Completion Date: 19 February 2020
Medium: Paint on cardboard
Dimensions: 16 X 20 inches
Lesson 2 in Timothy Snyder’s 2017 book Twenty Lessons on Fighting Tyranny from the Twentieth Century.
[2] Defend institutions. It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. So choose an institution you care about and take its side.
Snyder is an American author and historian specialising in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, and the Holocaust. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.
