At the top of the pyramid. Étienne de La Boétie on power

Glory to the dictator

A war for power is casting its shadow over Europe. It made me think of the theory of power by Étienne de La Boétie. Power is a complex phenomenon with many aspects. One aspect concerns the interaction between political systems and countries, and a power theory can try to explain how it works. In the present situation in Europe, such a theory is interesting, for it can help understand the struggle for power around Ukraine and Russia’s war purposes. This is not what La Boétie’s theory is about. However, political systems and countries are not abstract entities. They are led by persons of flesh and blood, which must build up their positions before they are leaders and then maintain them: Leaders apply power to get and keep their positions. It would be nice to have a universal theory that describes how this happens. However, countries are very diverse. Some are democracies; other countries have an authoritarian structure or are even full dictatorships; again other countries have political systems somewhere between these extremes. Although La Boétie’s theory is about how a leader gets and especially maintains his position, it’s not a universal theory of leadership power. It explains only how leadership in authoritarian systems and dictatorships works. But with this theory, at least we can understand the doings of some actors in the present European conflict. Especially we can understand a bit of Putin’s leadership. 

Étienne de La Boétie (1530-1562) was a French judge, Renaissance writer and political theorist. He laid his political views down in his Discourse of Voluntary Servitude. In this treatise, La Boétie raises the question “how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him.” They should only have to renounce their obedience without fighting. “For [the tyrant] is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not necessary to deprive him of anything, but simply to give him nothing.” So, people agree to their own subjugation. They don’t want freedom, though it’s so easy to get it. La Boétie cites three reasons for voluntarily serving a tyrant. Two are less important and I only mention them here: habit and spinelessness. The third reason for obedience is by far the most important. It is the foundation of tyranny.
“Whoever thinks,” so La Boétie, “that [body guards] serve to protect and shield tyrants is … completely mistaken. These are used … more for ceremony and a show of force than for any reliance placed in them.” These guards are in fact only there for the daily order and often a tyrant is killed or driven out by his own guards. The real power rests on a certain social structure that allows a small number of people to control an entire country: “[T]here are only four or five who maintain the dictator, four or five who keep the country in bondage to him. Five or six have always had access to his ear, and have either gone to him of their own accord, or else have been summoned by him, to be accomplices in his [oppression and excesses]. The six have six hundred who profit under them, and with the six hundred they do what they have accomplished with their tyrant. The six hundred maintain under them six thousand, whom they promote in rank, upon whom they confer the government of provinces or the direction of finances, in order that they may serve as instruments of avarice and cruelty, executing orders at the proper time and working such havoc all around that they could not last except under the shadow of the six hundred, nor be exempt from law and punishment except through their influence. The consequence of all this is fatal indeed. And whoever is pleased to unwind the skein will observe that not the six thousand but a hundred thousand, and even millions, cling to the tyrant by this cord to which they are tied. [Just as] according to Homer, Jupiter boasts of being able to draw to himself all the gods when he pulls a chain.”
“In short, when the point is reached, through big or small favours, that large profits or small are obtained under a tyrant, there are found almost as many people to whom tyranny seems advantageous as those to whom liberty would seem desirable.” The whole network is based on ruling, controlling, playing off against each other and profiting from others, but in the end everybody is connected to the tyrant. He pulls the strings and the so structured society is like a puppet theatre, where the one at the top plays the subjects with favours and benefits like the puppeteer makes his puppets dance. Actually, La Boétie feels a little sorry for the people at the top of the network, “[f]or, in all honesty, can it be in any way except in folly that you approach a tyrant, withdrawing further from your liberty and, so to speak, embracing with both hands your servitude?” The people at the bottom who have no one under them do what they are asked and, after they have fulfilled their tasks, they are free to do what they like. However, those who directly serve the dictator “must anticipate his wishes; to satisfy him, they must foresee his desires; they must wear themselves out, torment themselves, kill themselves with work in his interest, and accept his pleasure as their own, neglecting their preference for his, distorting their character and corrupting their nature; they must pay heed to his words, to his intonation, to his gestures, and to his glance.”
This is how leadership power works, so La Boétie. A power structure is built like a pyramid and the top keeps down the lower layers. Some call La Boétie’s theory naïve, but to my mind it gives the basics of how authoritarian leadership works. Anyway, the Discourse of Voluntary Servitude has withstood the ages and has become one of the most reprinted and most influential books in history. Gandhi has even founded his theory of nonviolence on La Boétie’s idea. And look around: with La Boétie’s idea in your mind, you get already a first view on how authoritarian leadership works.

Note
The translations from Étienne de La Boétie, Discours de la servitude volontaire, are from a download in my computer. I couldn’t find it again on the internet. Here is another translation.

Random quote
What more foolish than to undertake a war for I know what trifles, especially when both parties are sure to lose more than they get by the bargain?

Erasmus (1466-1536)

Descartes and Utrecht

Behind this gate on Maliebaan 36, Utrecht, NL, once was the house
 of prof. Reneri, where Descartes stayed when he lived in Utrecht.
 A plaquette on the door remembers this fact.

Although René Descartes (1596-1650) was a Frenchman, he lived many years in the Netherlands, for in the Low Countries he could more or less freely express his ideas, while in France he risked to be persecuted. For some time he lived in Utrecht, and just his stay there led to such intellectual conflicts with some professors of the newly founded university that he didn’t feel himself safe any longer in the Netherlands and that he left for Sweden.
Before Descartes lived in Utrecht, he had lived in Deventer for some time (he stayed there in 1632 and 1633), where he had deep discussions with Henricus Reneri (1593-1639), which would result in his Discourse on Method. Then Reneri left for Utrecht, where he would become one of the five founders of the University of Utrecht (established in 1636) and the first “Cartesian” professor in the Netherlands. Descartes followed him and lived there in Reneri’s house. Until his arrival in Utrecht some main ideas of Descartes had not yet appeared in print but had been spread mainly verbally. In order to avoid that they would be misinterpreted, Reneri asked him to write them down, which resulted in the Discourse (published in 1637). The effect of the book was contrary to what Reneri and Descartes may have expected. Of course, the book clarified Descartes’ ideas, but it also led to a heavy clash with orthodox Christian theologians and especially with Gisbert Voetius, another founder of the University of Utrecht and professor in theology and also soon rector of the university. Reneri died in 1639 and when, in his funeral oration, Anton Aemilius, a friend of Reneri, praised Reneri’s advocacy of Descartes’ philosophy and described Descartes himself as “the Archimedes of our century”, the conflict exploded. Moreover, now Henry Regius, recently appointed professor of medicine at Utrecht, began to lecture on Descartes’ views. Regius had become close with Descartes and helped him prepare the manuscript of the Meditations. Regius was the type of person who didn’t avoid controversy. He published a set of Cartesian theses for debate at the university and Voetius accepted the challenge. He had decided not only to demolish Cartesian philosophy but also Descartes himself. Voetius strongly rejected Descartes’ (and Regius’) Copernican view of the universe and some theological implications of Regius’ (and Descartes’) view on the relationship between body and soul. The consequence was not only a heavy philosophical and theological debate but also student riots.
One thing led to another. The Senate of the university ordered Regius to restrict himself to teaching medicine and banned the teaching of Cartesian philosophy completely. Descartes was furious. He called Voetius “quarrelsome, envious, foolish, a stupid pendant, a hypocrite, an enemy of the truth”, and charged him with slander “sometimes public and sometimes surreptitious”. Moreover, Descartes stated that his ideas were in line with the orthodox religious ideas. However, via a proxy of Voetius, Descartes was charged with atheism “on the ground that he had set aside the traditional proofs of God’s existence”. Descartes replied with a public Letter to Voetius. In this Letter, Descartes accused Voetius of “atrocious insults”, of being “base and commonplace, stupid, absurd, coarse, and impudent.” He talked of “criminal lies”, “scurrilous insults”, “atrocious slander” against him; etc. It was clear that Descartes was enraged and that he felt hurt as a person and in everything he stood for, his philosophical views in the first place. However, since the accusation of atheism was the most dangerous for Descartes, in the Letter he especially rejected the idea that his views conflicted with the traditional religious ideas.
According to the authorities in Utrecht, Descartes had gone too far, and they decided to sue him for libelling Voetius. Descartes could have ignored this for he had left already the province of Utrecht and now lived in the province of Holland. It was unlikely that Holland would extradite him to Utrecht. Nevertheless, Descartes approached Christiaan Huygens, whom he knew, and the French ambassador to The Hague, with the result that the Prince of Orange himself intervened and made that the authorities in Utrecht withdrew the accusation of libel. Some skirmishes followed yet, but gradually the row came to an end.
Would all this have been necessary? Not if Descartes had followed Huygens’ advice to let the matter rest. “Theologians are like pigs. When you pull one by the tail, they all squeal”, so Huygens. But Descartes had too big an ego to drop the matter. Nonetheless, in the end, Descartes would be the loser of the case. He didn’t feel at ease in the Netherlands any longer. In 1649, he accepted an invitation of Queen Christina of Sweden to become her teacher. However, he wouldn’t feel happy there, also because he couldn’t get along well with the Queen, who didn’t really like his lessons. After having contracted pneumonia, Descartes died on 11 February 1650 in Stockholm. And so, in a sense, Voetius had become the winner of the debate with Descartes. He didn’t succeed to demolish his philosophical ideas. Far from that, for Descartes became the founding father of modern Western philosophy. However, Voetius had indirectly a part in demolishing Descartes as a person chasing him away from the Netherlands to Sweden, where he became unhappy and died. 

Sources
- Eskens, Erno, Filosofische reisgids voor Nederland en Vlaanderen. Amsterdam and Antwerp: Contact, 2009.
- Grayling, A.C., Descartes. The life of René Descartes and its place in his times. London: Simon & Schuster, 2006; esp. pp. 207-218.
- Klomp, Henk, “Descartes verjaagd uit Utrecht vanwege zijn ‘ketterse’ ideeën”, op website https://www.dub.uu.nl/nl/nieuws/descartes-verjaagd-uit-utrecht-vanwege-zijn-ketterse-idee%C3%ABn

Random quote
For the heroism of a few, the misery of millions is too expensive.

Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970)

The Montaigne Dogma

Légal Trap

The shortest essay in Montaigne’s Essays is “That the profit of one man is the damage of another” (Book I-22; in some editions, like the Gutenberg translation that I use here, I-21). It’s only 232 words long and it states that everybody’s gains are based on the misery of others. It’s not only the shortest essay in Montaigne’s book but maybe also the most criticized one. I don’t want to say that it is brilliant, but is the critique right? Since most criticisms go back to and follow what the Austrian economist and philosopher Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) has written about it, in this blog I’ll discuss his view.
Von Mises formulated his criticism of Montaigne’s essay especially in his book Human Action, chapter 24 (first section) (HA, for short). Since I don’t have an English version of this book at my disposal, I follow the Dutch text, and von Mises’s words quoted here may not be what he literally has written. But, of course, the essence is right. In HA, von Mises says that an old economic idea is that “the gain of one is the loss of the other; one makes profit only through the loss of others”. It’s an old dogma, so von Mises, and since Montaigne was the first modern author to reformulate it, he calls it the “Montaigne dogma”. And he continues: “It was the centrepiece of the doctrines of mercantilism, old and new. It underlies all modern doctrines that teach that within the framework of the market economy there is an irreconcilable conflict between the interests of different social classes within a country and, moreover, between the interests of several countries.” There are circumstances, so von Mises, that the Montaigne dogma is right, but generally it isn’t: “What causes the profit of a few in the course of a free market community is not the misfortune of his fellow man, but the fact that he alleviates or completely removes that which gives his fellow man a feeling of unease.” And then von Mises gives some counterexamples that apparently are meant as rejections of what Montaigne says in essay I-22, since they are based on and sometimes literally follow what Montaigne says there. “What causes the profit of a few in the course of a free market community”, so von Mises, “is not the misfortune of his fellow man, but the fact that he alleviates or completely removes that which gives his fellow man a feeling of unease. What harms the sick is the plague, not the doctor who treats the disease. The doctor’s profit is not the result of epidemics, but of the help he offers to those affected.” (my italics) Leaving aside that Montaigne doesn’t talk about a free market community, of course, but about human behaviour and how man gains a profit, does Montaigne really say that the doctor harms the patient so that he can treat the patient? Does Montaigne really say that the one who gains does so by harming the other? So, is it right to talk here of a Montaigne dogma?
Let’s look at Montaigne’s essay I-22. Its original title is  “Le Profit de l’Un Est Dommage de l’Autre” (see here), translated in the Gutenberg version of the Essays as “That the profit of one man is the damage of another”. This title is neutral in its meaning: If one person has damage, another profits by it. But let’s quote Montaigne’s examples:
“The merchant only thrives by the debauchery of youth, the husband man by the dearness of grain, the architect by the ruin of buildings, lawyers and officers of justice by the suits and contentions of men: nay, even the honour and office of divines are derived from our death and vices. A physician takes no pleasure in the health even of his friends, says the ancient Greek comic writer, nor a soldier in the peace of his country, and so of the rest.” (Essays I-22)
The examples used here by Montaigne only say that making profit by one person goes together with the damage of another person and that the former takes advantage of the latter’s damage. Montaigne doesn’t say that the one who makes profit caused the damage of the other. So, Montaigne doesn’t say, for instance, that the doctor makes the patient sick, but only that the doctor gets his income because the patient is sick. However, von Mises apparently has read the quoted passage as a kind of “post hoc propter hoc”, so as a kind of “after it so because of it”: The gains come because who gains does so by causing a damage to another. I must admit that the next sentence after the quotation from I-22, might suggest this: “[L]et every one but dive into his own bosom, and he will find his private wishes spring and his secret hopes grow up at another’s expense.” But the title and the tenor of this essay make clear that Montaigne wants to say only that everyone hopes to profit from another’s misery, not that he causes this misery. Maybe there is a dogma that says that “the gain of one is the loss of the other; one makes profit only through the loss of others” but it is not Montaigne’s dogma, anyway not in the way the statement is interpreted by von Mises.
But even if there is no Montaigne dogma in von Mises’s sense, one can ask whether Montaigne is right in saying that the profit of one man is the damage of another. Although it may happen, I think that, generally speaking, it’s not true. There are many ways a man can make a profit. Profiting from the damage or misery of others is only one way.

Random quote
The more violence, the less revolution

Bart de Ligt (1883-1938)

Erasmus in Deventer

The former Latin School in Deventer

Recently I was in Deventer, an old Hanseatic town in the east of the Netherlands. I stayed the night there in a hotel in the centre of the town. Once this hotel was a Latin School. From the 15th century till 1848 boys were educated in the building for religious or worldly functions or for a study at the university. It was not just a school, one among many in Europe, but at the end of the Middle Ages the Latin School in Deventer was one of the most famous schools in Europe north of the Alps and it attracted students from everywhere. One of them was Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), who lived then in Gouda. His father wanted the best education for him and so he sent his son to Deventer. Erasmus was eight years old, when he arrived there, and since he was yet a little boy, his mother went with him.
Not long before Erasmus went to Deventer, the Latin School had got a new headmaster: Alexander Hegius (1439/40-1498). Traditionally, at schools like the Latin School in Deventer, students were taught medieval Latin: Latin as it was used in the religious books of the time and as it was spoken by the clergymen. The method to learn it was memorizing. The students had to learn rhymes with the rules of the language by heart; especially the Doctrinal, a long didactic poem in Latin describing the Latin grammar.
Once a student knew the Doctrinal by heart he was supposed to know Latin. But did he understand Latin? He didn’t, so Hegius. Therefore, Hegius started to make his own teaching material. He began to criticize the Doctrinal and he introduced modern teaching methods that were already used in Italy. But he did more. He replaced the corrupt medieval Latin till then learned at school by the Latin of the classical writers, such as Cicero and Vergil. The students learned also to practically use this Latin, and they learned about the classical culture. Moreover, Hegius introduced a new subject: Old Greek. He was the first to do so in northern Europe. And last but not least: Hegius learned his students to think. Texts could contain mistakes for all kinds of reasons, so Hegius. To find out whether this was the case, you had to compare a text with other versions of the same text and with other sources, in order to analyse what was true and what wasn’t.
The new educational approach made the Deventer Latin School famous in Europe north of the Alps and it attracted students from everywhere. And so it happened that also Erasmus’s father decided that his son had to be educated at this school. Nevertheless, Erasmus was educated in the old way; only the two highest classes were taught by Hegius himself. The lower classes still basically followed the old teaching method, but this didn’t make that Erasmus was cut off from the new development. Erasmus was a curious boy, so once he knew that the highest classes of his school were taught with different methods and were taught different stuff, he asked the older students what it was. This must not have been difficult, for students in the higher classes often had to teach the lower classes, so contact was easily made. In addition, on certain occasions Hegius held free lectures that everybody could attend. These lectures made a deep impression on Erasmus, as we know from his letters and notes.
Erasmus must have been looking forward to be taught by Hegius himself in the highest classes of the Latin School. It didn’t happen. When Erasmus was in the third class (in those days the first class was the highest class in a school), there was an epidemic of plague in Deventer, which killed his mother. Soon thereafter his father died of grief. Erasmus’s guardians were more interested in his inheritance (which must have been quite big) than in the well-being of the boy. Erasmus was sent to a monastery. Even so, thanks to his education in Deventer, Erasmus became one of the most important exponents of the Renaissance, if not the most important. Once he had escaped the monastic life, he further developed Hegius’s teaching methods, he translated classical authors in order to make them known to modern man, and he became a prominent philologist and Bible critic and made a new, critical translation of the New Testament. Would Erasmus ever have reached that level and ever have become that famous, if he hadn’t had his education at the Latin School in Deventer? 

Source
Sandra Langereis, Erasmus dwarsdenker. Een biografie. Amsterdam, De Bezìge Bij, 2021.

Random quote
People have an almost ineradicable tendency to replace reality with constructions of a self-manufactured cloud existence.

Theo de Boer (1932-2021)