Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Tyranny

  In this case one can find the most arbitrary manner to lead, to such an extent that it almost does not deserve to be dignified of an advanced order, because the order of truth is injured by the desires of the sovereign who does not respect any precept of law if that does not suit this one ; it is an order which uses easily force, it can then logically follow an invasion by some barbarous warriors, or the fact that a part of the people be rebelled in order to satisfy its vices by force and not in order to improve the order in the country for being closer to truth, or follow the rebellion of a king, but it can as well occur in some cases of urgency [1] (as for the short dictatorship for helping good). In this case the established rules and the part of intelligence do not have an important role (what does not exclude a minimum of reflection), because the leader is not becoming attached to any already established principle because generally this one has obtained the place by force or with the acknowledgment for some brutal doings, and thus this one is not disheartened to force the order of things ; moreover excesses are facilitated by the fact that the sovereign possesses all the powers, so the legislative one, the judicial one and the executive one. And for the too much complicated choices in order to know where the interests are this one takes often an intelligent person under control for having some advices [2], without all the same giving to this person too much power, because this sovereign has to be able to satisfy certain vices. This is at the limit of an advanced manner to lead, because rules having not a lot of importance, the arrangement in an advanced structure of inhabitants also ; this type of leader has then to be transitory or this one is going against progress, and especially the possibility to assume certain conditions of life.


[1] : See “Two Treatises of Government” by Locke, chapter 11, section 139 ; and “The Spirit of Laws” by Montesquieu, book 2, chapter 3. \ [2] : See the same work by Montesquieu, book 2, chapter 5.

1 comment:

microdot said...

I read the news today, oboy......