Random quote
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931-2021)

Autocratic power

I have written here already more about him, but in these days that violence and power are so on the foreground in the news, I cannot resist writing again about this intriguing and interesting person, at the risk of falling into repetitions: Étienne de La Boétie. Actually, little is known about the Frenchman, who lived from 1530 to 1563, so in my former blogs I have already written the essence of what is known about him (see here). Nevertheless, I’ll try to treat some aspects not yet discussed by me.

La Boétie is known by many as the friend of Montaigne, who dedicated his Essays to him, which Montaigne started to write after La Boétie’s premature death. What most people outside France who have heard of La Boétie don’t know is that he was a judge, who, on behalf of the Parlement (court) of Bordeaux, tried to mediate in religious disputes that were troubling France in those days; or that La Boétie was also a poet; that he was a Renaissance humanist who translated several classical works and introduced them in France; and, most important today, that he has written an essay titled Discourse on Voluntary Servitude. (Here you find a translation) It’s about this book that I want to write now.
In a French bookshop you always find several editions of the Discourse, but outside France the book is hardly known, or it must be in circles of political scientists, anarchists and pacifists. The origin of the book is not known, but to my mind the most likely theory is that it was a study assignment La Boétie wrote when he was 18 years old. First the manuscript circulated among students, humanists, Renaissance writers and others interested in it, but around 1576 it was published by Huguenots, and it had a big influence among them. However, gradually the Discourse was forgotten, until it was rediscovered by Enlightenment philosophers and French revolutionaries 200 years later. Since then it has often been reprinted and it has been translated into many languages.
The Discourse describes a theory of power that is still worth taking notice of. It gives a good description of how power works in autocratic countries, but it can also help understand the mechanisms that make a democracy develop into an autocracy. According to La Boétie the essence of autocratic power is dependency. Such power, so La Boétie, has a pyramidal structure. The man at the top – usually it is a man – gives his favours to the persons immediately under him and so makes them and keeps them dependent on him, and, I want to add, he punishes those who don’t support him. The persons who support the leader do the same to those under them; etc., until we reach the “bottom”. 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 punishments like the puppeteer who makes his puppets dance. And what about those at the bottom who have no one under them? They do what they are asked and, after having fulfilled their tasks, they are free to do what they like, so La Boétie.
However, and now I am going to mix what La Boétie says and how I myself analyse autocratic power, people do not support or obey leaders only because of the favours or punishments. It is often also a matter of habit (like when people are born in an autocratic structure); or the followers think that the one at the top is the most suitable person to govern the country and, even, that there’ll be chaos if this leader is put aside. Nobody can replace him, the followers think. And there is the “bread and games” factor used by power holders for keeping the followers in their hands, although I am not sure whether this is really an important factor today. I guess that the other factors (favours and punishments and supposed chaos) are more important now. Moreover, there are also other means used by autocrats to keep their grip on the situation, not mentioned by La Boétie. Autocrats always try to control the stream of information. In La Boétie’s time there was already a strict censorship (also the Discourse was forbidden, once published). Nowadays we see that autocrats try to control the media and the internet. Moreover, autocrats try to directly control their citizens and those travelling to their countries, for example by checking their internet behaviour, reading their messages on social media, wiretapping, and so on. Even democracies cannot escape such practises in order to try to stop criminality and undesirable foreign interference that undermine democracy.
La Boétie’s strength in the Discourse is his analysis. However, the weak side is that it is merely an analysis. It doesn’t even initiate discussing ways to stop repression by an autocrat. Maybe, La Boétie didn’t want to do so. His analysis makes you think about your situation and already this is a subversive act. However, then you stand alone: You know the problem but you don’t get any indication how to solve it. Moreover, La Boétie’s analysis is individualistic and psychological, but society is a social affair, also governed by social processes. This is absent in the Discourse. Nevertheless, the analysis in the Discourse as such is brilliant and has made it one of the classics of political theory.
Others have tried to address these shortcomings and accepted the challenge to develop action methods based on the Discourse. I just want to mention two names. It was none other than Mahatma Gandhi who has founded a practise of nonviolent action on La Boétie’s idea. The other person I want to mention is the American political scientist Gene Sharp. He developed and described 198 methods of nonviolent action against violence and repression, and wrote books on how to undermine autocratic structures. La Boétie himself did not do so, but his analysis provides you a first idea of how autocratic leadership works, with which you can start.

Random quote
Conducting our public discourse as if it were possible to outsource moral and political judgment to markets, or to experts and technocrats, has emptied democratic argument of meaning and purpose. Such vacuums of public meaning are invariably filled by harsh authoritarian forms of identity and belonging – whether in the form of religious fundamentalism or strident nationalism.

Michael J. Sandel (1953-)

Kinds of violence

La Gleize, Belgium: Monument to the victims of the Second World War

Many people, including most politicians, are talking about violence only in case of direct physical attacks by individuals, groups or armies on other individuals, groups, cities, regions and countries, etc. We think here of intentionally physically hurting, killing, etc., and many see also directly psychologically hurting others as a kind of violence. We can call such violence direct violence. For the Norwegian peace researcher Johan Galtung, however, this view on violence was too limited. For people can also be hurt and killed by others without a direct involvement of the latter in the hurting and killing, so that the hurting and killing cannot be ascribed to particular individuals. In this case there is no straightforward physical relationship between perpetrator and victim, but nevertheless the effect is the same as in case of direct violence, so that it is reasonable to call this kind of hurting and killing violence as well. Galtung called this type of violence structural violence. This human-caused violence is a consequence of the social circumstances people live in, because victims of this type of violence have no access to the necessary resources that would improve their miserable circumstances, which can even make them die. The reasons why people cannot use the resources they need for improving their living conditions are not natural, but others prevent them from using them or don’t give them the means they should reasonably give them. Galtung calls structural violence also “social injustice”. To quote Galtung (p. 171):

“Resources are unevenly distributed, as when income distributions are heavily skewed, literacy/education unevenly distributed, medical services existent in some districts and for some groups only, and so on. Above all the power to decide over the distribution of resources is unevenly distributed. The situation is aggravated further if the persons low on income are also low in education, low on health, and low on power - as is frequently the case because these rank dimensions tend to be heavily correlated due to the way they are tied together in the social structure… The important point here is that if people are starving when this is objectively avoidable, then violence is committed, regardless of whether there is a clear subject-action-object relation, as during a siege yesterday or no such clear relation, as in the way world economic relations are organized today.”

Following Galtung (ibid.), we can distinguish direct violence and structural violence this way: In case of direct violence there is a clear subject-object relation between perpetrator and victim, and this is manifest because it is visible as action. In case of structural violence a direct subject-object relation between perpetrator and victim is absent. The violence exerted is not visible on the surface, but it is hidden and latent. It is built in the structure, not in direct purposeful actions. Galtung: “[For example,] in a society where life expectancy is twice as high in the upper as in the lower classes, violence is exercised even if there are no concrete actors one can point to directly attacking others, as when one person kills another.”
If this analysis is right – and I think it is – we can discern also an intermediate kind of violence between direct and structural violence, which I want to call indirect violence. In this type of violence there is a clear relation between perpetrator (or perpetrators) and victim (or victims), although the perpetrator doesn’t directly hurt, beat, or kill the victim. The perpetrator doesn’t stick a knife in the body of the victim or shoot the victim down. Nevertheless, the use of violence is manifest and the hurting and killing of the victim is the clear result of manifest actions. We see this type of violence, for instance, when people are deported without giving them sufficient means to survive during the deportation or at their destination; when food aid is explicitly denied to people who are starving; when international aid is cancelled, while people are dependent on it and no alternatives are provided or developed; when social services are cut so that people fall into poverty. Etc. In such cases, the perpetrators are clear and it is clear who their victims are, though we cannot say that particular perpetrators directly and in direct manifest actions hurt or kill particular victims. We can say that indirect violence is halfway between direct violence and structural violence, but, just like the other types, violence it is.

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Tyrants are only great because we are on our knees.

Étienne de La Boétie (1530-1563)

Montaigne in Basel

John the Baptist Fountain in Basel

Montaigne loved travelling. Usually he travelled for practical purposes; for his work (he has been a judge); for political missions by order of the king; for visiting friends; or because he had something to do in Paris. In 1580, Montaigne decided to make a long journey without a special purpose but only for the pleasure of travelling and for escaping the troubles in France and his domestic worries. Or so he says in the journal he kept of his travel. The travel would last one year and five months.
We don’t know exactly where and when Montaigne’s journey started, since the first pages of his journal are missing. Anyway, it was after the 6th of August 1580, when he had buried his friend Philippe de Gramont in Soissons, in Northern France. Gramont had been killed during the siege of La Fère in Picardy. From there, Montaigne might have gone to Paris, where he could have gathered his company. Be it as it may, on 5 September Montaigne was in Beaumont-sur-Oise, and from there he went via Meaux, Bar-le-Duc and Plombières to Thann, which then belonged to Germany, and from there to Mulhouse, then a Swiss town. From Mulhouse Montaigne and his company went to Basel, where they arrived on 28 September at the end of the day.
Montaigne doesn’t say where stayed in Basel, but he gives a detailed description of the inns in the region, so it’s likely that his inn in Basel must have looked something like that: “In all rooms of this sort, which are always well furnished, there will be five or six tables fitted with benches at which all the guests will dine together, each party at its own particular table. The smallest houses of entertainment will have three or four well-appointed rooms of this kind. They are pierced for many windows which are filled with rich glass, but on the whole it seems that the hosts concern themselves more with the dinner than with aught else, for the bed-chambers are often mean enough, the beds never curtained and always placed three or four together, the rooms being without chimneys, and only heated from the general stove. Beyond this there is no sign of a fire… There is much want of cleanliness in their bed-chambers, and he who gets a white sheet may deem himself fortunate: moreover, it is their fashion never to cover the pillow with sheeting; there is rarely any other covering than a feather quilt, which is very dirty.” (Journal, pp. 68-69) However, the food is excellent and Montaigne likes the wines (“They never mix water with their wine”) and also the service at table is good, though different from the way they do in Montaigne’s home region. (pp. 69-72).
Montaigne calls Basel “a fine town”. (p. 62) “They have a custom in the town, but not in the suburbs, that the clocks shall strike one hour in advance of the true time, to wit, if it should strike ten, the time would be really nine. They say the reason of this custom is that in past years an attempt against the city miscarried on account of a similar fault of the town clock.” The churches, which have become Protestant, are also after the Reformation in good condition, but the altars and images have been removed from the interiors. “The exteriors are still garnished with images and with ancient tombs unmutilated, and inscribed with prayers for the souls of the departed. The organs, the bells, the crosses on the bell towers, and all the different images in the painted windows are whole as ever they were, as well as the benches and the seats of the choirs. The Calvinists place the baptismal font where the high altar stood aforetime, and build at the head of the nave another altar to serve for their Lord’s Supper… The church of the Carthusians is a very fine building, preserved and kept up most carefully; the same furniture and ornaments are still there, a circumstance which the reformers bring forward as a testimony of their good faith, seeing that they gave a promise to maintain these at the time of their agreement.” (pp. 65-66) The quote shows that the relations between the Protestants and Roman Catholics were relatively good in Basel, despite the Reformation and although the churches had been taken over by the Protestants.
Basel has a beautiful library and even three hundred fountains, so Montaigne. The people there and in the region loved balconies that much “that in building they always leave between the windows of the chambers doorways looking over the streets, with the view of letting a balcony be built thereto at some future time.” All houses have glass windows and those of the rich are beautifully decorated. Even

...stoves, which are of pottery...

the smallest church “has a magnificent clock and dial.  Their work in tiles is excellent, and on this account the roofs of the houses are decorated with a medley of tiles, glazed in various colours, and the floors of their chambers are the same. Moreover it would be impossible to find more delicate work than that of their stoves, which are of pottery.” (pp. 67-68) Even today, many houses and buildings in the region “are decorated with a medley of tiles, glazed in various colours”.
A travel party consisting of several gentlemen and servants, like Montaigne’s, couldn’t arrive unnoticed in a town like Basel, and the “city authorities did the honour to M. d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne of sending a present of wine by one of their officers, who made a long speech to them as they sat at table.” (p. 62) In those days, being a nobleman opens doors and commands respect just only because of the fact, and it gave Montaigne the opportunity to meet in Basel interesting and prominent persons, like “many learned men: Grynaeus [note 1] and the author of the Theatrum [note 2], and [the physician Felix] Platerus …, and Francis Hotman. The two last-named supped with M. de Montaigne the day after his arrival.” The table conversation gives some insight into the religious relations of those days in Basel, for Montaigne remarks that apparently “there was in Basle considerable religious discord, some calling themselves Zwinglians, some Calvinists, and others Martinists [=Lutherans], while many, as he was informed, had in their hearts a hidden liking for the Roman religion. The ordinary form of administering the sacrament is to place it in the mouth, but at the same time any one, who so wishes, may reach out his hand for it, the ministers being chary of stirring up afresh the antagonisms of religion.” I wonder whether this must be seen as a matter of religious discord and not as a matter of religious tolerance.
The journal fragments make clear that Montaigne was an attentive observer. Although he certainly must have heard of Erasmus, it is a pity that he doesn’t make any reference to him, for these two men had a lot in common in their views. But maybe Montaigne didn’t know that Erasmus had lived for some years in Basel.
Montaigne and his company left Basel on the 30th of September in the afternoon.

Notes
1) Either Samuel ((1539–1599), Swiss jurist) or Simon Grynaeus ((1539–1582), Swiss mathematician and university professor).
2) Probably Theodor Zwinger.

Peter Church in Basel