Ordinary Men
By: Liam James
Tags: Snowden, Power, Fahrenheit 451, Surveillance, Essay

In a desperate appeal for mercy, Adolf Eichmann pleaded that he “was simply following orders”. His crime? The systematic murder of over six million Jews in the largest genocide in history. Predictably, his excuse was met with little sympathy and he was executed.

Of course, when thinking about Nazi’s, compassion is one of the last things that come to mind. However, Christopher Browning, in his book Ordinary Men, responds with an unsettling thesis: you and I are Eichmann. Browning warns of the oppressive control institutions can exert in their pursuit of power and the unlikeliness of the “ordinary man” to stand up and do anything about it.

He definitely made me reconsider my nonchalant acceptance of the government’s COVID-19 tracking app. After all, who knows its true purpose?

And yes, while I realise comparing a phone app to the Holocaust is a stretch, my 12th grade English teacher would definitely be going on about “Godwin’s Law”, there is a lesson to be learned: if you lived in Germany at that time, under the pressure of a dominant authority and the lure of a complaint majority, odds are you wouldn’t be hiding Anne Frank.

It’s timely then, that Edward Snowden, former CIA contractorturned-whistleblower, has put his two-cents into the COVID-19 debate: “what is being built is the architecture of oppression”. Governments will retain these “emergency powers” long after the pandemic has passed.

Of course, this conversation is nothing new.

Published in 1953, a time when Cold War authoritarianism and censorship permeated society, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 follows Guy Montag’s struggle to make sense of a world where the government has banned books and critical thinking is against the law.

It is through this age-old conversation of institutional power and the individual’s relationship with it, that Fahrenheit 451 and, of course, Oliver Stone’s biopic Snowden, comes to relevancy. Both texts give their own, unique commentary on the nature of authority and the importance of the “ordinary man”.

Early in the film, Snowden adopts the label of “Snow White”. Naïve, hungry, and eager to take a bite of the apple of American patriotic service, he joins the CIA. There he meets his supervisor, Corbin O’Brian, who is the embodiment of the institution (even his name is a nod to Orwell’s “O’Brien” in 1984). He sells the idea of the modern “front line”, set in cyberspace and in need of capable individuals to fight future 9/11’s.

Through this dogmatic rhetoric, Stone introduces the justification for the “big-brother-like” surveillance system that infringes on the civil liberties of millions: terrorism. To O’Brian, “secrecy is security and security is victory”, downplaying the invasive and unconstitutional practices of the institution as for the collective good. However, his logic comes off as somewhat vague and rationalized, leaving us wondering if the apple is as sweet as it seems.

We quickly find that it is not.

The audience is given their first taste of institutional apathy towards the “ordinary man” when Snowden is perturbed on how to “turn” Marwan Al-Kirmani, a banker, and his partner Charles flaunts a devilish grin as he delivers his psychopathic line of advice: find “the pressure point”. More bluntly: something that can hurt him. His sadistic delivery reflects the institution’s unethical nature on the individual scale, as to it, Marwan is a cruel game to be played for their benefit.

And boy does Charles play ruthlessly. He concocts a potentially murderous plot to deport Marwan’s daughter’s boyfriend, leading to her overdose on sleeping pills. Trembling and on the verge of breakdown, the effect of these morally indefensible actions on Marwan is palpable. Charles exploits his vulnerability by intoxicating then blackmailing him with a DUI charge, knowing that his little girl needs him.

When asked “if his daughter had died?”, Charles’ response is heartless: “we could have used that too”. Snowden’s disgust with this is something viewers can identify with, and even more alarming is his inability to do anything about it, helpless against the strength of the institution. Like us, Marwan is an “ordinary man”, provoking thoughts of whether we could be next.

These thoughts are catalysed when Snowden’s colleague, Gabriel Sol, accesses a live feed of a Muslim woman stripping from her Burqa to her underwear. Here, Stone juxtaposes intense close-up shots of Snowden’s unease with Sol’s voyeuristic delight to highlight the institution’s indifference to their blatant overreach.

It’s ironic that, in the name of anti-terrorism, they end up terrorising and violating innocent individuals. Snowden agrees. The rest of the movie follows a similar cyclical narrative of empty promises that they are “freeing people from oppression” until he realises:

no matter what justification you’re selling yourself, this is not about terrorism. Terrorism is the excuse. It’s about economic and social control.

By showcasing the injustice experienced by “ordinary men” unfortunate enough to stand in the way of institutional ambitions, Stone draws an ominous insight: if you give authority power, they will use it, inviting us to conclude that the institution is inherently unethical on the individual scale.

Bradbury pushes this idea to its limits in Fahrenheit 451, where the “ordinary man” voluntarily surrenders his liberty. The novel presents a dystopia where society has abandoned critical thinking for shallow, hedonistic ventures. Where adults are like children, chasing short-term highs and addictions. And like all children, they are vulnerable to malevolence

Inevitably, that malevolence arrives in the form of oppression. Capitalizing on the public’s mental atrophy, the government “circled the situation with fire-eaters”, censoring and burning both literature and their readers.

By depicting a Government that encourages ignorance and violently opposes intellect when given the opportunity, Bradbury challenges the idea that the institution acts for the good of its individuals. Instead, he invites readers to recognise its capacity for evil in the quest for gluttonous control.

Beatty, O’Brian’s 451-dystopia counterpart, encapsulates the institution’s strategy in a fanatical, metaphor-heavy tirade only possible through the literary finesse of a novelist: “If you don’t want a house built, hide the nails and wood.” A disturbing extrapolation of “secrecy is security and security is victory” isn’t it?

Bradbury illustrates the mania of an institution that promotes misinformation and hides the truth in its pursuit of ideological domination. Readers are invited to contemplate the despotism that follows coerced ignorance and subsequently eradicated defiance.

As Albert Maysles, a landmark in American cinema, said, “tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance”. Through this logic, Bradbury comments on the institution’s nature. By depicting a government who has gone to such lengths to gain and keep their power as to have removed the nuance from society, he comments on the inherent power-lust of authority.

The two texts present some grim revelations. If the “ordinary man” cannot trust the institutions he lives under to use power ethically, nor to not seize power for their benefit, how can he trust that the realities expressed by Stone and Bradbury are not his?

At their hearts, the texts demonstrate that the institution’s power is founded upon the unanimity of the majority. We are reminded of the whistleblower’s repercussions for being different, for not “fitting in”, for “speaking up”. When Snowden “tell[s] truth to power” he loses everything, his “love, family, [and] future”. Montag suffers a similar fate. As the saying goes, “the nail that sticks up will be hammered down”.

O’Brian, the institution, towering over Snowden, the individual

We witness the dominance of the institutional majority as the novel and film progress. We follow Montag’s struggle to extradite himself from the herd as he battles to memorise the New Testament against the jingle of Denham’s Dentifrice. We see the metaphorical power imbalance through Stone’s “big-brother-like” depiction of Snowden’s confrontation with O’Brian, and the consequences of going against the flow when Hank Forrester gets “tucked away” after complaining. And ultimately, we wonder if the authoritative majority even has a weakness, if standing up to it’s Goliath is truly “like trying to put out fires with water-pistols” as Montag says.

Fortunately, Stone and Bradbury reveal that the “ordinary man” does indeed possess a tool that can extinguish the blaze: dissent. The Goliath’s weakness is his reliance on consensus. Therein lies the potential of dissent to corrode the chains that imprison our liberty and independence. While daring to dissent requires courage, when summoned, it is contagious.

The texts highlight how just one person, a single dissenter, can break the status quo, freeing those touched by him or her to do the same. Montag, when touched by Clarisse, is awakened to the “solid unmoving cattle of the majority”, and he, in turn, inflames courage in Faber to resist the institution. Snowden, when touched by Lindsey, is exposed to the ideas that eventually kindle his rebellion, enlightening millions to the “architecture of oppression” being built around them in process.

Snowden and Fahrenheit 451 show us that only through the same dissent that drove their respective protagonists to demand their right for freedom can the “ordinary man” resist the iron fist of the institution — the same iron fist that moulded him into Eichman.