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.

Random quote
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

Random quote
The common genetic element with the largest known effect on propensity for violence is the Y chromosome, but we don’t take its presence as exculpatory.

Kevin J. Mitchell (associate professor at Trinity College, Dublin)

Erasmus in Basel

Erasmus's Gravestone in the Minster in Basel

When I was on holiday in the southern part of the Alsace, in eastern France, a few weeks ago, I made also a trip to Basel, only a 40 minutes’ drive from my holiday home. For it was in Basel that the famous Dutch humanist, theologian and philosopher Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam had passed the last years of his life.
When Erasmus left the – now Belgian

Zum Sessel (the house with
the red groundfloor and white
upper floors)

 – city of Leuven in 1521, he might have realised that maybe he would never return there again. Erasmus left Leuven because he was increasingly criticised for his religious ideas, since Luther had openly published his criticism of the Roman Catholic Church in 1517. Some even saw Erasmus as a supporter of Luther, although Erasmus stayed a loyal though critical supporter of the Catholic Church till the end of his life. Erasmus had decided to move to Basel, for Johann Froben there had been the publisher of his works already for many years. Froben had one of the most important publishing houses of his time in Europe. It was established in a building called Zum Sessel, in the present Totengässlein. Today a pharmacy museum is established in the house.

Zur Alten Treu 
{left of the scaffolding)

Erasmus went to work for Froben as an author, editor and acquirer. They got along very well and, moreover, Erasmus was by far Froben’s most popular and most productive author, and someone who worked very hard for his publisher. So, no wonder that Froben bought a house for Erasmus in the Nadelberg street, called Zur Alten Treu (nowadays a bookshop). Froben gave Erasmus also a yearly income of 200 florins. Since Erasmus had other earnings as well, he could live a very good life in Basel. Moreover, besides working for Froben, Erasmus taught private students, who could live in Zur Alten Treu for 40 florins a year. One of the persons Erasmus met in Basel was the Swiss painter Hans Holbein the Younger, who worked as an illustrator for Froben and also painted the now famous portrait of Erasmus.
Buying a house and giving him an income was not the only thing Froben did for Erasmus. He bought even a garden for him, a thing which Erasmus had longed to have already for years. It was a space large enough to walk, with a gazebo where he could work. Erasmus could reach the garden walking from Zum Sessel or from his house along the Peter’s Church to the city wall on the westside of the town.

Zum Luft

In 1527 Johann Froben died. His son Hieronymus succeeded his father in the publishing house, and since also Erasmus and the son got along well, Erasmus could continue his life more or less as it was. However, in 1529 the Reformation reached also Basel. The Roman Catholic churches became Protestant, and Erasmus no longer felt at ease in Basel, and he decided to move to Freiburg in southwest Germany. Erasmus gradually got many physical complaints and he was often ill and he

Erasmus's garden

became a really old man. Because the situation in Basel had somewhat improved, in 1535 Erasmus decided to return and to pass the last days of his life there. Hieronymus Froben gave him an apartment in the Haus zum Luft in the Bäumleingasse, the house to which Hieronymus had moved his father’s publishing house. Erasmus continued working on a new manuscript, but his health deteriorated sharply and he died in Zum Luft on 12 July 1536, almost 70 years old.
Erasmus was buried in the Basel Minster. Since this had become a Protestant church, it was remarkable that the city authorities allowed that a Catholic requiem mass was celebrated for him. Erasmus’s grave was originally in the nave of the Minster, but was moved to the catacombs in the 19th century. The gravestone was placed in the left side aisle of the church.

The Minster in Basel

Sources
- Anne Bakker, “Citytrip Bazel – In de voetsporen van Erasmus”, https://reportersonline.nl/citytrip-bazel-in-de-voetsporen-van-erasmus/ .
- Sandra Langereis, Erasmus: Dwarsdenker. Een biografie, Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2021; esp. pp. 640-701.
- “Das Haus zum Luft / Erasmushaus”, https://altbasel.ch/haushof/haus_zum_luft.html .

Random quote
If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away.

Linus Pauling (1901-1994)

On migration. Montaigne

The monument to the migrant workers in Utrecht, Netherlands

Montaigne is of the past and Montaigne is of the present. Many of his observations were only relevant for his time, but also many of them are eternal and that makes them also relevant for the day of today. In many cases, they need a modern interpretation, indeed, but does it make them less relevant? And Montaigne himself got his inspiration often from the ancient world of the Romans and the Greeks. Maybe we should read his Essays also in order to put what is happening in the world today into perspective.
Take, for instance, this – sometimes cynical – essay: “Of ill means employed to a good end” (Essays, Book II-23). There Montaigne writes:

“Sometimes a great multitude of families are turned out to clear the country, who seek out new abodes elsewhere and encroach upon others. After this manner our ancient Franks came from the remotest part of Germany to seize upon Gaul, and to drive thence the first inhabitants; so was that infinite deluge of men made up who came into Italy under the conduct of Brennus and others; so the Goths and Vandals, and also the people who now possess Greece, left their native country to go settle elsewhere, where they might have more room; and there are scarce two or three little corners in the world that have not felt the effect of such removals. The Romans by this means erected their colonies; for, perceiving their city to grow immeasurably populous, they eased it of the most unnecessary people, and sent them to inhabit and cultivate the lands conquered by them; sometimes also they purposely maintained wars with some of their enemies, not only to keep their own men in action, for fear lest idleness, the mother of corruption, should bring upon them some worse inconvenience … but also to serve for a blood-letting to their Republic, and a little to evaporate the too vehement heat of their youth, to prune and clear the branches from the stock too luxuriant in wood; and to this end it was that they maintained so long a war with Carthage.”

In this passage we see several problems (and their “solutions”!) that rule also the present world. Should I explain?
- Migration. As Montaigne illustrates here, migration is a matter of all people and it is of all times. It’s is often a matter of “they” who come to encroach upon us but often it is or has been also a matter of we who encroach upon “them”. People migrate for all kinds of reasons, but as we see in the present world, too, most important are economic reasons and fleeing for war and violence or because people are driven from the places where they live. Didn’t originally all human beings come from Africa? And since Montaigne’s time people from Europe settled, for instance, in Southern Africa and in North and South America, and the original populations were driven to the corners of their continents or of the areas where the newcomers had arrived. Today we see people from Africa migrate to Europe, and from South and Middle America to North America, in search of a better life. And should I add that many people are fleeing the Middle East because of the wars and violence there? Migration is in our genes.
- Colonisation. The Romans established colonies elsewhere, as Montaigne remarks. However, they didn’t do that only for getting rid of a surplus of their people, but especially for developing agricultural areas that could supply Rome with grain and other food. That’s what we have seen in modern times, too. Foreign territories were occupied or governed by Europeans not so much in order to house migrants there, but in order to exploit the occupied regions economically. Examples are Indonesia before 1945 by the Dutch, parts of Africa by the British and the French and Siberia by the Russians.
- Sending people abroad, often in order to wage war against “enemies” as a diversion of domestic problems. Foreign “enemies” may be created for that reason. In this respect, Montaigne cynically remarks “and, in truth, a foreign is much more supportable than a civil war”. Creating a fictive enemy without a real war has the same effect. Think of Hitler’s Germany; the policy of confrontation by President Sukarno of Indonesia with Malaysia (1963-1966); the Falklands War started by Argentina (1982); and the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014.

Often problems are mistakenly seen as new problems. When, for example, politicians talk about migration – one of the most important political issues today – they treat it in an ahistorical way, actually in several respects. They treat it as a problem only relevant today, and simply say that it must be stopped. They ignore that migration is something that is in our genes. For this reason alone, it cannot be stopped. They also ignore that we ourselves are the descendants of migrants who once invaded the countries where we live now. And they ignore (not treated in this blog) that migration has something to do with what “we” did “there”. The globe is global. Therefore, to place it in the present world, what happens and has happened in the South is connected with what is happening in and done by the North. The one is not unrelated to the other. Seen this way, migration cannot be stopped but only managed and controlled.

However, in fact, Montaigne’s essay “Of ill means employed to a good end” is a cynical essay, and I have hardly shown that. I have taken it seriously. Too seriously?

Random quote
A person will be all the more learned as he becomes more aware of the fact that he knows nothing.

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)

Pinocchian truths

Sometimes I would wish that all politicians were Pinocchios, for then we would know when they were lying. For the story of Pinocchio tells us that his nose grows when he tells a lie. It would be a better instrument than a lie detector, which is far from reliable. Moreover, which politician would allow to be connected to a lie detector? It is so that in On Certainty Wittgenstein writes:
“80. The truth of my statements is the test of my understanding of these statements.
81. That is to say: if I make certain false statements, it becomes uncertain whether I understand them.”
Then the politician could say: “Sorry, I made a mistake. I didn’t understand what I said.” But then there would be no lying, but only wrong understanding and misunderstanding. However, what Wittgenstein was talking about was the objectivity of facts. He was talking about the relationship of facts with reality. When a statement in the Wittgensteinian sense is not true, it means that the supposed relationship with reality does not exist. However, lies are intentionally false statements about reality, so we know that they are false and nevertheless we claim that they are true. We could say that a lie has a relation to reality in the opposite way. The liar certainly knows what he or she is talking about and understands what s/he is saying. In this sense lies are true. We could call them Pinocchian truths.
Montaigne had a clear view on what I have called here Pinocchian truths: “In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have other tie upon one another, but by our word. If we did but discover the horror and gravity of it, we should pursue it with fire and sword, and more justly than other crimes.” (Essays, I-9: Of Liars) However, there are no Pinocchios. Pinocchio was a fictional character in a children’s novel. Moreover, lies are often difficult to recognise as such, which today in the time of the internet has become a real problem. Since words bind people together, as Montaigne rightly says, – also false words do – lies are often used for this purpose or for justifying actions. Often it works, or at least it often works at the moment that the lie is told, for as Montaigne also says: “If falsehood had, like truth, but one face only, we should be upon better terms; for we should then take for certain the contrary to what the liar says: but the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand forms, and a field indefinite.” (ibid.) That’s why it is so difficult to disprove a lie and to unmask a liar, regardless of the problem that it is often difficult to discover what the real facts are. On the top of that, what is a lie for one is a truth for another, as Montaigne explains in Essay I-14, while there are also truths and half-truths, or, if you wish, lies and half-lies. So, even if there were Pinocchios, should their noses know when to grow?
That’s why people construct or invent reasons when they want to get things done or want to do things, and need other people for that or need to justify their actions. Politicians are such persons. Is it a wonder that they are often mistrusted? In 1964, during the years that I became politically conscious, the so-called Tonkin incident took place, when North Vietnamese warships were said to have attacked US warships, which was soon unmasked as a lie. It was a pretext for the USA to send openly American troops to Vietnam. It appeared to be a big mistake, for the US army drowned in the swamp of a guerrilla war. In 2003, a US-led coalition army invaded Iraq, on the pretext that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed weapons of mass destruction. Also this claim was false. It led to the destabilisation of Iraq and the Middle East. These are just two striking examples, but cases of this kind abound in history. At the moment that I write this, Israeli and American aircraft are bombing and have bombed Iran, saying that this country is in possession of nuclear weapons, even though the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) denies that this is the case, just as did the CIA till a few days before the US attack took place. Moreover, this happened at a moment that negotiations between the EU and Iran were still going on. Now, in view of the just explained historical context, should we believe this claim this time? There are reasons to doubt it. And what will bring this attack to us? Even if we do not doubt the intentions of political leaders, even then, as Montaigne says “’Tis usual to see good intentions, if carried on without moderation, push men on to very vicious effects.” (Essays II-19: Of liberty of conscience). But shouldn’t we doubt? As the former Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands once said: “The lie reigns”.

Random quote
The lie reigns.

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands (1938-. Queen from 1980-2013)

The fall of democracy

The choir receives the applaus after a beautiful performance of the opera Boris Godunov
 by Modest Mussorgsky by the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, 14 Juni 2025.

In Modest Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov” – currently performed by The National Opera in Amsterdam – the Russian tsar Boris Godunov rises to the throne through the murder of the son of Ivan the Terrible, yet a child. His ascent to the throne is controversial, but Boris Godunov is asked to stay in power by an impoverished populace for the sake of their nation’s stability. During his reign, the people expect an improvement of their lives but nothing changes. Meanwhile, other alleged pretenders to the throne try to overthrow Boris Godunov, and the people suffer from repression and neglect and retreat themselves in their own private lives. Through the years, Boris is increasingly tormented by his consciousness of his past of having murdered a child. He descends into paranoid madness, when a pretender to the throne marches on Moscow, and he dies. Next, Russia suffers from a period of unrest and fighting between different political factions.

Opera is art and music, but many operas are also political statements. Also Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov” is of that kind. Mussorgsky certainly thought of the Russia of his time when composing the opera, but the stage director of the performance in Amsterdam, Kirill Serebrennikov (who had fled Russia in 2022), gave it a modern interpretation. This is quite possible, for the opera explores themes that are still present in modern Russia: the corruption of power, complicity amid widespread injustice, fatalism among the masses, the futility of resisting tyranny, and the nature of life and death itself. The apathy of the masses is represented in an original way: Not a choir walking and singing on the stage, as so often in operas, but people in apartments in an old-fashioned flat building of Soviet time, as there still are so many in Russia (see photo). But Serebrennikov, though being Russian, restricts his political criticism not to Russia, for what applied and applies to Russia is increasingly applicable to the today’s USA as well.
In an interview in the program book of the opera Serebrennikov says: “In Putin’s Russia, people remain speechless out of self-preservation — or swear loyalty to the regime. The state literally buys loyalty, offering the poorest villagers money to go to war and kill neighbors — sums they never imagined before. There is no resistance. Those who protested are now imprisoned or exiled. But what’s wrong with people who send loved ones to war for a paycheck? Why do the widows thank the state instead of cursing it? How did we get here — where complaints are about rusty rifles or bad food, not the killing of innocents?” And that’s what Serebrennikov’s interpretation of Mussorgsky’s opera clearly expresses. However, this is a pure “Russian interpretation” of the opera, but what about an “American interpretation”? For Serebrennikov had certainly not only a criticism of Russia in his mind. In a subtle way, his interpretation of the opera refers also to the situation in the USA. Does this mean that the increasing protests against the Trump regime will fail and that finally the American people will fall into apathy?
This brings me to another reading of the opera. Serebrennikov relates the opera to the fate of the common people, despite its mainline of the rise and fall of tsar Boris Godunov. However, I think that, in view of the present political situation, the opera can also be interpreted at a higher level. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a new child was born in Russia, a child called Democracy. However, soon Democracy was killed by a new tsar: Tsar Putin. As in the opera, it is not only so that Putin has made himself tsar, but a big part of the populace wanted and wants him to stay in power, and just like in the opera opposition is suppressed. In this interpretation Mussorgsky’s opera tells the story of the new Russia and predicts that after Putin’s death a period of unrest will follow. For who will succeed tsar Putin? However, it is hard to imagine that Putin will get pangs of conscience when the end of his career comes near.
In the USA, we see something similar, though in the USA it is not that the child Democracy is killed, since there Democracy is already an old man. Nevertheless, a new tsar has come to the throne by the wish of the people. Once in power this new tsar Trump sees it as one of his main tasks to kill old man Democracy and to persecute everyone on Democracy’s side. If we follow the opera, ultimately the now rising protests against the Trump regime will fail and the American people will fall into apathy. When tsar Trump has quitted the scene, the country will face difficult times and much discord. Nevertheless, also in this American reading the weak point is that it is hard to imagine that Trump will get pangs of conscience for having killed Democracy.
Despite its weak points, I think that this interpretation of “Boris Godunov” is not unrealistic. Be it is it may, as bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny, who sings the part of Boris Godunov, says, when asked what the main message of the opera is: “Arrogance is always punished, and trying to elevate yourself above another has a price. In this opera Boris pays that price in an extremely sad way. I think Mussorgsky wanted to show the world how a dictator like him comes to an end.”

Random quote
The difference between a good prince and a tyrant is that the prince is obedient to the law, and rules his people by a will which is at the service of the people, and that he manages rewards and burdens within the Republic under the guidance of the law.

John of Salisbury (1120-1180)

War propaganda

Women of Lancashire. British recruitment poster, First World War, 1915.

 Source: Imperial War Museums, Image: IWM (Art.IWM PST 6061).

Since there has been war, there has been war propaganda, for war must be justified by those who choose to fight. Justifying war has especially become important, when wars were no longer fought by professional soldiers and mercenaries but by armies of conscripts, and since the rise of the mass media. The introduction of the conscript army by Napoleon made that basically the whole male population of a country could be called up for military service. The rise of mass media made that now everybody could know what was going on in the world and what their soldiers had to fight for and to die for. This made that in order to start and continue a war the consent of the public opinion was required.
The first major war in which mass media were used for war propaganda was the First World War (WW1; 1914-1918). Propaganda became part of the war policy of all fighting countries. It was especially important in the United Kingdom. Not only was not everybody there convinced of the necessity of the war, but moreover, when WW1 began, the country had not yet a conscript army (this was introduced only in 1916), so in order to get enough soldiers, young men had to be convinced that it was their patriotic duty to enlist.
It was no surprise then that, once WW1 had ended, just a British war critic, Arthur Ponsonby, wrote a book in which he analysed war propaganda and unravelled the lies conceived and spread to convince people of the necessity of the war, not only in the UK but in all major warring countries then. This book, Falsehood in Wartime, inspired the Belgian political scientist Anne Morelli to summarise the mechanism of war propaganda described by Ponsonby in ten basic principles in her book Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre (Elementary principles of war propaganda). For propaganda was not only a major characteristic of WW1, but since then its use has spread more and more; during the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the war in former Yugoslavia, the Gulf Wars, till the present wars between Russia and Ukraine and in Gaza. Therefore, it is still worth taking note of the basics of war propaganda, since they are still applied, when political leaders try to convince us of the need to start a war or to participate in it.
What then are the principles of war propaganda?

1. We do not want war but “they” want it. A reason to go to war that accuses the enemy is often invented, or relevant facts for the war are omitted.
2. Our adversary is solely responsible for the war. It is our adversary who harms our rights, values, territory, etc.; ignoring, for instance, that we, too were already preparing for war.
3. The enemy’s leader is evil and resembles the devil. You cannot hate a whole group or country, so it’s better to direct the hatred to the leader of the enemy country.
4. We are defending a noble cause and not our personal interests. We have higher values than our enemy and must defend them, for example. Or, we defend human rights, not the access to the oil in the enemy country.
5. The enemy deliberately commits atrocities; our mistakes, are not intentional. Not only is it so that the enemy is said to commit atrocities; even if civilian victims are the consequence of mistakes, they are still seen as deliberate atrocities, while if we commit them, we call them “collateral damage”.
6. The enemy uses illegal weapons, like weapons that are “unnecessarily” cruel or forbidden by international law. If we use them, it’s only because they use them.
7. We suffer very few losses; the enemy’s losses are enormous. If our losses are bigger than those of the enemy, it is better not to say so and to hide our real losses, because telling the truth is not good for our morals.
8. Artists and intellectuals support our cause. If such smart people do, why not you?
9. Our cause is sacred. We fight for God, for higher values, for humanity...
10. Everyone who questions our propaganda is a traitor and helps the enemy. There are good guys and there are bad guys. Who isn’t for us is against us. People who ask critical questions – even if they are clearly “on our side” – are considered to undermine “our cause”, also when their questions are justified and should be asked. Criticism is not allowed and it is punished, also in democratic societies.

The aim of war propaganda actually is, so Morelli, “creating a state of shared hypnosis, where we are all in the virtuous camp of the deeply offended ‘Good’ ”, and this apparently is a pathological need. Moreover, it is also possible that the war makers themselves construct this propaganda not purposefully but really believe it. However, this doesn’t make it true. Nevertheless, it is possible that some or even all of the propagandistic statements are true. For instance, maybe our adversary really is solely responsible for the war. As Morelli writes, “It is possible that only one of the two camps is lying and that only one of the two camps has really been attacked, without really wanting a war. In short, the question of who the aggressor is and who is the victim remains particularly delicate.”
Since what is pure propaganda and what is true often is difficult to say and often becomes clear only afterwards, the only thing one can do is being critical. Is it true what the political leaders say, when they want to start a war? Do they hide facts? Are the “facts” invented in order to have a cause of war? Such questions are important, but they are not without risk. Finding the truth can take time, and a being hypercritical and extremely cautious can paralyse any action, even when action is urgent. Nonetheless, systematic doubt is the only thing we can do to avoid falling in the propaganda trap; not only in case of a war or a threatening war. As Morelli writes: “It seems to me that systematic doubt is a good antidote to the daily attempts of the media to persuade us during international wars, ideological conflicts and social conflicts.” Not only then, I think.

Sources: The links in the text plus Wikipedia.

Random quote
Those who have no self-confidence call for the big man, the dictator, and for a dictator, people shout almost everywhere today.

Rudolf Rocker (1873-1958), German anarchist and writer

Naturalistic fallacy

The naturalistic fallacy is usually seen as the inverse of the moralistic fallacy, though some see the latter as a variant of the naturalistic fallacy. Whether the one or the other is the case is not relevant in this blog, since here I want to discuss the reasoning error implied in the naturalistic fallacy; not its philosophical status.
Someone commits a naturalistic fallacy if this person argues that if something is natural it must be good or it ought to be. That is the positive version of the naturalistic fallacy, for just like for the moralistic fallacy, there is also a negative version. It says that what is not natural must not be good or it ought to not be. So:

X is, therefore X is good.
or
X is, therefore X ought to be.
and
X is not, therefore X is not good.
or
X is not, therefore X ought not to be.

The term “naturalistic fallacy” was coined by G.E. Moore in his Principia Media (p. 62). Moore argued that what is natural must not be confused with what is good, and that natural and normative properties are metaphysically different. With Ryle, we can say that they belong to different metaphysical categories and that we would make a category mistake, if we would deduce the one from the other. However, Moore was not the first philosopher who discussed the naturalistic fallacy. Already Hume argued that it is not allowed to jump from is to ought statements. On the other hand, even famous philosophers commit this fallacy, like John Stuart Mill, who argued that “human nature is so constituted as to desire nothing which is not either a part of happiness or a means of happiness”, and therefore “happiness is the sole end of human action, and the promotion of it the test by which to judge all human conduct; from whence it necessarily follows that it must be the criterion of morality.” (from McCraw, p. 193; italics mine)
Or another example:
“Nature gives people diseases and sickness; therefore, it is morally wrong to interfere with nature and treat sick people with medicine.
Explanation: If we break this down, we can say that the claim that nature gives people diseases and sickness is a declaration of what is (i.e., a natural property of the world). From this, we are deriving an ought (i.e., we ought not interfere...). The wording and order of these arguments can be confusing, but remember that the underlying fallacy here is the deduction of an ought from an is.
[However,] we go against nature (or what is) all the time. We cannot sometimes use nature as a moral baseline and at other times condemn her for her careless attitude and indifference toward the human race.” (source)
Sometimes it seems that “a naturalistic claim or property to a normative one won’t be fallacious or defective.” (McCraw, p. 195). McCraw discusses a few examples, but to my mind then in fact something else is the case. Instead of discussing McCraw’s examples, I want to take one that is more relevant to the current world situation, in order to make this clear.
I think that many of my readers will agree with the claim that the natural environment is deteriorating rapidly and therefore we ought to stop it. Nevertheless, at first glance, this argument seems to be false, since it is a clear case of a naturalistic fallacy. The reasoning is “fallacious or defective”, to use McCraw’s words, and I think that taken literally it is. However, one can read this sentence also as an elliptic statement, which stands for much more than what these thirteen words literally say. To make this clear, let me split up the statement into two parts: (1) The natural environment is deteriorating rapidly and (2) We ought to stop it. Then (1) is a summary of the state of the natural environment as described by many climate researchers, biologists, etc. and (2) summarizes the view or opinion of many people who think that the environmental degradation is bad for the world and for ourselves, and therefore ought to be stopped. So, (1) is a factual statement and (2) is a normative statement. Seen as a logical statement, the argument “(1) therefore (2)” is a naturalistic fallacy, indeed. However, seen as a practical statement, the argument “(1) therefore (2)” is sound, for a practical argument reasons what must be done on the basis of the known facts and our views. Therefore, if an argument reasons from a natural fact or a statement about what is natural to what ought to be done or what is good, first we must decide whether it is a logical or a practical argument, before we can say whether or not it is a naturalistic fallacy. Only as a logical argument it can be a naturalistic fallacy. As a practical argument it says what must be done. Of course, a practical argument can be unsound or false, but then for other reasons.

Sources and further reading
- Ethics Explainer: Naturalistic Fallacy
- McCraw, Benjamin W., “Naturalistic Fallacy”, in Robert Arp; Steven Barbone; Michael Bruce (eds.), Bad arguments. 100 of the most important fallacies in Western philosophy. Oxford, etc.: Wiley Blackwell, 2019; pp. 193-195.
- Naturalistic Fallacy, in Logically Fallacious
- Naturalistic Fallacy, in Wikipedia

Random quote
Those who do not think themselves are thought by others.

Rudolf Rocker (1873-1958), German anarchist and writer

Moralistic fallacy

Now that I have given quite a lot of attention to morality in my last blogs (and not only in my last blogs). I think that it’s the right moment to treat the so-called “moralistic fallacy”, a fallacy that is related to wishful thinking. It is the inverse of the naturalistic fallacy, also called the is/ought fallacy.
There are two versions of the moralistic fallacy, a positive one and a negative one. The positive version says that it occurs when someone asserts “that something is a particular way because it should or ought to be that way.” (Foresman) We could also say: The moralistic fallacy occurs when someone asserts that the way things should be or ought to be is the way they naturally are. The negative version says that the moralistic fallacy occurs when someone asserts “that something cannot be a particular way because it should not or ought not to be that way.” (ibid.) Or, alternatively, what should not be or ought not to be in a particular way is not or will not be so. The fallacy implies that what is immoral is unnatural. The moralistic fallacy is closely related to wishful thinking, as said: The speaker wishes the world to be in a certain way – in this case in a certain moral way – so the world is in that way. The – moral – wish makes speaker blind to the facts.
A variation of the moralistic fallacy is the claim that certain behaviour is natural, since it is based on certain moral values, even if there is contradicting evidence; or a moral claim is simply used to justify a factual claim about the world. It can be found in legal reasoning, prudential reasoning, or reasoning regarding proper etiquette, aesthetics, humour, appropriate emotional responses, etc. I don’t like it to shave myself, so I do it only now and then. In the past, people often saw me as a “tramp” since a decent guy must be well-shaven. At the border, I was always checked. But since several years this has changed, for nowadays, looking unshaven (without having a real beard) is for men in fashion. Although I am still the same person, people see me now in a different way. A moral idea determined a social fact in the minds of those who had it; mistakenly. And, another example, who doesn’t like sometimes a distasteful joke? That the joke is distasteful doesn’t make it not funny just for that reason, although many people think it does.
More commonly, so Foresman, the moralistic fallacy occurs in everyday thinking when one assumes that what is right is what will be. For instance, this happens if a teacher thinks that the students will not cheat because it is not allowed. Or if someone thinks that people will vote because it is their moral obligation. However, it is not so that moral views cannot have practical consequences. They can. So it’s quite possible that the students don’t cheat, since it’s not allowed and therefore you simply don’t do it. Or that people vote, because they feel a moral obligation to do so. Also promises are often fulfilled because you must keep your promises. In other words, morality can affect how the world is and what the facts will be but it doesn’t necessarily do so.

Sources
- Galen Foresman, “Moralistic Fallacy”, in Robert Arp; Steven Barbone; Michael Bruce (eds.), Bad arguments. 100 of the most important fallacies in Western philosophy. Oxford, etc.: Wiley Blackwell, 2019; pp. 371-373.
- Moralistic Fallacy, in Wikipedia.

Random quote
We don't sink quickly but regularly.

Maurits Dekker (1896-1962), Dutch author

Morality and passion

In his A Treatise of Human Nature David Hume famously wrote: “’Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.” (Book II, Part III, Section 3) Although, at first sight, this seems unreasonable, nevertheless at second sight it isn’t. Or rather it is not so when we agree with Hume’s argument. For according to Hume, we are guided by our passions: “A passion is an original existence, or, if you will, modification of existence, and contains not any representative quality, which renders it a copy of any other existence or modification.” So, passions are basic and “’tis impossible, therefore, that [a] passion can be oppos’d by or contradictory to truth and reason…” According to Hume, there are only two exceptions that a passion can be contrary to reason. First, when it is only supposed to exist but in reality it doesn’t, and, second, when the means chosen to achieve a passion are wrong. Thus seen, indeed, it is not irrational “to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger”, but also it is also “not contrary to reason for me to chuse [= choose] my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. ‘Tis as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledg’d lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than for the latter.” Indeed, these examples make the preference of the scratching of my finger to the destruction of the world somewhat less banal and better to understand as “not contrary to reason”, though, I think, it can be argued that Hume’s examples are irrational because just in these cases reason can undermine the passion in view of Hume’s two exceptions.

Nevertheless, I think that there is a flaw in Hume’s argument. In fact, according to Hume, reason is a kind of executive agency of the passions, also in case of the two exceptions. However, it is quite possible that reason is also an “original existence” alongside passions. According to Hume, “reason alone can never produce any action, or give rise to volition” (or prevent volition), and just this makes reason subordinate to and an executive agency of the passions. But I think that reason itself can be seen as a kind of passion, namely as a drive to have to be rational. And just as a combat between passions is possible (for example between love and revenge; like in my last blog, when Otto tried to kill Poppea), it is also imaginable that reason fights with a passion, especially when such a passion can be seen as unreasonable from another perspective that is also basic. One such other perspective is morality. Morality is independent of reason, so Hume, and “morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions.” (II, III, 2) In this way, morality can even be seen as more basic than the passions. Then, in a derived sense, not to want to have my finger scratched in favour of the salvation of the world is as yet irrational if it is contrary to my moral principles (and therefore immoral). It is true, from the narrow perspective that only passions are basic reason can only be the executive agent of a passion. However, as an independent driving force it can be used as the executive agent of any basic drive, or original existence, as Hume calls it. From such a wider perspective, the scratch of my finger can certainly be irrational and unreasonable as well, for instance, when we take our moral values as our starting point or see them even as preceding our passions.

When I wanted to announce my last blog in several social media, as I always do, I started to write “Power is often preferred to morality” and then Hume’s statement popped up in my mind, which, in the end, I didn’t add. But look around how people behave, politicians in the first place. How many behave as if they don’t want to have their fingers scratched (or maybe their souls) and prefer the destruction of the world instead, ignoring morality. Isn’t that a crime?

Random quote
When a communist opponent said that the proletariat will determine what we’ll do, Albert de Jong replied: “When you say that the proletariat will determine what we’ll do, in fact this means that I, the dictator, will determine what we’ll do, while, when I say that I will determine what I’ll do, this may sound individualistic, but only then it is really the proletariat that determines what we’ll do.”

Albert de Jong (1891-1970), Dutch anarchist

Morality and power

Oradour-sur-Glane, France: Massacred and destroyed by the Nazis out of revenge,
 10 June 1944.

Being moral or exercising power. Often it is a contradiction and often we think that there is no other option than to choose the one or the other; in daily life, let alone as a politician, certainly if you are a politician at the top of the – or a – power structure. And how often don’t we opt for power instead of morality? I am afraid that too often we do. Especially, many at the top choose power, even in case morality is a real option.
I had to think of this when, two weeks ago, I saw Monteverdi’s opera L’Incoronazione di Poppea in the City Theatre of Utrecht, performed by the Dutch Touring Opera. The opera was first performed in 1643 in Venice. The musical introduction to the opera presents it as a battle between morality and love, in which love wins, but actually the opera is about morality and power, and, as so often, power wins. I think it is what Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) wanted to tell us, but in his time, in Italy in the first part of the 16th century, often you could not say your message openly, so he concealed the real message behind a more innocent theme, namely the struggle between Virtu and Amor.
But first the story (from the website above):

The Roman emperor Nero is in love with the courtesan Poppea. He wants to take her to wife and cast off his lawful wife Ottavia. Nero’s teacher Seneca considers these plans morally and politically objectionable and must pay for his opposition with forced suicide. The desperate Ottavia decides to have Poppea murdered and forces Otto, Poppea’s former lover, to perform the attack. Otto seeks the help of Drusilla, whom he had left for Poppea at the time. Torn with love and resentment, Otto, wrapped in Drusilla’s cloak, sneaks up on the sleeping Poppea. However, the murder is foiled by Amor, who promises to ensure that Poppea is crowned Empress that same day. Drusilla, whose cloak has been recognized, is arrested and taken to Nero, who questions her sharply. To protect Otto, she takes all the blame. When Otto hears this, he tells the true facts. He is exiled, and Drusilla may accompany him as a reward for her loyalty. Nero now has good reason to cast out Ottavia and banishes her from Rome for good, and Poppea is crowned empress.

In short, L’Incoronazione di Poppea is an opera in which moral values are put aside and power, greed and relations determine what the personages do. At first sight, it seems like another fictional complicated opera story, but in fact it is based on historical facts. Nero really did take Poppea, the wife of his friend Otto, for instance, and cast out his wife Ottavia. And Seneca, the teacher of Nero, was really forced to commit suicide, though in reality because Nero thought that he had taken part in a conspiracy (whether Seneca really did is not certain). Etc. But what Monteverdi (and his librettist Giovanni Francesco Busenello) presents us here actually is a complicated network of power and intrigues. Ted Huffman, the director of this performance of the opera, explains that the opera is about political and moral questions that are still relevant today: “At the moment that Europe balances on the brink of war, we are concerned with questions such as: What happens if our moral values are no longer worth anything? … What can we do, while we see that the world order collapses? Can reason and goodness stop the decline? How to deal with the violent destruction of a social order by a psychopathic autocrat? Just these are the questions presented by Monteverdi in the opera.” But actually, it is not only Nero, it is not only the autocrat, who uses power at the cost of morality, but all those who become included in the play and so get involved in it, are not only onlookers and victims. They are participants. Huffman: “For example, is it so that Poppea becomes immoral, because Nero uses all his means to separate from his wife Ottavia, so that he can marry Poppea, … [or] is it so that Poppea can live with Nero’s misdeeds and abuse of power? We can ask such questions also for other personages. Take Seneca: Isn’t it maybe so that he tried to prevent the repudiation of Ottavia in order to keep his own power at the court?” We can say something like that of every personage in the opera: Each one thinks to have reasons to use power at the cost of morality. “None of the characters in the opera thinks to be guilty or blameworthy – just like in real life, when nobody wants to be the bad guy”, and, as I want to add, nobody thinks to be a bad guy or bad girl. This is so for Poppea, and for Seneca and for all characters in the opera. Nobody, once involved in the play, considers the possibility that there may be other options and everybody stays on the stage and plays his or her part. Nevertheless, other options were possible, for wasn’t it so that a few years later the real historic Nero was deposed by the Senate (the equivalent of the modern parliament or Congress) because of his misconduct? Power doesn’t need to exclude morality. It’s something to think about, even when you have become involved in a play in which you didn’t want to have a part.
Need I explain more about the relevance of L’Incoronazione di Poppea? With this opera, Monteverdi wanted to criticize the political and social world of his days, but also 400 years later it still holds up a mirror to us. 

Random quote
Such as make it their business to oversee human actions, do not find themselves in anything so much perplexed as to reconcile them and bring them into the world’s eye with the same lustre and reputation; for they commonly so strangely contradict one another that it seems impossible they should proceed from one and the same person.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

Euphemism

Person without permanent residence

Who controls the language controls the mind. Philosophically, there is a lot to say about this statement that undermines its truth (For instance: Who controls the language of the controller?). However, despite philosophical doubts, in practice it works often that way. One who has best described the working of mind control by language is George Orwell. His 1984 and Animal Farm have seldom been so relevant as today. Whether they have read Orwell’s works or haven’t, many politicians know the value of this statement, and they apply it; not only for convincing the public and their potential voters but also for manipulating them. Language is often used for pushing people in a certain direction, while concealing their real intentions; by politicians in the first place, but certainly not only by them.
Manipulating the public is often done by means of fallacies: Argumentations in which the conclusions don’t follow from the premisses. Another way to manipulate others with words is by giving them a vague meaning. Often there isn’t much difference between the one and the other. Using vague words often leads to fallacies. Actually, if your intention is to manipulate with words, it’s not important whether these words belong to the first category or to the second. Only the effect counts.
Manipulating your public by softening the meaning of your words or with vague meanings means using euphemisms. A euphemism is “a delicate, indirect, inoffensive, or vague word or phrase that takes the place of one that is unpleasant, blunt, offensive or graphic.” (Baltzer-Jaray, p. 270) Euphemisms are often used, when you don’t want to hurt the feelings of those you are talking to and want to be polite, or when you want to avoid directly talking about certain subjects, like death and sex. However, it is not what I want to talk about now. Here I want to discuss euphemisms as instruments for thought manipulation and by this the way people behave. I’ll concentrate on the former and let the behavioural aspect implicit. Then we see (following Baltzer-Jaray) that euphemistic language is used for:
- preventing inappropriately stirring people’s emotions by using neutral terms like calling homeless people “people without permanent residence”, or mentally disabled people “people with abilities”. When many years ago the first migrant workers from Southern Europe and Morocco arrived in the Netherlands, they were called “guest workers”, concealing that they were poorly paid, did often dirty and heavy work and were badly housed.
- swaying people’s opinions or emotions to a particular side, for example when torture is called “enhanced interrogation”, or non-combatant civilian victims in a war are called “collateral damage”.
- concealing a person’s role in responsibility for a bad deed, for example when it is said that someone has not been killed but “neutralized”, or that a government has “disinformed” the parliament instead of having lied.
Such euphemisms are “fallacious”, so Baltzer-Jaray, “because they are intentionally used to conceal the truth and obscure any real meaning; they are soft language used to mask or downplay warranted emotional force.” In other words, they are instruments of manipulation. They make you think less critically and suppress your feelings. That’s the political side. As said, in daily life euphemism are also often used, and there they can have a positive side as well. However, in advertising often weasel words are used to seduce you to buy certain products. Such words “appear to say something truthful or meaningful, but really they conceal truth and meaning”. So, if a product “combats wrinkles” and “dermatology experts agree skin appears smoother”, such a recommendation in an advertisement seldom says to what extent it will probably be successful (1%, 25%, 75%?) and which experts say so and what is meant by “skin appears smoother”.
Euphemistic words and expressions are often used to mislead. Once you have fallen into the trap and believe them in their literal sense and doesn’t see the deception behind the euphemistically used words, maybe you’ll vote for a politician because of these words, or buy a product that is misleadingly advertised to be good. And that’s just what the politician, advertiser or whoever wants to mislead you with euphemisms intends.

Sources
- Baltzer-Jaray, Kimberley, “Euphemism”, in Arp, Robert; Steven Barbone; Michael Bruce (eds.), Bad arguments. 100 of the most important fallacies in Western philosophy. Oxford, etc.: Wiley Blackwell, 2019; pp. 270-272.
- “Euphemism”, in Wikipedia.