The Peking opera "The Temple of the Law" features a character named Jia Gui. When he meets the eunuch Liu Jin, Liu Jin asks Jia Gui to sit down and talk, but Jia Gui refuses to sit and says, "I am used to standing, I don't want to sit." This reflects the servility developed by habit; in front of the powerful Liu Jin, how could Jia Gui dare to sit on equal footing?
In Europe in 1548, the French royal family ordered a salt tax on sea salt. In a short time, over twenty thousand fishermen, salt farmers, artisans, small merchants, helpers, and workers in southwestern France rose up in resistance. Six tax collectors and the governor of Bordeaux were killed, and they once controlled Bordeaux. The French royal family was furious and repeatedly sent troops to suppress the uprising, resulting in hundreds of deaths and sentencing more than 140 participants in the riot to death. Ultimately, the French royal family canceled the salt tax, and the riot was quelled.
A young man witnessed this bloody and brutal riot firsthand, which had a profound impact on him. As a result, he wrote a book that would have a lasting influence on future generations—"On Voluntary Servitude." This young man was Étienne de La Boétie, a foundational figure in French political philosophy and an important representative of the theory of resistance against tyranny.
Since ancient times, tyranny has always existed, from ancient Greece and Rome to the fascism of the 20th century and Stalin's totalitarianism. Why do these arrogant, violent, oppressive, intimidating, inhumane, foolish, and corrupt tyrants arise and maintain their existence? La Boétie poses the question in his book: "Why do thousands of people tolerate the whims of a tyrant? And this tyrant's power comes precisely from their granting it. Why do people live miserably under servitude yet refuse to rise up and change?" This is the famous "La Boétie Question" regarding tyranny.
La Boétie argues in his book that we must first acknowledge a fact: every tyranny is inevitably built on the general acceptance of the people, meaning that the majority of the populace tacitly approves of their own enslavement. For example, under the Soviet system, the wealth of the entire nation was nominally owned by all, but in reality, it was monopolized by one party. Soviet officials had complete control over taxation and expenditure, whether wasteful or corrupt, with ordinary citizens having no voice. Countless people not only complied with such a system of property monopoly but were also driven into a state of slavery.
La Boétie states that a few people may fear and be oppressed by the tyrant, and we might believe they lack courage. But if millions, even hundreds of cities, silently obey, that is a bad habit that does not deserve to be called cowardice. What they lack is not courage but the desire to resist. Their easy submission seems as if they have not lost their freedom but have gained enslavement.
La Boétie believes that there are three main reasons why people willingly become slaves. 1. Habit. La Boétie argues that, like animals and plants, humans are born free; personal dignity and freedom are natural rights that should not and cannot be relinquished. Voluntary servitude is a violation of nature, pathological, and therefore an evil. Animals, when captured by humans, instinctively use their forepaws, hind legs, mouths, teeth, and horns to resist desperately until they escape or die. "Cows groan under heavy burdens, and birds chirp in cages to protest." Animals refuse to submit, while self-proclaimed superior humans abandon and destroy their natural nature to become slaves.
The reason for this, according to La Boétie, is the customs and habits of generations. Tyrants gain high positions through elections, force, and blood relations, consolidating their power through various means, becoming increasingly enduring. Initially, some may resist, but over time, many will begin to accept and become accustomed to the tyranny's rule and humiliation. The first generation may be forced, but the second and third generations will take this enslavement for granted.
Their methods of consolidating tyranny include: 1. Quickly erasing the people's memory of freedom, as subjects without the memory of freedom are easier to govern. 2. "Having great scholars argue on my behalf," where the discipline and propaganda of tyranny, through violence, education, and bribery, cause people to lose their natural freedom and willingly become slaves, to the point where they no longer realize they are living in a state of enslavement. They employ methods to weaken public intelligence, tame public opinion, create confusion, and entertain and corrupt the populace to consolidate their rule.
In Homer's epic "The Odyssey," the land of the Cimmerians is only bright for half the year; those accustomed to darkness never seek the light. Tyranny uses education to form habits, habits of enslavement. Because people do not yearn for what they do not know, those accustomed to darkness will never have the desire to seek the light. For ordinary people, the most effective tactic of the tyrant is to lead them into degradation, as the degraded are the most cowardly and submissive. La Boétie warns us that tyranny, to consolidate its rule, will train the populace to worship the tyrant. All tyrants need to create a cult of personality and must severely suppress those who do not forget freedom.
- Accomplices and henchmen: the minor tyrants. Around the tyrant, there will be five or six trusted individuals who share power and wealth with them. The tyrant controls the entire nation through these people, who serve the tyrant comfortably while turning around to use even more brutal means against the subordinates to demonstrate loyalty to the tyrant. Beneath these five or six, there forms a group of cruel officials numbering in the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or even millions, who are loyal to each other, protect each other, exploit each other, and instill fear, completing the surveillance, abuse, and control of society, all regions and provinces, all villages, and all people. Thousands of minor tyrants flatter and assist the major tyrant, harming the populace to please the greatest tyrant.
La Boétie's arguments remain a wake-up call for us even five hundred years later. As Lu Xun said, "Is it right just because it has always been this way?"