WEBVTT NOTE The Politics of Obedience: Part I 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.400 The Politics of Obedience, The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by Etienne de la Boétie 2 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:10.400 Part 1 3 00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:17.080 The fundamental political question is why do people obey a government? 4 00:00:17.080 --> 00:00:24.440 The answer is that they tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. 5 00:00:24.440 --> 00:00:32.160 Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action but from the refusal to serve. 6 00:00:32.160 --> 00:00:37.320 Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support. 7 00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:41.160 I see no good in having several lords. 8 00:00:41.160 --> 00:00:43.600 Let one alone be master. 9 00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:46.640 Let one alone be king. 10 00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:52.520 These words Homer puts in the mouth of Ulysses as he addresses the people. 11 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:58.880 If he had said nothing further than, I see no good in having several lords, it would 12 00:00:58.880 --> 00:01:04.080 have been well spoken. For the sake of logic, he should have maintained that the rule of 13 00:01:04.080 --> 00:01:10.620 several could not be good, since the power of one man alone, as soon as he acquires the 14 00:01:10.620 --> 00:01:20.160 title of master, becomes abusive and unreasonable. Instead, he declared what seems preposterous. 15 00:01:20.160 --> 00:01:24.760 Let one alone be master, let one alone be king. 16 00:01:24.760 --> 00:01:29.960 We must not be critical of Ulysses, who at the moment was perhaps obliged to speak these 17 00:01:29.960 --> 00:01:37.140 words in order to quell a mutiny in the army, for this reason, in my opinion, choosing language 18 00:01:37.140 --> 00:01:40.760 to meet the emergency rather than the truth. 19 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:47.640 Yet, in the light of reason, it is a great misfortune to be at the beck and call of one 20 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:54.280 Master, for it is impossible to be sure that he is going to be kind, since it is always 21 00:01:54.280 --> 00:02:01.560 in his power to be cruel whenever he pleases. As for having several masters, according to 22 00:02:01.560 --> 00:02:08.560 the number one has, it amounts to being that many times unfortunate. Although I do not 23 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:15.000 wish at this time to discuss this much debated question, namely whether other types of government 24 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:21.240 are preferable to monarchy. Still, I should like to know, before casting doubt on the 25 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:28.480 place that monarchy should occupy among commonwealths, whether or not it belongs to such a group, 26 00:02:28.480 --> 00:02:33.600 since it is hard to believe that there is anything of common wealth in a country where 27 00:02:33.600 --> 00:02:40.160 everything belongs to one master. This question, however, can remain for another time and would 28 00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:55.920 For the present, I should like merrily to understand how it happens that so many men, 29 00:02:55.920 --> 00:03:04.440 so many villages, so many cities, so many nations sometimes suffer under a single tyrant 30 00:03:04.440 --> 00:03:11.640 who has no other power than the power they give him, who is able to harm them only to 31 00:03:11.640 --> 00:03:17.640 the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him, who could do them absolutely 32 00:03:17.640 --> 00:03:24.400 no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him, surely 33 00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:30.640 a striking situation, yet it is so common that one must grieve the more and wonder the 34 00:03:30.640 --> 00:03:37.200 Less at the spectacle of a million men serving in wretchedness, their necks under the yoke, 35 00:03:37.200 --> 00:03:43.640 not constrained by a greater multitude than they, but simply, it would seem, delighted 36 00:03:43.640 --> 00:03:50.480 and charmed by the name of one man alone whose power they need not fear, for he is evidently 37 00:03:50.480 --> 00:03:56.640 the one person whose qualities they cannot admire because of his inhumanity and brutality 38 00:03:56.640 --> 00:04:05.120 A weakness characteristic of humankind is that we often have to obey force. We have 39 00:04:05.120 --> 00:04:11.800 to make concessions. We ourselves cannot always be the stronger. Therefore, when a nation 40 00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:18.200 is constrained by the fortune of war to serve a single clique, as happened when the city 41 00:04:18.200 --> 00:04:25.400 of Athens served the Thirty Tyrants, one should not be amazed that the nation obeys, but simply 42 00:04:25.400 --> 00:04:31.940 We be grieved by the situation, or rather, instead of being amazed or saddened, consider 43 00:04:31.940 --> 00:04:38.600 patiently the evil, and look forward, hopefully, toward a happier future. 44 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:44.120 Our nature is such that the common duties of human relationship occupy a great part 45 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:46.280 of the course of our life. 46 00:04:46.280 --> 00:04:52.760 It is reasonable to love virtue, to esteem good deeds, to be grateful for good from whatever 47 00:04:52.760 --> 00:05:03.760 and often to give up some of our comfort in order to increase the honor and advantage of some man whom we love and who deserves it. 48 00:05:03.760 --> 00:05:12.760 Therefore, if the inhabitants of a country have found some great personage who has shown rare foresight in protecting them in an emergency, 49 00:05:12.760 --> 00:05:19.760 presidency, rare boldness in defending them, rare solicitude in governing them, and if, 50 00:05:19.760 --> 00:05:27.220 from that point on, they contract the habit of obeying him and depending upon him to such 51 00:05:27.220 --> 00:05:34.400 an extent that they grant him certain prerogatives, I fear that such a procedure is not prudent. 52 00:05:34.400 --> 00:05:40.520 Inasmuch as they remove him from a position in which he was doing good and advance him 53 00:05:40.520 --> 00:05:48.860 to a dignity in which he may do evil. Certainly, while he continues to manifest good will, 54 00:05:48.860 --> 00:05:54.460 one need fear no harm from a man who seems to be generally well-disposed. But, O good 55 00:05:54.460 --> 00:06:00.860 Lord, what strange phenomenon is this? What name shall we give it? What is the nature 56 00:06:00.860 --> 00:06:08.680 of this misfortune? What vice is it? Or rather, what degradation? To see an endless multitude 57 00:06:08.680 --> 00:06:17.400 of People not merely obeying, but driven to servility, not ruled, but tyrannized over. 58 00:06:17.400 --> 00:06:23.380 These wretches have no wealth, no kin, nor wife, nor children, nor even life itself that 59 00:06:23.380 --> 00:06:31.640 they can call their own. They suffer plundering, wantonness, cruelty, not from an army, not 60 00:06:31.640 --> 00:06:37.560 from a barbarian horde, on account of whom they must shed their blood and sacrifice their 61 00:06:37.560 --> 00:06:48.360 Not from a Hercules nor from a Samson, but from a single little man. 62 00:06:48.360 --> 00:06:54.360 Too frequently this same little man is the most cowardly and effeminate in the nation, 63 00:06:54.360 --> 00:07:00.880 a stranger to the powder of battle and hesitant on the sands of the tournament, not only without 64 00:07:00.880 --> 00:07:08.480 energy to direct men by force, but with hardly enough virility to bed with a common woman. 65 00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:13.040 Shall we call subjection to such a leader cowardice? 66 00:07:13.040 --> 00:07:18.900 Shall we say that those who serve him are cowardly and faint-hearted? 67 00:07:18.900 --> 00:07:26.480 If two, if three, if four do not defend themselves from the one, we might call that circumstance 68 00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:33.320 It's surprising, but nevertheless conceivable. In such a case, one might be justified in 69 00:07:33.320 --> 00:07:40.800 suspecting a lack of courage. But if a hundred, if a thousand endure the caprice of a single 70 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:49.560 man, should we not rather say that they lack not the courage, but the desire to rise against 71 00:07:49.560 --> 00:07:56.560 and that such an attitude indicates indifference rather than cowardice. When not a hundred, 72 00:07:57.240 --> 00:08:04.240 not a thousand men, but a hundred provinces, a thousand cities, a million men, refuse to 73 00:08:04.960 --> 00:08:11.960 assail a single man from whom the kindest treatment received is the infliction of serfdom 74 00:08:12.040 --> 00:08:19.040 and slavery, what shall we call that? Is it cowardice? Of course, there is in every vital 75 00:08:19.560 --> 00:08:49.560 and vice-inevitably some limit beyond which one cannot go, two, possibly ten, may fear one, but when a thousand, a million men, a thousand cities fail to protect themselves against the domination of one man, this cannot be called cowardly, for cowardice does not sink to such a depth, any more than valor can be termed the effort of one individual to scale a fortress. 76 00:08:49.560 --> 00:09:10.560 What monstrous vice, then, is this which does not even deserve to be called cowardice, a vice for which no term can be found vile enough, which nature herself disavows and our tongues refuse to name? 77 00:09:10.560 --> 00:09:26.560 Place on one side fifty thousand armed men, and on the other the same number. Let them join in battle, one side fighting to retain its liberty, the other to take it away. To which would you, at a guess, promise victory? 78 00:09:26.560 --> 00:09:33.340 Which men do you think would march more gallantly to combat, those who anticipate as a reward 79 00:09:33.340 --> 00:09:39.280 for their suffering the maintenance of their freedom, or those who cannot expect any other 80 00:09:39.280 --> 00:09:45.080 prize for the blows exchanged than the enslavement of others? 81 00:09:45.080 --> 00:09:50.240 One side will have before its eyes the blessings of the past and the hope of similar joy in 82 00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:56.760 and the Future. Their thoughts will dwell less on the comparatively brief pain of battle 83 00:09:56.760 --> 00:10:04.400 than on what they may have to endure forever, they, their children, and all their posterity. 84 00:10:04.400 --> 00:10:10.400 The other side has nothing to inspire it with courage except the weak urge of greed, which 85 00:10:10.400 --> 00:10:16.160 fades before danger and which can never be so keen, it seems to me, that it will not 86 00:10:16.160 --> 00:10:20.880 not be dismayed by the least drop of blood from wounds. 87 00:10:20.880 --> 00:10:28.360 Consider the justly famous battles of Miltiades, Leonidas, Themostocles, still fresh today 88 00:10:28.360 --> 00:10:33.840 in recorded history and in the minds of men as if they had occurred but yesterday, battles 89 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:39.440 fought in Greece for the welfare of the Greeks and as an example to the world. 90 00:10:39.440 --> 00:10:45.880 What power do you think gave to such a mere handful of men, not the strength, but the 91 00:10:45.880 --> 00:10:52.880 and courage to withstand the attack of a fleet so vast that even the seas were burdened, 92 00:10:53.200 --> 00:10:59.520 and to defeat the armies of so many nations, armies so immense that their officers alone 93 00:10:59.520 --> 00:11:06.520 outnumbered the entire Greek force. What was it but the fact that in those glorious days 94 00:11:07.240 --> 00:11:14.240 this struggle represented not so much a fight of Greeks against Persians as a victory of 95 00:11:14.240 --> 00:11:20.740 of Liberty over Domination, of Freedom over Greed. 96 00:11:20.740 --> 00:11:25.580 It amazes us to hear accounts of the valor that liberty arouses in the hearts of those 97 00:11:25.580 --> 00:11:31.520 who defend it. But who could believe reports of what goes on every day among the inhabitants 98 00:11:31.520 --> 00:11:38.520 of some countries? Who could really believe that one man alone may mistreat a hundred 99 00:11:38.520 --> 00:11:47.000 and deprive them of their liberty. Who would credit such a report if he merely heard it 100 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:53.920 without being present to witness the event? And if this condition occurred only in distant 101 00:11:53.920 --> 00:12:00.200 lands and were reported to us, which one among us would not assume the tale to be imagined 102 00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:06.560 or invented and not really true? Obviously, there is no need of fighting to overcome this 103 00:12:06.560 --> 00:12:13.560 There is no need that the country make an effort to do anything for itself, provided it does nothing against itself. 104 00:12:36.560 --> 00:12:43.160 It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or rather bring about their own 105 00:12:43.160 --> 00:12:50.360 subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude. 106 00:12:50.360 --> 00:12:57.800 A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when having a choice between being vassals 107 00:12:57.800 --> 00:13:04.660 and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its 108 00:13:04.660 --> 00:13:27.660 in his own misery, or rather, apparently welcomes it. If it costs the people anything to recover its freedom, I should not urge action to this end, although there is nothing a human should hold more dear than the restoration of his own natural right to change himself from a beast of burden back to a man, so to speak. 109 00:13:27.660 --> 00:13:34.700 I do not demand of him so much boldness, let him prefer the doubtful security of living 110 00:13:34.700 --> 00:13:40.340 wretchedly to the uncertain hope of living as he pleases. 111 00:13:40.340 --> 00:13:41.820 What then? 112 00:13:41.820 --> 00:13:48.540 If in order to have liberty nothing more is needed than to long for it, if only a simple 113 00:13:48.540 --> 00:13:54.180 act of the will is necessary, is there any nation in the world that considers a single 114 00:13:54.180 --> 00:14:00.740 will wish too high a price to pay in order to recover rights which it ought to be ready 115 00:14:00.740 --> 00:14:06.620 to redeem at the cost of its blood, rights such that their loss must bring all men of 116 00:14:06.620 --> 00:14:14.620 honor to the point of feeling life to be unendurable and death itself a deliverance. 117 00:14:14.620 --> 00:14:19.960 Everyone knows that the fire from a little spark will increase and blaze ever higher 118 00:14:19.960 --> 00:14:27.120 as long as it finds wood to burn. Yet without being quenched by water, but merely by finding 119 00:14:27.120 --> 00:14:38.620 no more fuel to feed on, it consumes itself, dies down and is no longer a flame. Similarly, 120 00:14:38.620 --> 00:14:44.960 the more tyrants pillage, the more they crave, the more they ruin and destroy, the more one 121 00:14:44.960 --> 00:14:51.480 Everyone yields to them and obeys them by that much do they become mightier and more 122 00:14:51.480 --> 00:14:57.320 formidable the readier to annihilate and destroy. 123 00:14:57.320 --> 00:15:07.720 But if not one thing is yielded to them, if without any violence they are simply not obeyed, 124 00:15:07.720 --> 00:15:16.920 may become naked, and undone, and as nothing, just as when the root receives no nourishment, 125 00:15:16.920 --> 00:15:19.480 the branch withers and dies. 126 00:15:19.480 --> 00:15:25.800 To achieve the good that they desire, the bold do not fear danger, the intelligent do 127 00:15:25.800 --> 00:15:33.320 not refuse to undergo suffering, it is the stupid and cowardly who are neither able to 128 00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:38.000 to endure hardship nor to vindicate their rights. 129 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:44.400 They stop at merely longing for them and lose through timidity the valour roused by the 130 00:15:44.400 --> 00:15:49.720 effort to claim their rights, although the desire to enjoy them still remains as part 131 00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:51.560 of their nature. 132 00:15:51.560 --> 00:15:58.560 A longing common to both the wise and the foolish, to brave men and to cowards, is this 133 00:15:58.560 --> 00:16:06.360 There is longing for all those things which, when acquired, would make them happy and contented. 134 00:16:06.360 --> 00:16:09.960 Yet one element appears to be lacking. 135 00:16:09.960 --> 00:16:16.960 I do not know how it happens that nature fails to place within the hearts of men a burning 136 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:25.080 desire for liberty, a blessing so great and so desirable that when it is lost all evils 137 00:16:25.080 --> 00:16:35.080 and even the blessings that remain lose taste and savor because of their corruption by servitude. 138 00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:45.080 Liberty is the only joy upon which men do not seem to insist, for surely if they really wanted it, they would receive it. 139 00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:52.080 Apparently they refuse this wonderful privilege because it is so easily acquired. 140 00:16:52.080 --> 00:17:01.080 Poor, wretched and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good. 141 00:17:01.080 --> 00:17:07.080 You let yourself be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues. 142 00:17:07.080 --> 00:17:13.080 Your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. 143 00:17:13.080 --> 00:17:18.080 You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own. 144 00:17:18.080 --> 00:17:25.080 and it would seem that you consider yourself lucky to be loaned your property, your families and your very lives. 145 00:17:25.080 --> 00:17:32.080 All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, 146 00:17:32.080 --> 00:17:39.080 but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, 147 00:17:39.080 --> 00:17:47.080 for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. 148 00:17:47.080 --> 00:18:02.080 He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities. 149 00:18:02.080 --> 00:18:09.080 He has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. 150 00:18:09.080 --> 00:18:16.080 Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you if you do not provide them yourselves? 151 00:18:16.080 --> 00:18:22.080 How can he have so many arms to beat you with if he does not borrow them from you? 152 00:18:22.080 --> 00:18:28.080 The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? 153 00:18:28.080 --> 00:18:32.080 How does he have any power over you except through you? 154 00:18:32.080 --> 00:18:37.080 How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you? 155 00:18:37.080 --> 00:18:43.080 What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you? 156 00:18:43.080 --> 00:19:03.080 If you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves, you sow your crops in order that he may ravage them, you install and furnish your homes to give him goods to pillage, you rear your daughters that he may gratify his lust. 157 00:19:03.080 --> 00:19:08.040 you bring up your children in order that he may confer upon them the greatest privilege he knows 158 00:19:08.040 --> 00:19:14.680 to be led into his battles, to be delivered to butchery, to be made the servants of his greed 159 00:19:14.680 --> 00:19:22.040 and the instruments of his vengeance. You yield your bodies unto hard labor in order that he may 160 00:19:22.040 --> 00:19:29.480 indulge in his delights and wallow in his filthy pleasures. You weaken yourselves in order to make 161 00:19:29.480 --> 00:19:54.480 From all these indignities, such as the very beast of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. 162 00:19:54.480 --> 00:20:00.840 I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that 163 00:20:00.840 --> 00:20:05.280 you support him no longer. 164 00:20:05.280 --> 00:20:12.380 Then you will behold him like a great colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall 165 00:20:12.380 --> 00:20:15.420 of His Own Weight and Break into Pieces.