09-18-2016, 08:24 AM
Even in the US I would recognize a regional difference, with most Southern states having been effectively single-party dictatorships until the mid-1960s. Mississippi even had a KGB-style secret police, the Mississippi Sovereignty Committee. Even with ethnicity, figure that people who fled Commie rule (like Vietnamese or Cubans of a certain age) would think differently from Irish-Americans who know nothing of the sort.
I see a strong correlation between memories of dictatorial regimes (25 to almost 30 years ago in the former Soviet bloc to about 40 in Spain, Greece, and Portugal to 70 for most of the rest of Europe -- exceptions the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, and Finland) and concern with survival. The dictatorships did a poor job of promoting human happiness and did a good job of squelching personal expression. Figure that a 25-year-old in Poland might not be so concerned with day-to-ray survival and more concerned with self-expression than a 50-year-old Pole who remembers queues for food and remembers fear of the secret police.
Even in the US I would recognize a regional difference, with most Southern states having been effectively single-party dictatorships until the mid-1960s. Mississippi even had a KGB-style secret police, the Mississippi Sovereignty Committee. Even with ethnicity, figure that people who fled Commie rule (like Vietnamese or Cubans of a certain age) would think differently from Irish-Americans who know nothing of the sort.
I see a strong correlation between memories of dictatorial regimes (25 to almost 30 years ago in the former Soviet bloc to about 40 in Spain, Greece, and Portugal to 70 for most of the rest of Europe -- exceptions the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, and Finland) and concern with survival. The dictatorships did a poor job of promoting human happiness and did a good job of squelching personal expression. Figure that a 25-year-old in Poland might not be so concerned with day-to-ray survival and more concerned with self-expression than a 50-year-old Pole who remembers queues for food and remembers fear of the secret police.
Even in the US I would recognize a regional difference, with most Southern states having been effectively single-party dictatorships until the mid-1960s. Mississippi even had a KGB-style secret police, the Mississippi Sovereignty Committee. Even with ethnicity, figure that people who fled Commie rule (like Vietnamese or Cubans of a certain age) would think differently from Irish-Americans who know nothing of the sort.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.