I Am An American!

It was only a few weeks into my freshman year at a small college when the sophomore class forced us into an annual traditional ritual known as Initiation Week. During initiation week the new freshman class was expected to be at the beck and call of any sophomore. The orders could range from something as simple as getting a cup of coffee to washing their cars. Monday morning of that week started with a simple order: all the freshmen men were to wear coats and ties for the week. 

I have always hated authority. I don’t know the reason for this.. Perhaps it came from my ancestors some of whom fought in the a Revolutionary War. Perhaps it came from from the double Libra moon and ascendant sign of my chart. Who knows? I only know that when someone tries to enforce silly rules on me especially if the rules are arbitrary and capricious I get my back up. 

So when the stupid order to wear a coat and tie for the week, I started a movement to wear mismatched coats and ties. It would be ugly clothes week. So we all maliciously complied with the order but in a manner that was unexpected and made us all try to wear the ugliest combination. We made a game of it and mocked the authoritative sophomores. We had nightly votes for the ugliest outfit.

Once I was traveling with a group on a train from the former Soviet Union to the Finnish border. The Russian border guard entered our compartment and demanded our passports. We all gave him our passports. And after inspection of each, handed them back to the owner. Mine was about the third or fourth from the bottom of the stack. After handing over my passport, I glared into the eyes of the guard, full eye contact. Everyone else stared down at their laps intimidatingly. 

When he got to my passport, instead of handing it back to me, he put it on the bottom of the stack. There was a dead silence in the compartment. Reaching mine again, he called over another guard and handed him my passport and said something in Russian. The other guard smiled, said something in Russian and handed me my passport back. I breathed a sigh of relief. Sometimes, resistance to an authoritarian should be used with caution. The point of this is to show that while I resist authoritarian rules and people, one should use caution and situational awareness.

We live in a time where authoritarians threaten our democracy.  We survived four years of it under Trump. There is a danger that he could rule again. How does a person like me — and I suspect there are several others like me — survive in an age of trumpian fascism? Here are some strategies that I have found helpful:

1.     Malicious Compliance: this is probably the safest and easiest way to resist authoritative people. Malicious compliance is the act of following orders but in a way that while complying with the rule, law, or order shows disrespect and usually backfires unexpectedly on the dictator. It is a deliberate act of defiance. 

2.     Passive Resistance: a higher level of resistance is passive. This consists of making the authority think he has forced you into compliance. Then you ignore the order, thus weakening it. You may hav to make some excuses for not following the command.. The goal of  engaging in passive resistance is to undermine it. Children and husbands often engage in passive resistance by forgetting to clean the room or take out the trash. 

3.     Planting seeds: a subset of passive resistance, planting seeds is acting naively asking questions. The intent is to undermine the authority by going along with the program while planting seeds of doubt in onlooking observers. This can be really effective when dealing with groups of Christian nationalists.I once attended a Sunday school class and during the Q and A, raised my hand and asked an innocent question. It went something like this: why did God allow King Solomon who had a concubine of 700 wives to become wealthy and full of wisdom and build the temple, while his Father, King David was not allowed to build the temple because he was a man of war and had blood on his hands? Does this mean that the Almighty would prefer us to make love rather than war?

A dead silence was followed by quiet murmuring. The speaker hemmed and hawed and had no answer.

4.     Civil Disobedience: civil disobedience comes from Ghandi and King. Breaking the law will probably have serious repercussions. Civil disobedience is usually used to define and break an unjust law. King defined an unjust law as a law that the minority imposes on a majority but the minority does not follow its own law. King also defined an unjust law as one that violates human equity, dignity, and equality. 

5.     Outright Revolt: the final resort to authoritarian rule is outright revolt or civil war.

I am an American! True Americans don’t take well to being told what to believe, how to think or even how to behave. Our forefathers (including some of mine) fought a war against Great Britain for the right to think for ourselves. 

The Albert Einstein Institution and Brandeis have a PDF file available for download listing 198 ways to resist dictatorships. https://www.brandeis.edu/peace-conflict/pdfs/198-methods-non-violent-action.pdf  Some of these include economic ways, ostracism of people far too many to list here. 

In short, let me say that I will not let anyone, be it government, religious, or economic system tell me how to think, act or obey an unjust law. As an American laws should be obeyed if they make sense. Otherwise, it is our duty as Americans to follow the example of our forefathers and decide for ourselves what to believe and how to think.