Frontier Forum
Recent Event Recap
Pulitzer-prize Winning Historian Anne Applebaum Details the Fragility of Democracies and the Risks of Disinformation and Propaganda
In this virtual presentation of the Frontier Forum Lecture Series, the College of
Arts and Sciences, the USF Institute on Russia, and the Humanities Institute welcomed Anne
Applebaum as a featured guest speaker. Applebaum is a prize-winning historian with
a particular expertise in the history of communist and post-communist Europe, a staff
writer for The Atlantic and a Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, where she co-leads ARENA, a research
project on disinformation and 21st century propaganda. Her book, Gulag: A History won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, and her writing has also won the Cundill, Nonino and
Lionel Gelber prizes, among others.
During this event, Applebaum sat down with Dean Eric Eisenberg to discuss her book, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive lure of Authoritarianism, the fragility of the world’s democracies, and what the future looks like for nations
that have seemingly embraced pseudo-dictators.
The focus of the program detailed how democracies, no matter which country they may
be functioning in, are tied together by how political information is disseminated
to and consumed by the public. In one example, Applebaum detailed how “Brexit”, as
it has become commonly known, hinged its argument on the downside of globalization,
rallying behind their slogan “take back control”. She continued by stating that, “in
many ways, it was a false slogan. I’m in London now, and much of what I see with Brexit
is the U.K. having less influence, less control, less trade. It was a lie, but it
was an effective lie, because it spoke to something that people genuinely feel quite
deeply.”
Applebaum also used part of her time to talk about the appeal of authoritarianism,
and the intertwining of intellectualism in that space. She noted that there is a 20th century
prejudice that the attraction to authoritarianism is somehow only alluring to people
who are uneducated. She cited the history of the last century, noting that even Soviet
communism, Nazism, or even lesser dictatorships, they always used and required the
work of intellectuals. Reflecting on today’s times, she referenced that some of these
intellectuals now have the power to use social media as their tool to get their message
out – messages that are often carefully crafted to deceive, divide, and exploit emotions.
She also stated that:
Our assumption that democracy is so attractive, and is obviously the best system,
and ‘how could anybody want anything else’ – this is a very second half of the 20th century
idea. In our case, it’s born from our experience of success. The American project,
which has had its ups and downs, terrible crises and catastrophes, but the experience
from the 40s, 50s, and 60s was one of increasing prosperity and increasing power and
influence in the world and so we began to forget that there were other ideologies
that had a dark appeal.
The idea of absolute power, the idea that you can control all those social levers,
that you can be in charge of what people think, and how they react, this can be an
extremely dark, but attractive thought for people. Maybe even particularly for intelligent
people.
During the event, the virtual audience in attendance was encouraged to submit questions
for Applebaum, which she subsequently answered during the lively chat. Some of the
most intriguing questions dealt with generational perspectives and understanding of
dictatorships and authoritarianism, the repercussions and consequences of the Jan.
6 insurrection, and the implementation of direct democracy and experimenting with
democracy.
We were honored to host Anne Applebaum and hope that the audiences’ takeaway from
this experience will be one that propels them toward increased participation in democracy
and a keener awareness of the information that we consume daily.
We invite you to join us for our next Frontier Forum event, featuring marine microbial
ecologist and Phi Beta Kappa speaker, Dr. Forest Rohwer. Dr. Rohwer has spent his
life’s work investigating microbes’ role in coral reef health and disease, and his
lecture detailing such, is sure to be one of great interest. This event will take
place on Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 7:00 p.m. To learn more about our Frontiers of Knowledge program, which makes these Frontier Forum events possible, please contact us to be added to our email list.
THANK YOU AND GO BULLS!