ruler – The New American State https://www.thenewamericanstate.com Thu, 29 Oct 2020 09:41:28 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 Is it Important Who Rules https://www.thenewamericanstate.com/is-it-important-who-rules/ Thu, 30 Jul 2020 09:10:00 +0000 http://themecanon.com/booker/?p=1006 Unfortunately, the philosophical treatise with the most significant literary value, which became the most influential book in the political history of mankind, is Plato’s The Republic. I say “unfortunately” because The Republic is a masterfully created illusion. It suggests that it is possible to have a wise and good ruler who cares for the welfare of the state and who, through his own judgment, guided by his own ethical criteria, can adjudicate and govern justly. Plato suggests that this type of ruler is possible and that people should strive for a state structure that encourages finding such.

Creating the image of a ruler concerned with the good of society is the most dangerous political illusion. It has had a tremendous intellectual influence on a number of philosophers and political thinkers. It has provided the intellectual basis for legitimizing and defending all kinds of dictatorships and some of the most obscurantist political regimes. Can you recall the name of even one dictator who did not present himself as a savior concerned for the good of the people? I do not.

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]]> Fear and the State – Controlling the Fear https://www.thenewamericanstate.com/fear-and-the-state/ Thu, 30 Jul 2020 08:50:54 +0000 https://www.thenewpolity.com/?p=1 Fear of the strong, of the one in power, is the longest existing political emotion in human history. This fear is hardwired into our genes. Whole social systems have been built through its institutionalization in regulations. Entire eras of human history have been dominated by it. Every form of slavery is based on this kind of fear. Every form of unlimited power, of subordination and restriction of an individual or group of people, is based on a fear of the ruler and the state.

Power is inextricably linked to fear. It has created the most stable human emotion, and with it, the most important political instinct – that of survival. In historical perspective, the degree and form of fear of the ruler determine the differences between the disenfranchised person, the subject, and the citizen. The disenfranchised knows no other protection against arbitrariness than the benevolence of the ruler. The subject – outside of modern constitutional monarchies – exists in a world of hierarchy and institutionalized inequality. He depends on an authority that is formally limited by customs and norms, but not subject to control by any institution or collective body. The only way for the subject to reduce his degree of fear of the government, aside from the benevolence of the ruler, is to rely on his status, on custom, or on traditions.

The citizen is the first type of human being in whom fear is a function of the application and interpretation of words written on a piece of paper by a formally independent court, and not of the will of the ruler.

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