On The Origin of Tyranny

Children of Despotic Minorities

I. The Foreward

The meaning of "origin" is "the beginning or cause of something" (Cambridge Dictionary, cf Oxford).

Obviously, then, tyranny emerges originally in a nation or civilization that does not yet nor ever did have it.

That is, tyranny does not originally emerge for the first time from itself, so logically it must emerge in a non-tyrannical womb ("the place where something originates and develops").

So, what type of environment, nation, or civilization does tyranny emerge in?

The only answer I can come up with, after reading The Origin of Tyranny (PDF), is:

any environment, nation, or civilization where tyranny does not yet exist.

Thus, the short answer is that tyranny must emerge in an environment, nation, or civilization that is not already tyrannical (e.g. in a democracy).

It would seem, then, that the most vulnerable to it are those environments, nations, or civilizations with the "It can't happen here" mindset (LieGate).

II. The Current Situation

Another historian (besides the one that wrote "The Origin of Tyranny") studied the situation at length in terms of the womb of tyranny, focusing on the tyranny that brought environments, nations, or civilizations down:

"In the Study Toynbee examined the rise and fall of 26 civilizations in the course of human history, and he concluded that they rose by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities composed of elite leaders. Civilizations declined when their leaders stopped responding creatively, and the civilizations then sank owing to the sins of nationalism, militarism, and the tyranny of a despotic minority. Unlike Spengler in his The Decline of the West, Toynbee did not regard the death of a civilization as inevitable, for it may or may not continue to respond to successive challenges. Unlike Karl Marx, he saw history as shaped by spiritual, not economic forces" ...

(How To Identify The Despotic Minority). In that post I wrote about the womb of tyranny, which is "a despotic minority", but I did not talk at length about the nature of their tyranny itself.

That is because to historians the tyranny itself is naturally associated with the particular characteristics of the particular minority which has become despotic at a given time in history.

It is up to us, then, to identify the characteristics of the particular tyranny of the despotic minority that has or could arise in our country in our lifetime.

The book The Origin of Tyranny, which I mentioned and linked to in Section I above, identifies many possible minorities.

It can be a wealthy minority (e.g. The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy, 2, 3, 4, 8), a disenfranchised minority of most any sort (e.g. Storm The Bastille), or a military minority (e.g. Will The Military Become The Police?, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

III. The Tyranny

Remember that the tyranny we are analyzing is "the tyranny of a despotic minority."

So, let's begin with "despotic", which stems from "despot", which is:

"a person, especially a ruler, who has unlimited power over other people, and often uses it unfairly and cruelly"

(Cambridge Dictionary).  Dictionaries tell us that "tyranny" is:

"unlimited authority or use of power, or a government which exercises such power without any control or limits" (Cambridge Dictionary)

"oppressive power exerted by government" (Merriam Webster)

"A tyranny is a cruel, harsh, and unfair government in which a person or small group of people have power over everyone else. " (Collins)

A despotic ruler is a minority of one, but the power actually originates in a minority group of people supporting the ruling despot.

There is a lot of enlightenment on the psychology of both the ruler and the followers in a book entitled "The Authoritarians" (How To Identify The Despotic Minority - 3).

IV. The Etiology

The way a despotic minority evolves depends on the culture, however, much of the particular dynamics are universally understandable (Etiology of Social Dementia - 5).

V. The Conclusion

The bottom line is that both the tyranny and the despot are defined by the characteristics of the minority that has become despotic.

That "minority" can be millions of people, can be multiracial, one race, multicultural, one culture, etc. (e.g. election, 2016).

However, the one required characteristic is that such a minority must be despotic.

Finally, the one thing which that despotic minority must espouse is tyranny.

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