The effects of tyranny, my dearest one, are to be seen not so much in executions, privations, surveillances, matricide and fratricide, ruined reputations, unjust trials, exile, and murder, shocking events of the capital; no, tyranny has finally achieved its foul purpose when among the many, scattered at large, there are acquiescence, apathy, complacency, bland acceptance of outrage, pride in vulgar triumphs, blurring of the meaning of words, confusion in moral standards-in short, a blight of the communal character. It is when people who are thought of as good solid citizens, those who make up the backbone of the populace, become touched by this blight and do not realize it, become not only the infected but the infectors-this is when tyranny has won the day.
-John Hersey
The Conspiracy
