Anticipatory Obedience

Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy. Perhaps rulers did not initially know that citizens were willing to compromise this value or that principle. Perhaps a new regime did not at first have the direct means of influencing citizens one way or another. In 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the SS took the initiative to devise the methods of mass killing without orders to do so. They guessed what their superiors wanted and demonstrated what was possible. It was far more than Hitler had thought. At the very beginning, anticipatory obedience means adapting instinctively, without reflecting, to a new situation. Timothy Snyder (2017) On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century