12. Make eye contact and small talk.
This is not just polite. It is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
-Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny
Greeting with a Pleasant Countenance
When I first read On Tyranny in 2017, it was this practice that struck me as so simple and mundane, yet as so deep, important and terrifying. Why terrifying? As Snyder describes, tyrants use social isolation as means for maintaining control. Social isolation as a tool of control is, unfortunately, an ancient pattern of human communal behavior. Separation from the pack and excommunication are ways a collective, from our hunter-gatherer ancestors to anxious ninth graders in high schools around the world, enforce norms and dominance. Averting the eyes, blocking on social media, being ignored in social situations are all ways this form of manipulative social control is practiced in everyday life. What makes it so terrifying to me is that these petty ways of enforcing behavioral norms can so easily be hijacked by an authoritarian leader to create conditions for tyranny.
Fortunately, Snyder offers us an accessible way to interrupt this aspect of a slide towards tyranny. I am a Mussar practitioner, and Mussar is a discipline built on small, concrete actions, like the type that Snyder recommends. Indeed, making eye contact and small talk sound remarkably similar to a teaching of Shammai in Pirkei Avot (1:15):
וֶהֱוֵי מְקַבֵּל אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם בְּסֵבֶר פָּנִים יָפוֹת:
“Greet every person with a pleasant countenance.”
And of Rabbi Matia ben Harash (Avot 4:15):
הֱוֵי מַקְדִּים בִּשְׁלוֹם כָּל אָדָם.
“Upon meeting people, be the first to extend greetings.”
The great Mussar teacher, Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe (d. 2005, Israel) adapts these teachings into a daily practice he calls, Ha’arat Panim (literally, a bright face), offering your warm attention to the people you meet. As an introvert, I’ve used these practices over the years to push myself out of my comfortable shell to walk over and introduce myself to the new person at minyan in the morning, or to say hello to a neighbor instead of keeping my head down or pretending I don’t see them as I listen to a podcast on my earbuds, or actually say hello and make small talk for a few minutes with the person sitting across from me in the Amtrak cafe car. None of these actions are comfortable for me, but they build emotional and spiritual muscle for connecting and staying connected with the humans around me.
Snyder warns us that this practice of making small human connections is not just good for our own character development. These small connections are the relational glue that can make the difference between whether our communities and societies fracture under a tyrant or resist tyranny.
I am committed to pushing myself outside my comfort zone in the coming years to make these small daily connections with the people around me. If tyranny does arise, it is these connections that will guide me in knowing whom to trust to resist.
