First, he evokes some understanding of the depth of the experience of dictatorship, where a genius for tools that invoke alienation are employed to what extent necessary to infiltrate every aspect of life, to disrupt it, to pervert its stories and meanings, and to silence it.

But the dictator's victory, extensive though it is, may not be complete. To the degree that a people retain or retake control over the stories of their own lives, they find hope. The right language is necessary for hope, for action.

In time there comes a rebellion from within or an overthrow from abroad. But the society is still operating substantially inside the alienated interior space that was created by the warped and brutal tools of the dictator. Both the mentality and the social sphere must be remade.