I haven't read Eichmann in Jerusalem yet, but this appears to be be designed as a mirror image to it - the banality of conscientious dissent. We get portraits of four particular individuals: the Swiss police captain who forged documents to allow more Jewish refugees to escape, the Serb who quietly extended compassion to Croats in 1991 in Vukovar, the Israeli soldier who decided to refuse to serve occupied territories, and a broker who refused to participate in a Ponzi scheme. Press lays emphasis on the ordinariness of these resisters and how unexceptional people can break ranks to resist evil.

In every society, there are rebels and iconoclasts who don't share the moral code to which of most of their fellow citizen subscribe... The resisters featured in these pages are not among them. Their problem was not that airily dismissed the values and ideals of the societies they lived in or the organizations they belonged to, but that they regarded them as inviolable."

Excellent read!

Frankfurt school p 69
Imagining communities (from IAS 115)? P. 80
Inventing human rights by Lynn hunt p. 83: imagined empathy

Mom gave this to Lyle, who didn't read it, but I scooped it up for the plane, and I found it interesting, thought-provoking, and well worth discussion--would be a great book to read with students! Some parts were poorly edited, and densely written: it's hard to work through a book that challenges one's ideas while also trying decipher sentences like "And even if resistance is justified, what beyond keeping the hands of a few upstanding individuals clean does refusal that's not tethered to some larger social objective achieve?" (7) !

Some interesting ideas that were never fully completed and brought together.

Great premise, dull execution . Could have been that the narrator wasn't good (audio book)

I really liked the idea of this book, a philosophical study of what makes some people stand up for their conscience in the midst of dark times or in the face of something they believe is wrong. I think that my main problem with it is that the author seems to get a bit repetitive at times.

So often we think that there's something heroic about being the one to stand up and say 'no!' even if it's dangerous. But none of the people in this book necessarily felt heroic, and the society they lived in at the time didn't even necessarily treat them as heroic.

I think the title is an interesting spin. We spend the first roughly 2/3 of the book reading it as a commendation to the boldness and choices of the individuals, and then we get to section 3 and suddenly it's spun around and we find that it's a term used to talk about a simple naivete. (In my mind I picture the closest Southern expression of "Oh, bless his heart" said with a sympathetic tone.) In a book that is primarily focused on philosophy (and sociology? I don't know, sometimes I don't know where the lines are) I thought this was pretty masterful, because it forces us to ask questions about boldness vs. naive views of the effects of ones actions.

I really do recommend the book, but it did feel a bit like a textbook at times. Luckily, it's short.

A spare and realistic case study of three whistleblowers--with the hard lesson that the things that make people willing to act against the conformity of the majority (already being outsiders, defying authority, having a different vision of the organization than their peers) is often something that makes them easier to attack and discount, and which tends to make their subsequent lives difficult and a painful discouragement to others who might break ranks.

Depressing, yet inspiring at the same time. Don't know if I would have the moral courage to do the same as these folks in similar circumstances. Further, it makes me wonder if I am complicit in going along with wrong-doing in my midst and not recognizing it. Certainly none of these "beautiful souls" did it for the glory, but there is something to be said for placing one's head on the pillow at the end of the day, and resting with a clean conscience.