“What does hiding really do, however? Do ideas go away, or lose their power to influence or enroll those who are so moved to act as a result of them?”
A personal take on hiding. I was born in Australia but my mother came to Australia at the age of 12 after leaving Russia aged 6 and living in Germany in her primary school years. She and her parents had fled Russia when they were tipped off that her father was about to be shot because of his anti-Communist activity in Russia. That whole community of Russians emigrating to Australia in those years had similar experiences and personal reasons for being afraid of the Communist regime. Consequently we were brought up to fear Communist Russia and although our Russian language school textbooks came from Russia, certain words/phrases were blacked out or pages were just glued together. We were intrigued and tried hard to see these forbidden words. Things are different now with the passing of time, but actually not so different because some of the older generation still have that fear and distrust. My generation can’t help be influenced by that although we have obviously moved on from the paranoia – some more than others.