Learning from the Gulag

Today there are three notable posts on kottke.org:

• There's no scientific or genetic basis for race, linked to a National Geographic article by Elizabeth Kolbert). Back in the early days of this blog, I republished all six articles from Discover magazine's 1994 issue on race because they didn't have that issue online, so this is old news at DN3. But worth a read anyway.
• What made the Nazis possible? Why didn’t anyone stop them?, which is about three books on that question.
• Forty-five things I learned in the Gulag, based on a recent story from Paris Review.

The Gulag post will be one I think about for a long time, particularly. The items Kottke excerpted are among the best ones, but not all so be sure to read the original post. The most shattering one of all, for me, is this:

30. I discovered that the world should be divided not into good and bad people but into cowards and non-cowards. Ninety-five percent of cowards are capable of the vilest things, lethal things, at the mildest threat.

I've never formulated this thought before, but I think in the back of my mind I fear that I would be one of the cowards and I spend my time trying to convince myself that it isn't true (through my actions). But I know I haven't faced a decision point anything like the gulag, either, and I doubt myself.