A piercing definition of where authoritarian regimes can end up: an all-controlling totalitarian nightmare, regardless of the underlying ideology. 

A shared characteristic of totalitarian regimes wherever and whenever they descend: the effect of the loss of all safe spaces for the mind or voice. 

Note not only the loss of safe space for the voice, that which is audible to others, but even for the silent and private arena of the mind. 

Long live freedom of both mind and voice.  And let us beware the siren song of authoritarianism, that somehow it knows better.    

Source: Sarah Watling, Tomorrow Perhaps the Future (London: Jonathan Cape, 2023), p. 16

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