall ye know them".
The basic teaching here is, clean up your own act before you presume to preach and teach others.
So what I perceive and experience on this website is a bunch of privileged, entitled, wealthy Americans talking to each other, apparently without the slightest understanding that it's not just Ukrainians who experience poverty and exclusion, it is other subscribers to this website who, like me, are broke and deprived of unhindered access to resources.
There’s another saying: "Charity begins at home". But you all forgot this.
Did it ever occur to any of you that there might be some of us who need help in accessing resources? So we can continue our own contributions to human progress and positive futures in Ukraine and elsewhere?
Why have none of you, including Dr Snyder, given a moment's thought to what you can do to make all these precious other resources available to those of us who do not have the purchase price? Why do you Americans have such a prejudice against making things available free? Are you such materialists that you think "Money maketh the Man!"?
What are you going to do about this?
This is a book that is likely to become available soon at numerous public libraries (for free).
Available in public libraries in the US. Not where I live, on the other side of the world, in a place where access to such resources has been taken away from us in the past two decades by rightwing government policies.
The net is where all this is happening, and the net is where resources need to be available.
So I say again, why are you not able to expand your worldview beyond local domestic US concerns?
The web is worldwide. Dr Snyder contributes internationally. That's great. But his/your on-the-ground inputs on this website don't match that universal understanding.
Sometimes, it takes those of us living outside your national boundaries to see clearly where your nation is at. From where I stand, it seems this blindness to the plight of the poor and disadvantaged in your own country is the primary reason why you are now facing the civilisation-destroying fascist challenge of Trumpism. And that affects the rest of us all around the world, existentially.
You are of course not alone in this blindness. The whole English-speaking world is guilty of it. Plus some non-English-speaking Europeans too.
But there is, on all of the developed world right now, an imperative to see the need and respond to it in a proactive manner, equally both internationally and domestically.
So what can you do? You can help make Dr Snyder's writings available to the whole world on UTube, or on this website. And the writings of other key authors too. We want to read them all, but we can't. Because you place in our way a pricewall. Thereby, you actively exclude us from the collegium.
Universal access would be worth thousands upon thousands of dollars more than just a single self-promoting jog and a gym workout—literally, socially and spiritually.
Thankyou.
Art is an act of love. Disparaging art is a cry for it. Thanks for making art.
Dr Snyder is not making art. He is, at best, enabling it.
He is an academic, a world-leading historian, worthy of all our respect for his high achievements in that field.
But in this post, he is acting as
a) a community activist
b) a journalist, documenting things, and
c) a disciple on a spiritual path.
We need to exercise discrimination in our praise.
I think he's a brilliant historian: 10/10
And a reasonably good, although overtly partisan, part-time journalist: 7/10
An excellent community activist: 9/10
But a relative junior on the spiritual path of self-knowledge: 3/10
Dr Snyder's post here exemplifies that stage on the path known as spiritual pride. It is a form of egotism, applied to things moral/ethical/spiritual. It is traditionally known as the domain of Lucifer, who presumes to shed his light on the whole world. It is prideful, and comes before a fall.
I'm sad that contributors to this website show such little inclination to constructive criticism, preferring only to demonstrate blind adulation.
You make some interesting comments, however, you profess to know better than others what their thoughts are. Rather an elitist attitude, I’d say.
Thank you for highlighting the bravery of George Shevelov and the Ukrainians who persist in their fight for freedom today. May their day of liberation come soon. 🙏
Most people, including me, have no idea of the hours of study brought to those gatherings by the participants. And then throwing all those hours into a giant cauldron and seeing what new is created. Without the creation of new ideals, the study, all those hours, are of little value. Your blending of philosophy with Freedom, I find most creative. Thanks, you have made me THINK!
Thank you, Dr Snyder for making Ukraine alive for us. It is one thing to feel sympathy for what Ukraine is suffering at the hands of the tyrant Putin, quite another to understand and empathize.
Great information. Appreciate your work.
I’m very much enjoying your letters from Ukraine. They are important in so many ways helping to link our country more closely to Ukraine and its people both there an here.
On another and more bothersome note, I either heard or read yesterday where Russia can now link to Starlink and track Ukrainian fighters. If so, doesn’t this indicate just how huge a threat Elon Musk is now to the world? The fact that the US is tied at the hip to this menace is atrocious. Sell Starlink as one thing then turn it against the very ones who made its success possible.
Excellent post and thank you for everything you do to engage us with Ukrainian civic society. I hope that the injury that caused you discomfort during the run heals soon.
Beautiful, TS. Thank you.
An enduring pop song line is “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” Janis Joplin wrote it — and lived it. It was her way of saying “take risks”. In your estimable life, Tim Snyder, that means moving outside of the comfort zone of academic life at Yale. You’ve done it and are doing it and teaching it to many of us without lecturing. We benefit as do you. I often think of old sayings like “an unexamined life may not be worth living.” More important, as Shevelov and you are saying, a life lived in fear — a life constrained by comfort — may not be worth living. Like countless oppressed populations, Ukrainian and Black among them, I think about what makes life worth living daily. We all should during the short time that we can.