Fight back! Stay curious, expand your mind and ‘don’t become sheep’ | Opinion

In May 1945, shortly after V-E Day, a U.S. Army general visited Gertrude Stein in Paris and asked the author how to maintain peace and freedom.

Stein’s advice: Don’t become sheep.

Stein watched the tidal wave of authoritarianism wash over Germany and then flood Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. She observed how the Nazis cultivated a docile group of followers by harnessing the written word. The tide and accuracy of information were manipulated to stimulate a singular ideological mindset. Through repetition, misinformation became familiar. And once familiar, malleable minds yielded to the ideas they had been steeped in.

To achieve this herd mentality, mass media was transformed into a vehicle of thought control. Germany’s own newspapers were the first laboratory for mental conditioning. To force publishers into submission, Germany passed the 1933 Editorial Control Law, which required newspapers to print stories the Nazi government selected and to coat them with a heavy varnish of propaganda. Non-compliance resulted in a visit from the Gestapo.

Writers had two options: Obey or quit. Most needed a paycheck, and so they held their noses and followed the law. Practically overnight, all publications began to feed the public a steady diet of propaganda cloaked as news. The absence of debate, disagreement and a variety of viewpoints made the refrains seem absolute.

As the German Army swept across Europe beginning in 1939 and nations fell to Nazi occupation, newspapers either printed what the Nazis told them to or closed. Across Europe, many journalists resigned rather than collaborate with the Nazis. Their liberty had been stolen; they would not be robbed of telling the truth. Joining underground networks of anti-Nazi collaborators, saboteurs, and resisters, they snuck into closed printing plants and published papers containing honest stories under the cover of night and blackout curtains. To be caught meant death. To these individuals, freedom was worth even this hefty price.

While the Nazis used law and compulsion to ensure people were exposed to a single view, today we do this to ourselves. Our choices are turning us into the sheep that Stein had warned against.

Many of us gorge on news programs and social media that spoon-feed us a diet of viewpoints we already ascribe to. If a story or idea pops up that challenges what we believe, we switch to another program or flag it as content we do not want to see again. Algorithms ensure that our minds are bathed in beliefs that are ideologically consistent with our existing world view. New content is recommended based on things we’ve liked in the past. It is so easy to avoid people and messages that challenge our ideas.

Under these circumstances, many people have saturated themselves with a singular perspective, with no room for questioning or new information. To see nothing but a self-curated version of the world creates the false impression that it is infallibly correct. It is no wonder that political polarization divides us. We’re building fences and forming herds.

The destruction and banning of books was a second literary battlefront that paved the way to a sheep mentality during World War II. It started with book burnings across Germany in May 1933 and grew until thousands of titles and authors were banned across all of Nazi-occupied Europe; an estimated 100 million books were taken off of shelves because they harbored some nugget of truth that threatened the Nazis’ toxic beliefs. Many authors we continue to read today were swept from the stacks — Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Sigmund Freud, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Tolstoy and thousands more. Why? They weren’t Aryan, or their writing was perceived as “degrading” Nazi values.

Today’s literary landscape is gaining a strong resemblance to one of the most dangerous periods of the past. In the United States of 2023, books are being removed from shelves and deemed “harmful” because the words cradled between two covers are antagonistic to those making the decision to cull them. The values of a handful are removing choices for the masses. Meanwhile, we saturate ourselves with media that are consistent with our preconceived notions, leaving no room for growth, knowledge or changing minds. Whether through book bans or self-curated content, ideas are being removed and excluded from circulation.

Disagreement strengthens democracy. By hearing opposing viewpoints, we build understanding and foster a climate of respect and compromise. By learning and opening ourselves to new facts, we can adjust our perspectives to fit the ever-growing body of knowledge that exists. Information and debate sharpen ideas and allow us to create better ones. We do not live in a static world and we cannot afford to limit our minds to one.

When democracy was under attack in the 1940s, our grandparents took to the streets to protest Germany’s book bans, they bought record-breaking numbers of books to fill their minds with ideas and they subscribed to a phalanx of periodicals and newspapers to keep informed. They were wolves.

Let’s be like them.

Molly Manning is a bestselling author and New York Law School associate professor. Her new book is titled “The War of Words.”