I often try to imagine who I would be in a concentration camp. Whenever my conscience berates me, it does so by placing me in a death camp or a forced labor camp. It says “this decision may seem of little importance here, but what would it mean if you had everything stripped away?”. It asks me questions like “what kind of man would you be while starving?”, “would you steal?”, and “what wouldn’t you do to avoid torture?”.
Equally important is to imagine oneself as the guards, the torturers, and the executioners. Both the men who endured torture, as well as the men who inflicted it were just that. Men. They were human-beings just like me. In all likelihood, most of the torturers throughout history were more sadistically bent than myself but undoubtedly many were just like me. To understand that I could’ve been a guard at Auschwitz or a guard in a Soviet gulag is to understand that I must keep a watchful eye on myself, especially the parts that are bitter, resentful, or arrogant.
Lies in everyday life seem insignificant. A lie about an accomplishment, a white lie to save somebodies feelings, or lies of omission like pretending to agree with something you despise. But when entire societies refuse to tell the truth, the Holocaust and Soviet Gulags don’t just become possible—they become inevitable. If lies lead to tyranny then the opposite must also be true. Or in the words of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn “One man who stopped lying could bring down a tyranny”.
But if I am unable to speak up for things I believe to be true when there seems to be almost no consequences, how am I to believe I could do it in the face of true tyranny—when speaking up could mean imprisonment, forced labor, torture, or death?
Is a moral person truly moral if he can only be so in easy circumstances?
TheSisyphusBlog 