Illegitimi non carborundum
Daniel Hunter, whom I mentioned in my post about resistance, offers ten strategies for those troubled by the autocrat in Washington. The first: learning to trust your instincts. That sounds simple, but it’s not, because distrust is what the autocrat (and his enablers) dish out—with a fire hose. That can take your breath away.
As a result, you have to devote too much energy and attention to an act that should be involuntary. To survive, you instinctively hide, become isolated.
That’s dangerous. Isolation plays into the autocrat’s hands, confirms that he can cow anyone he wants with his hose.
This is where, Hunter says, you have to trust your instincts. I agree. I’ve resolved to ignore the fire house as best I can, and if I get wet, I’ll dry off eventually. But I neither stand in the buffeting spray nor hide. I do my best to take care of myself without shutting myself away, because in my gut I know I’m right.
If that means I don’t read the news that day, I don’t. If it means taking a vigorous walk to work out my ya-yas, after which I read or return to my desk to write, that’s my program. And I don’t let anyone tell me I’m not working hard enough on political action.
I contemplate the future, in part by studying the past—I’m a historian, after all. It’s obvious to me that the world has seen our troubles before, and I think about ways to respond.
From reading history, one of my favorite World War II generals is Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, who had the thankless job of advising Chiang Kai-Shek in China, as the late Barbara Tuchman wrote in an excellent book. Stilwell adopted a motto believed to have circulated in British Intelligence: illegitimi non carborundum. It’s fake Latin, mock-translated as, “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
To avoid being ground down, I start by reminding myself that I know what I’m looking at, what it means, who’s doing it, and why. I trust my instincts. And if I can live up to this restraint, I’ll get drawn in only when I believe it matters greatly, and when I can think clearly, speak without ranting.
I expect this to be difficult. But I don’t see another choice. Do you?