There is one thing more wicked in the world than the desire to command, and that is the will to obey.
– W.K. Clifford (1845 – 1879)
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Samizdata quote of the dayJuly 24th, 2007 |
 13 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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Granted that comment is probably meant to apply to civil society and politics but I don’t know how you’d run an army if nobody was willing to give orders or to take them. Or a business for that matter.
If I may expand upon the quote:
There is one thing more wicked in the world than the desire to command without fear of being questioned, and that is the will to obey without question.
The two states mentioned—the yearning for power and the yearning for submission—are not opposites, but reverse sides of the same coin.
Both desires stem from the same emptiness in the soul, the same fear of having to examine that black void, and the desparate need to fill that emptiness with some form of sensation which will allow the person to pretend the yawning chasm has at last been filled.
The study of sociopaths and psychopaths over the last few decades has centered on criminals, not political or religious cult figures, but the parallels are obvious, and ominous.
A respected profiler who has studied many people such as Ted Bundy noted the startling fact that they literaly had no real emotions, no real feelings that are the expected components of a human personality.
Instead, the most deadly of these psychopaths learn early in life to simulate feelings. Realizing that other people had internal architectures that caused them to act and react in certain ways, they quickly learned to simulate these attributes, even though there really wasn’t anything in there causing a true emotional experience.
Those for whom power is all, and achieving it is an end that justifies any means, operate in exactly this fashion, only instead of conning widows out of their last pennies, or murdering young boys or girls to fulfill some twisted fantasy, they torture entire populations, murdering entire generations.
Demanding constant adulation, constant adoration, constant reassurance that no one is challenging their slightest whim, questioning their most convoluted theories, hesitating to carry out their most outlandish and gruesome orders, these “great leaders” attempt to fill up their empty tank by accumulating all the feelings, for good or ill, of everyone around them.
Those of us who observe, oppose, and study these deformed creatures constantly wonder, “Why aren’t they ever satisfied? When will there ever be enough—enough power, enough destruction, enough death, enough followers, enough worship—to satiate their desires?”
But the Mugabes, the Castros, the Kims of this world, and of history, can never be sated. Somewhere there might be someone who questions, who resists, who disagrees, who snickers into their pillow in the dark.
And, for some reason known only to god, that possibility, that one laughing skeptic, that one derisive, contemptuous disbeliever, the existence of that one independent mind and heart, trumps all the rest of the millions grovelling at his feet, singing hymns to his little red book, clapping endlessly until their hands bled, shouting “banzai”, goose stepping in seemingly endless ranks past the reviewing stand.
But what of these fawning worshipers? The clapping, singing, chanting, marching millions who revel in every word, long for the slightest glance, who stand ready to maim and kill at the slightest hint that some evil one opposes the glorious leaders’ wishes?
He stares at the great one, she trembles at his approach, filled to overflowing with the knowledge that they have found what was missing, that they don’t have to worry any more, don’t have to think, don’t have to wonder if they’ve got it right at last.
There he is—the answer to every question, the solution to every problem, the warmth that fills the empty, cold place, the flame that keeps all those lonely, chilly doubts away.
The martyrs were willing to die to be with their lord.
The wearers of the deathshead were willing to kill to be one with their idol.
The cadres of the revolution would do anything—and until you grasp that fact you cannot understand—anything to be one with the true leader.
We keep wondering, and asking each other, shaking our heads and trying to understand—how can they do these things, how can they be this way?
It is a primal void. Some fill it with good, others with evil. Or did you think that evil was old fashioned, obsolete perhaps, in this modern, sleek, high tech world.
It lives down the street from you, at the end of an airplane ride, on your television, in the airwaves, right now, this very minute.
Vigilence, and understanding, are all that keep it at bay.
The independent mind, the unconquerable heart that demands a human existence, are its only true, deadly enemies. Evil knows this—do you?
Evil knows this- and recognises it every time you go out in public in Britain.
I’d say at least half of the people in this turd of a country are infected, active agents of the anti-mind.
Including 90%-95% of the educators.
When Guy Herbert quotes the sadly short lived gentleman as saying “the will to obey” this means a lot more than “obeying orders” (in a miltiary or a commercial context).
The “will to obey” is, of course, a desire to have the burden of choice (and the responsibility of moral choice) taken away.
The desire to be “free of freedom”.
This is a very common desire.
Guy and Paul,
You have hit the core of most of our problems. These people with “the will to obey”, or as Paul very succinctly puts it, “the desire to be free of freedom” will always exist. This is why the continuous call for collectivist force cannot be ended without violence. All we can do is build and defend safe havens from it. Places where people who would consent on behalf of all, are denied that power and if they persist, shown the door.
I have both collectivists and individualists in my circle of family and friends. I have found that if somebody believes they have any individuals rights at all, rights not based on ‘the greater good’, they can often be persuaded to give up their desires to control others. But there are unfortunately many who do not believe they have any individual rights.
Humans evolved as social animals, not like Bees, but like Wolves. Therefore it is natural for us to comprise mostly followers with a smaller number of leaders. Our intellect however gives us the possibility of transcending our inherited nature. Violence will not advance this possibility, only education, as in “Liberal Learning”, will suffice.
What is so often overlooked is that the exercise of liberty requires time and discipline.
Questioning/resisting authority is more difficult than submitting blindly. Thinking for onesself is a habit, and habits are usually formed in childhood. The freedom of the next generation depends on the parenting skills of this generation.
Reasoning that voluntary civil interaction (which may mean “individualism” or may mean voluntary cooperation – depending on the situation) is better than force and fear, can do the job of resisting our collectivist pack animal instincts (I agree with the people above, and with F.A. Hayek, that this is the source of the demands for “fair shares”, “the greater good”, “social justice” and so on). This is the libertarian (including myself) – the non aggression principle and deductive reasoning from it.
However, for most of the time that tyranny (or chaos – for statism and chaos are not opposites, they are both the use of force and fear to order folk about and steal their stuff) has been resisted the source of the resistance has been cultural traditions, practices, habits.
Societies evolved when human beings got past their pack instincts and they go into decline when these “fair shares” and “leader plan” instincts gain strength.
The left (or at least their leaders) know this well. Hence the cry for the “return to nature” and “if it feels good, do it”. Such ideas go back long before the 1960’s – they are associated with the 1960’s because this was the first time (in the modern period) that vast numbers of people in Britian and the United States started to be influenced by the message.
Sometimes things did not go exaxtly as Herbert Marcuse and so on expected. For example, most people, following “if it feel good, do it” just eat a lot (because eating feels good) and have got fat – rather than made a revolution.
However, the destruction of traditional social institutions such as the family has gone ahead (sex feels good – but if people do it whenever and with whoever they wish then such things as the family can not survive) – and without strong familes the alternative is the state (or “the people” or “the community” or “the village” or whatever other code term is used).
The left love to talk about “atomised individuals” – but actually they work hard to create them.
The institutions of civil society (family, church, local clubs and societies) are their great enemy and they know it. They seek to replace the tradtional social institutions with political activist groups (as the only source of fraternity for atomised individuals) corrupting existing social institutions whenever they can (churches are a classic target to be corrupted – religious orders that once helped the poor with their own hands now often sit in comfortable offices engaging in politics demanding more statism).
Civilized life depends on the repression of the instincts of the beast.
The libertarian side of this is self control (helped by traditional customs and civil institutions), but the left has another way – tyranny (the “caring” public power, the “activist community” or whatever words are used).
Of course, in the end, tyranny leads to chaos (as society breaks down), but that is the one thing that the left do not see.
They do not see it because (for all their vast intelligence – and they are much more intelligent than I am) there is insantity at the heart of their way of thought.
Outstanding, fantastic comment, Paul. Particularly where you lay out why the left (and presumably all totalitarians) wage their vendetta to destroy traditional institutions. First break down (natural, voluntary) order, then offer a replacement. Force.
Yes, Paul—it is that utterly telling comment by Strelnikov in “Zhivago”—“The personal life is dead in Russia.”
Everything is politics. Nothing else is left.
There’s more to the left than that, but I grant “Everything is politics,” is one of its principal axioms.
Of course this “everything is politics” goes back a long way. For example, it is the spirit of the Jacobins.
“Fraternity” must come from poltical activity either national or in local activist groups, and no forms of nonactivist association are to be allowed.