On obeying in advance

It is an article of faith among those opposed to Trump’s efforts to build an American autocracy that we should not obey in advance.  The charge of obeying in advance has been leveled forcefully against universities, law firms, and media companies that choose to placate the administration rather than resist its abusive demands.  Yet the rationale behind this precept is not always entirely clear. 

One reason resistance is important is that it helps to avoid problems that arise when people make inferences about the values and beliefs of others from their behavior.  If people see powerful institutions caving in to Trump they will suspect either 1) that Trump is very powerful and that people are afraid of him, or 2) that his genuine support is much broader than it really is.  In either case, this makes resistance to his depredations less likely. 

I was reminded of this today by an excerpt from Steven Pinker’s new book on common knowledge published at Persuasion:

In reality there is an excellent reason why dictators brook no dissent. The immiserated subjects of a tyrannical regime are not deluded into thinking that they are happy. And if tens of millions of disaffected citizens act together, no regime on earth has the brute force to resist them. The reason that citizens don’t resist their overlords en masse is that they lack the prerequisite to coordinating their behavior for mutual benefit, namely common knowledge.

Most citizens may be concealing their political opinions to avoid being punished, with the result that no one knows that a majority of their compatriots share their disgruntlement. They might even mistakenly think that everyone else is loyal to the regime—a combination of private knowledge and common misconception known as pluralistic ignorance, or a spiral of silence. And even if they did suspect their discontent was shared, they would have no reason to believe that others would express that discontent at the same time as they did, overwhelming the regime rather than exposing themselves to being picked off or locked up one at a time.