Aristotle Explains How Tyrants Keep Power ｜ 1⧸28⧸26
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Summary
In this episode, I talk about the role of tyranny in our society and why it is the worst form of government. I discuss the three main types of government, the good, the bad, and the degenerate ones, and why a tyrant should be the worst of them.
Transcript
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Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I am Oren McIntyre.
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You know that we are big fans of Aristotle around here. Always enjoy diving into his
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thought and seeing how we can apply it to the modern day despite being written thousands
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of years ago. Books like Aristotle's Politics or Ethics, Rhetoric, all remain incredibly
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important, incredibly prescient. Ones that are still able to be applied in pretty much
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every situation we look around today. I want to look today at Aristotle's Politics. We're
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going to be looking at Book 5, Section 11, I believe, Chapter 11, which is his discussion
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on tyranny. Now, Aristotle in the politics is running through all the different forms of
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government. Remember, Aristotle believes that there are three main types of government.
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There's rule of the one, there's rule of the few, and there's rule of the many. And inside
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of those three categories, there is both good and bad. So for the rule of one, the good,
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it is the monarch. And he says this is the best form of government. If we have a true
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good monarch, a true benevolent, wise monarch, this is the best option for all government.
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But then he says a bad monarch, a tyrant, is the worst of all options. So in rule of the one,
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we have the best possible outcome and the worst possible outcome, which makes sense.
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There's only one failure point. It's rule of the one. In rule of the many, we have aristocracy,
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which is the good version, and oligarchy, which is the bad version. And in each one of these
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versions, the only real difference is always whether or not the government is ruling on behalf
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of the people for the good of the greater state, or if it's ruling for their own interests.
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So in the rule of one, you have the king who's ruling in the interest of the entire country,
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and then you have the tyrant ruling in their own interests. In the rule of a few, you have the
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aristocracy, again, ruling for the betterment of the entire nation. And then you have the oligarchy,
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which is ruling only on behalf of its own interests, its own money, that kind of thing.
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And then we have the rule of the many. And the better one is the polity. And then the degenerate
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one is democracy. And so again, it's whether it's a rule in favor of the good of the nation,
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or whether it's in favor of just whatever the people in charge want. So it's not that democracy
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or oligarchy or tyranny are somehow better than each other inherently. It's that each one has
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a version where they rule in favor of the actual general good. And it could be the people,
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the wider rule of many ruling on behalf of the good, or it could be a single person ruling on
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behalf of the good and vice versa. Now he does, again, point to the strengths and weaknesses of
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each. It's not that democracy and tyranny are exactly the same thing. It's not that a polity and
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a monarchy are exactly the same thing. They each have strengths and weaknesses.
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But he is saying that generally it's better, no matter what your form of government,
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to prefer one that is going to rule for the betterment of the entire nation and not just
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the individual. Now tyranny is obviously the degenerated form of monarchy. It's rule of one
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for the interests of one. And Aristotle, being a thorough political scientist or what amounts to
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political science or philosophy at this time, political theory, is going to say, okay, here's
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what a tyrant should do if they want to keep power. Now you could view this one of two ways. You could
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say, oh, well, it's satirical or you're just pointing out the way in which the tyrant would rule
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so you can be aware of these things. He's warning us against these. Or you could say, okay, this is
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guy just doing real politic and he doesn't like tyranny. But if you're going to be a tyrant,
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this is the mechanical way you would keep power. It's kind of like Machiavelli, right? Like
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Machiavelli actually preferred a republic to a monarchy, but he still wrote The Prince, which is
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his most famous work in which a lot of people assume that because he's giving practical advice to
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kings, a king is what he would like. But that's not actually the case. And Aristotle here is saying,
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okay, well, you know, I obviously don't like tyranny. Actually, I think it's the worst form of
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government. But if you were a tyrant, this is what your playbook would look like. And because this
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allows us to see the different mechanisms that he thought would be critical for a tyrant to keep
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power, I think it's useful because we can look at the world around us today, the people in charge,
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the way our societies function or they want to function and see, you know, what parts of this
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are we experiencing? What can we tease out of this? How does this impact us today? So that's
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what we're going to be doing. We're going to read through most of this section and take a look at
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what Aristotle said. All right. So let's jump in here where we're just going to jump right into where
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he starts talking about tyrannies. He says, as to tyrannies, they are preserved in two most
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opposite ways. One of them is the old traditional method in which most tyrants administer their
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government. Of such arts, Periander of Corinth is said to have been the great master, and many
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similar devices may be gathered from the Persians in the administration of their government.
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These are firstly the descriptions mentioned some distance back for the preservation of a tyranny.
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In so far as this is possible, that the tyrant should lop off those that are too high. He must
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put to death men of spirit. He must not allow common meals, clubs, education, and the like. He must be
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upon his guard against anything which is likely to inspire either courage or confidence in his
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subjects. All right. So right here, we're seeing a few things the tyrant needs to do right away. First,
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he needs to get rid of those that are too impressive, too inspiring. He's put to death
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men of spirit. Why? Because he doesn't want any competition. When you're a tyrant, you're ruling
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through pure charisma or pure fear, right? You are relying on your dynamic ability as a leader.
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So you don't want any other competition because you're a tyrant. You're not a monarch. You're ruling
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for your own interest, not the interest of your people. So your own interests say, I need to be
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in charge all the time and I'm not going to take any risks with other guys. They might be good for
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the country. They might be great guys. They might even be great leaders, but they will not be in my
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in my tyranny because they might outshine me. So I need to put those people to death. I need to run
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them out. I need to cut them down. As Aristotle says, he says he must not allow common meals, clubs,
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education, and the like. So we don't want people getting together, forming bonds. Common meals in
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most city states, classic city states, were the way that you bonded the community together. They
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usually shared a common meal, often sacrificed to the God of the city. And that was considered both a
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religious and social ritual that bound everyone together and community, made them part of the same
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tribe, part of the same city, part of the same identity. So we don't want that. We don't want our
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people to feel unified as a people. We want them to feel separated and isolated. No unity, no common
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identity, no clubs or education. We don't want educated people. That one's pretty obvious. If I'm a
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tyrant, I don't want intelligent people. I don't need their input. I'm not going to listen to it
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anyway. I don't want any of them becoming smart or spirited. That's a threat to my identity. I don't
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want clubs. I don't want people getting together, organizing, making friends, just like the common
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meals. The bonds are the problem. By the way, that's why you hear guys like me and Dave Green and
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Matt Williams all saying, we need to get together in real life. You need to be forming community.
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You need to be joining clubs, join the old glory club, join exit, join whatever fraternal organization
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is in your area, work with like-minded people, go to church. The reason is that this is exactly the
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opposite of what Aristotle says the tyrant wants you to do. How do we oppose tyranny? We're having
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shared connections, shared identity, shared understandings, being able to work together.
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And that's exactly what they do not want. That's exactly what a tyrant should oppose. If he is
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going to stay in power, he must be upon his guard against anything, which is likely to inspire either
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courage or confidence among his subjects. Again, he cannot allow courage or confidence. You don't want
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any of those people looking at your tyranny and saying, well, maybe, you know, maybe we could take
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him. Maybe we could figure out how to get past the guards. Maybe we could figure out how to outfox him.
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Maybe we could figure out how to depose him. You do not want any of that. You don't want courage.
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You don't want confidence. You want people scared of you, dependent on you, worried about you.
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He also says he must prohibit literary assemblies or other meetings for discussion. So we want to
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make sure just like the clubs and the common meals, we don't have people getting together.
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They're not enjoying culture, discussing things. It's not it. The culture is the literary and cultural
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problems are twofold. One, it's going to remind you who you are. All right. You're going to have a
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more total understanding of the world. You're going to become more complete perspective about
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your history and your heritage and your traditions and your understanding. They can't just feed you
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what they want you to believe. You'll be too familiar. And also you'll be getting together with
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like-minded people and again, building that community. So just like banning the common meals
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and the clubs, you want to ban those assembly, those literally assemblies, other meetings for
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discussion. And he must take every means to prevent people from knowing one another for acquaintances
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to get mutual confidence. Again, isolated, individual, don't be collectivist, be an individual,
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be an atomized individual. Don't trust anyone else. Don't let anyone trust you. Don't be dependent
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on anyone else. Don't let anyone else be dependent on you. Don't organize together. Don't think of a
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common understanding. Don't think of yourselves as having a common identity. Every one of you is an
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individual. That's what a tyrant wants. He wants individuals who will not work together, not recognize
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each other, not work towards a common goal. Those are the threats to a tyrant. So he has to make sure
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it prevents any other way of people knowing each other because that mutual confidence is gained by
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having those acquaintances, by building those relationships. Further, he must compel all
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persons staying in the city to appear in public and live at his gates. Then he will know what they
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are doing. If they are always kept under, they will learn to be humble. So they need to be observed
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all the time, right? If they were out near the city gates, he can observe them from the palace
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or from a tower. If they're out further away and their home's hidden, he doesn't know what's going
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on. So we have to have a constant surveillance. People who are under a constant surveillance,
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the tyrant will know what they're doing, and they will learn to be humbled by that constant being
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kept under. Now, of course, today, we don't need that. Many people will, of course, first think of
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like Bentham's Panopticon and the ability to see every single prisoner in a cell, making sure that
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every one of these is ultimately visible. But we don't even need that anymore because you have
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a cell phone and an internet history and all the other ways in which the government can
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observe you constantly. You're expected to post on social media. You're expected to make certain
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declarations of allegiances to different causes and understandings. And so that constant pressure
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that you are being observed on social media through your electronics, CCTV cameras around major
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cities, you can't do anything. You can't say anything because it might end up getting posted
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online. So even though the government isn't necessarily theoretically watching you all the time,
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though maybe they are given the current level of, you know, the current complexity of our
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technology. But even if they aren't watching all the time, your friends and family and co-workers
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are. And what if they record something you say and then that ends up on the internet could ruin your
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life forever? So even though we don't have the city gates here, we certainly have something that's
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very analogous. In fact, something that probably any tyrant desperately wishes they had had instead of
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having to force everyone to live near the city gates. In short, he should practice these and like
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Persian and barbaric arts, which all have the same object. A tyrant should also endeavor to know what
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each of his subjects says or does and should employ spies like the female detectives at Syracuse and
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the eavesdroppers whom Hiro was in the habit of sending to any place of resort or meeting. For fear of
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informers prevents people from speaking in their minds. And if they do, they are more easily found
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out. So you should observe people all the time. But if for some reason you can't, you need to employ
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a bunch of spies. You need to have this spy network constantly out there looking and hearing and trying
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to understand. And not only will this give you this constant information, not only will you have
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that intelligence on what everyone else is doing and be more likely to be able to control it.
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But in addition to that, the fear of just knowing that those agents could be anywhere will scare
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everyone into inaction, right? Think about how often you hear we can't organize in real life as
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right wing people because there'll be a federal agent in there. And you know what? A lot of times
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there was. The federal agents were really trying to make up all these garbage cases and pressure every
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right winger. We've seen this, especially in countries like the UK or Australia, but even
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the United States, that was the case. And so it's not that the charge a federal agent might be in your
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organization is, is not true. It was true, but also the fear that they might be there made that idea
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that you could organize. You were constantly scared of it. And of course, this already applies to everything
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I said about social media, all of your friends and family and coworkers, they are spies. You have to
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be worried because they have a camera. If they disagree with you politically, they can destroy
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your life in a minute. So even if they're not official spies of the state, even if they're not
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official informants, they are functionally informants on you. And so you have to constantly
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live in fear that this will happen. So this is very much something that is present in our everyday
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lives. Now, less with, I guess, the federal agents, theoretically under the Trump administration,
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but still this constant fear that something you say or something you do will go viral on the internet
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and will destroy you means a lot of people have to be very, very quiet with their actual beliefs and
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certainly any kind of action they would take. Another art of the tyrant is to sow quarrels among the
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citizens. Friends should be embroiled with friends and the people with the nobles and the rich with
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one another. Also, you should have impoverished his subjects. He thus provides against the maintenance
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of a guard by the citizens and the people having to keep hard at work are prevented from conspiring.
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The pyramids of Egypt afford an example of this policy. Also, the offerings of the family of
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Cleopas, or I'm probably saying that wrong, and the buildings of the temples of Olympian Zeus
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and by Pistratides. Again, I'm sure I'm saying it very wrong. And the great Polycretian
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monument at Semos. Somewhere the ancient professors, the classic professors are pulling out their hair
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and screaming. All these works are alike intended to occupy the people and keep them poor. So two things
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here, right? He says, first, you need to go ahead and have these people quarreling all the time.
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Set friends against friends and nobles against the people, the rich against one another. Get everyone
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angry at each other all the time. You know what's really good for this? Democracy. Democracy is really
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good for this. I'm not angry at the rulers. I'm angry at my neighbor. I'm not angry at the elites
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with actual power. I'm angry with the guy down my street who owns a Ford dealership because he's got
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more money than me. This is how you actually set people against each other, right? It's everyone
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else's fault. It's never the ruler's fault. So make sure that they're always arguing against each
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other. You could do this a lot of ways, but democracy is certainly one. Also, he suggests that
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you need these large public works projects that like the people are mandatorily required to involve
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themselves in. And that will keep them busy the whole time, right? So that you don't have to
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worry about it. They're too exhausted. They have to constantly work. They have to constantly keep
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their eye. And these public works are really only glorifying usually the ruling class. Yo, who are
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the pyramids of Egypt for? Well, they're for the Egyptian rulers. It's their tomb. It's for their glory.
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So not only are you raising my power as a tyrant, but I'm also ensuring that you don't have time to
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think about anything else. You spend all day doing what else you need to do. Then you give your labor
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towards this monumental task. You're too busy at the end of the day to worry about anything. And my
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prestige continues to grow. So keep them angry, keep them arguing with each other, keep them poor,
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and make sure that they're constantly working. Any of that sound familiar?
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Let's see here. Another practice of the tyrant is to multiply taxes, lots of taxes, after the
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manner of Dionysus of Syracuse, who contrived that within five years, his subjects should bring into
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the treasury their whole property. The tyrant is also fond of making war in order that his subjects
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may have something to do and be always in want of a leader. All right. So tyrant needs to raise a lot
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of taxes. Make sure the people are heavily taxed so they don't have any money. Then he's bringing
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in lots of money in there. And then he should also constantly be making war because that will keep
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the people distracted and they'll always feel like they need to have a leader. Someone needs to have
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power. Someone needs to be having control. We're at war. We don't have time to debate whether or not
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the tyrant should be in charge. He's busy fighting off our enemies. Again, none of these things are
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particularly difficult to spot in our current reality.
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And whereas the power of a king is preserved by his friends, the characteristics of a tyrant is to
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distrust his friends because he knows that all men want to overthrow him and they above all have the
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power. So remember, for Aristotle, the king is not a bad thing. A monarch is not a bad thing.
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It could be the best thing. It actually could be the best form of government. So what's the difference
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between the king and the tyrant here? Well, he says the king is preserved by his friends.
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The king is ruling for the good of the people. And so his friends are his closest allies because
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they want him to succeed. His success is their success and the rest of the people's success.
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We're all working together. We have the same telos. We have the same inn in mind. But the tyrant,
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he doesn't like his own friends because they're the most powerful people around him. Of course,
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he's the tyrant. He has all the power. But because he has all the power, everyone wants to overthrow him.
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He's constantly in jeopardy. And who are the only people who really probably have the ability to
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overthrow him? His friends who have a lot of power and wealth because they're attached to him. So at
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some level, he knows he probably needs them because no one truly rules alone, right? Iron law of oligarchy.
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It's always going to be some clique of people sharing that power. However, he also despises
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them because they're the only people close enough to power to actually take it. So he needs them. He
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keeps them around. But he doesn't rule with their friendship. In many ways, he has to rule against
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it. He has to be worried constantly that these people will come for his power because everyone hates
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them because he's not ruling in the interest of the greater civilization.
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Again, the evil practices of the last and the worst form of democracy are all found in tyrannies.
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So all the problems we see in the worst problems of democracy also exist when it comes to the rule
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of a tyrant. Such are the powers given to women in their families in the hope that they will inform
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against their husbands and the license which is allowed to slaves in order that they may betray their
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masters. For slaves and women do not conspire against tyrants and they are of course friendly to
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tyrannies and also to democracies since under them they have a good time. For the people too would
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feign in monarchy and therefore by them as well as by the tyrant, the flatterer is held in honor.
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In democracies, he is the demagogue and the tyrant also has those who associate with him
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in a humble spirit which is the work of flattery. So it says so he says here that you you see a lot
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of tyrants and democracies both lean on women and slaves. Now to some extent he's pointing out here
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okay I think one part of that is because women and slaves generally are not treated well by other
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forms of government. So maybe it just makes sense logically that they're going to side with those
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types of governments. But he might also and I think probably is given Aristotle's other passages
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about these two groups. He's also pointing to what he believes to be a predilection by both groups
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to be welcoming to tyranny. They tend to be groups in his mind that are not looking for in you know
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their own individual wills or dignity to be asserted. They just want the government to treat them
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better. And so if a tyrant is going to offer them these abilities to you know go ahead and have
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more rights or have more more things as long as they turn on their husbands or their masters well
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they're going to do it because they see that as an advantage. Now maybe you'll say oh good well they
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should because nobody should be a slave and you know women you know shouldn't have any you know they
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should be able to do whatever their husbands do. They shouldn't have any more loyalty to their
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husbands than anyone else. You know maybe that's ultimately where you believe but that you know
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that that just kind of speaks to his point. Whether you think that you know women slaves will be justified
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in those actions or not he's saying well because of that they are going they're not going to resist
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tyrants. They're going to work with tyrants. They're going to encourage tyrants. And so he also points out
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that flattery is a huge problem that people like uh like this enjoy you know surrounding themselves
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with flatterers. Now if you're in a democracy and it's the it's the people it's the demos that's in
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charge it's popular sovereignty well then you flatter the crowd. Uh you know that's what a demagogue
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does gets up and says you know uh we're the americans and we're the best and it's all about you guys and
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you know we're we're going to give you everything you want because the people are right and the people
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speak for us that's demagoguery that's flattery of the people or if it's the tyrant you might have
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so you know just a bunch of sycophantic people saying of course the emperor has clothes on oh
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he's great everything he does is amazing he's the most handsome smart guy around here and you know he
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just does whatever is right and we should all trust him that's flattery right and so he says whether
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it's the tyrant or uh the the democracy flattery in these late stage like failing uh governments
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they tend to be key right and so uh that that's something to watch out as well and of course we
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can point to many people we can even point to donald trump if there's one thing we know about
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donald trump i don't think he's a tyrant but if there's one aspect he certainly has it's that he
00:24:59.400
seems to enjoy flattery quite a bit flattery will get you uh everywhere with donald trump so that is a
00:25:04.980
a a uh predilection that he has that i think manifests itself pretty obviously is one of the
00:25:10.060
things aristotle warns us about his tyranny uh hence tyrants are always fond of bad men because they
00:25:18.140
love to be flattered but no man who has the spirit of a free man in him will lower himself to flattery
00:25:25.260
good men love others or at any rate do not flatter them all right so this is important
00:25:30.960
because a lot of people when they look at monarchy and remember monarchy and tyranny are different
00:25:38.900
things for aristotle they are different things for aristotle a lot of people will look at uh at uh
00:25:47.100
you know the the depictions of kings in popular media and they will say oh well it's all people
00:25:54.680
they run around terrified of these people and they basically worship them and everyone's flattering
00:25:59.920
them all the time and look some of that most certainly went off okay it's not to pretend
00:26:04.220
that you know no one was a flatterer and no one uh was shameless or obsequious before a king
00:26:10.480
uh that obviously happened but aristotle says there's a difference between a king and a tyrant
00:26:15.660
and one of the things is kind of pointing to and you notice he referenced the persians many times over
00:26:20.880
but you know there's a very different understanding of what a king does between say the english and the
00:26:27.780
chinese right like like the god emperor model is very different than the constitutionally restrained
00:26:36.000
king right these are very different models and so you can have a king who is not worshiped like a god
00:26:43.060
in fact in many cases kings came out of this idea that they were just the first among many nobles
00:26:48.620
and so there was a certain level of you know the king wasn't equal with a peasant but there's an
00:26:54.180
understanding that the king was not god either there might have been you know the divine right
00:26:58.740
of a king later on developed that's not actually like a a big thing in the you know 1300s even though
00:27:05.280
you know obviously they were receiving um uh you know uh crowns from from the the pope or something like
00:27:11.780
that oftentimes but the idea that the king himself was like somehow deified uh simply did not exist
00:27:18.540
for most of western history in large part because that wasn't allowed under the christian church
00:27:22.920
that's a huge problem with you know when the romans went from having a republic they had to start
00:27:28.220
deifying their emperors right like because you needed the imperial cult and one of the reasons that
00:27:33.800
uh christians and jews funny enough uh were uh considered bad subjects is they would not worship
00:27:40.080
right even though like it was mainly performative like most people didn't really believe that caesar was
00:27:46.360
like a god or at least not early on um but like you went through the motions and you just said yeah
00:27:52.980
our our our our our you know lord and you know the you know the this the you know deified quasi uh
00:28:01.120
religious uh you know uh king emperor uh you know we're gonna worship him but the christians wouldn't
00:28:07.880
and the jews wouldn't and so that was a huge problem because you can't really have the tyranny
00:28:12.500
if people aren't treating you like you haven't you're you're a deity like you're someone who has
00:28:18.020
that level of power uh so you know remove it so so as he's saying here you could be a man who lives
00:28:23.620
under a king honorably if you're not someone who's going to lie and flatter uh you know and like debase
00:28:30.700
yourself there are scenarios where you could have a monarchy where you are still a man under respect
00:28:36.800
but if you're if you if everyone needs to flatter if everyone needs to fall down and worship well
00:28:42.040
then you probably have a tyranny not just a monarchy moreover the bad are useful for bad purposes
00:28:49.180
nails knocks out nails as the proverb says uh nail knocks out nail as the proverb says is characteristic
00:28:56.040
of a tyrant to dislike everyone who is who has dignity or independence he wants to be alone in his
00:29:02.700
glory but anyone who claims a uh a like dignity or asserts an independence encroaches upon his
00:29:10.720
prerogative and is hated by him as an enemy to his power another mark of a tyrant is that he likes
00:29:17.120
foreigners better than citizens and lives with them uh and invites them to his table for the one uh for
00:29:24.460
the one are enemies but the others are invited into no rivalry or the others enter into no rivalry
00:29:30.620
with him so a couple important things here right first he doesn't like people who have dignity he
00:29:36.460
doesn't like people who have honor he doesn't like people who have independence for many of the reasons
00:29:39.840
we've already kind of mentioned he's kind of repeating himself here a little bit but people
00:29:43.540
with independence people with dignity people with honor who are are not going to put up with certain
00:29:48.600
actions and you need that to like by being tied to others like you have to be an individual in the
00:29:56.820
sense that you care enough about like how you are treated and what you are going to do you need to have
00:30:02.640
an individual will but you also need to build bonds with others like you so you can push back against
00:30:08.980
the stronger tyrant so you if you're a tyrant you don't want people with dignity you don't want people
00:30:14.540
who see themselves as having their independence encroached and thinking that they have their own
00:30:19.140
prerogative you're the only one with prerogative you're the only one with glory you're the only one with
00:30:24.040
standing and you need to keep it for yourself right that's number one
00:30:27.380
the next one is that uh the next one is that uh he doesn't like his own people he prefers foreigners
00:30:39.880
well why does he surround himself with foreigners well because they're his own people they have a stake
00:30:46.120
they have interests they have real claims they have support networks all the stuff we talked about
00:30:52.620
with bertrand de juvenal and and uh you know um uh uh democracy in america trying to think of the
00:30:59.980
french author there's so de toqueville there's so many uh there's so many uh french men i have to
00:31:05.020
reference uh de toqueville talking about uh you know uh these uh voluntarily voluntary associations
00:31:12.960
or burke and his little platoons right your your people who live in your country they have these bonds
00:31:18.800
they have all those common meals and and social clubs and literary societies and you know shared
00:31:25.600
religion and all the things that he was worried about as a tyrant previously so you don't want
00:31:30.920
all of those people who have that support network have that material wealth have those connections have
00:31:37.160
that organization share an identity share a faith share a tradition share a belief system you don't want
00:31:43.580
those people around you you want the foreigners around you because they're not a rival like they're
00:31:48.620
cut off from their homelands they're independent right now i think when he's talking about this he
00:31:53.940
meant you know individuals i don't think he meant like they wanted the entire you know i don't think he
00:31:59.060
was thinking move all of somalia to minnesota though you know eventually i guess that does happen
00:32:04.500
that's like a a slow deterioration there i think he was thinking more of bringing independent individuals
00:32:09.500
uh from different countries foreigners around them so they would flatter you because well they they
00:32:14.980
don't have any ties to anything right they don't have their country here they don't have their people
00:32:19.000
here there's no one else for them to be loyal to there's nothing else for them to be loyalty
00:32:23.080
loyal to in many cases the foreigners are only here because the tyrant has let them in right and so
00:32:29.660
they are entirely dependent on the tyrant and so the tyrant prefers the foreigner to their own people
00:32:36.080
because it's easier to rule them it's easier to control them they owe you everything they have no
00:32:43.640
common bonds they have nothing else to fall back on they have no principles they have no prior
00:32:47.840
understanding or history they don't have a social support network that allows them to draw strength
00:32:52.680
from other places they just have you but all those people in your own country well they're native here
00:32:58.840
they have this is their homeland they have the families they have the churches they have the
00:33:02.820
communities they have the clubs they have that infrastructure so for the same reason that the
00:33:07.900
tyrant worries about his friends who are the ones that have money and could possibly overthrow him
00:33:11.900
he also worries about his own people because they're the ones that could actually push back
00:33:15.340
the foreigners are not going to unseat a tyrant that's not how it works foreigners might eventually
00:33:20.020
conquer the country or collapse the country but they aren't going to overthrow a tyrant that's not
00:33:32.820
such are the notes of the tyrant and the arts by which he preserves his power there is no wickedness
00:33:41.740
too great for him all that we have said may be summed up by under three heads which answer
00:33:48.460
to the three aims of the tyrant they are one the humiliation of his subjects he knows what a mean
00:33:55.320
spirited uh he knows what a mean spirited man will not conspire against any of them to the creation of
00:34:02.180
mistrust among them for tyrant is not overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another
00:34:07.700
and this is the reason why tyrants are at war with the good they are under the idea that their power
00:34:14.920
is endangered by them not only because they would they would not be ruled uh despotically but also
00:34:22.640
because they are loyal to one another and to other men and do not inform against one another or against
00:34:29.360
other men all right so here's the funny thing uh so he tells you first humiliate your subjects
00:34:37.340
you know so they don't have any dignity they're you know they're mean-spirited uh they're not going
00:34:42.140
to be able to conspire together because they're just awful and demoralized and humiliated also make
00:34:47.680
sure you have mistrust because you don't want people trusting each other and here's the ridicule
00:34:51.020
really critical thing right we all think this is what normally you hear from like especially normie
00:34:56.640
conservatives oh well you need to be based on ideas because it's that rejection of these awful ideas
00:35:02.760
that's what will allow you to push back against tyranny how do you oppose tyranny you become an
00:35:07.780
ideological individual that's why you do it because that's going to make you oppose tyranny right but
00:35:15.420
that's not what aristotle says here he says something very different he says uh you know he says yeah sure
00:35:23.000
they might not want to be ruled by a despot right like they don't be ruled despotically that's a problem
00:35:28.500
they don't want it they'll push back because of that but what will really let them push
00:35:32.700
back is not their desire to oppose the ideology it's not their desire to be free or have liberalism
00:35:40.800
or whatever it's not about having the abstract values of the country or the constitution that
00:35:46.560
stuff is important that might bond you together but that's not actually what opposes tyranny what
00:35:54.080
opposes tyranny collective will loyalty i have gotten a lot of pushback on this i've got a lot of very angry people
00:36:06.040
whenever i say this but i'll say it because it's real
00:36:15.140
the most important political value is loyalty because without political loyalty you can't get
00:36:25.300
anything done when everything's ideological there's a thousand ways you can argue about ideology
00:36:31.580
this is why highly ideological forms like libertarianism or uh you know uh you know kind of
00:36:39.200
this abstract conservatism are not productive because they spend all of their time arguing with each
00:36:46.520
other well you don't agree in the exact uh nap i do you don't agree the exact understanding of this
00:36:52.640
thing that i do you're not understanding this exact thing the constant ideological argument
00:36:57.980
allows you to then betray people oh well i'm not going to back that guy up i don't agree with him on
00:37:04.980
that one thing okay but like he agrees with you on 90 percent of stuff and if they do that to him
00:37:09.500
they're going to do it to you yeah but i don't want to get in trouble so uh i'm principled i got
00:37:15.060
principles that's why i'm not standing up for alex jones or whoever right because i because i don't agree
00:37:21.040
with him on something we're not ideologically aligned that's why i can that's why i can be a coward
00:37:27.720
that's why i can bail out that's why i can leave that guy to twist that's why i can ultimately support
00:37:32.160
my enemies and you see this all the time libertarians are doing this right now with borders
00:37:36.460
oh what about government power what if what if they're wasting some money okay buddy but like
00:37:44.120
the left is trying to kill you and make sure your elections are rigged so like maybe we maybe we can
00:37:50.120
put that to the side and and figure out the hypothetically best application of of state power
00:37:57.440
after we stop the left from killing us no i want to do it now so that i don't have to risk anything
00:38:04.840
so i don't have to actually work together with people that's what aristotle is saying here you
00:38:11.400
need loyalty one to another that this guy's not going to form on me this guy's not going to act
00:38:16.920
against me this guy has my back nobody wins a battle with a thousand people standing behind them
00:38:22.820
ready to stab them you need to know that when you're fighting the enemy you have people on your
00:38:29.200
side they're not going to defect they're not going to run away they're not going to compromise just
00:38:33.660
because you might disagree on something so yes people will collectively get together and fight against
00:38:39.580
despotism but they must be able to trust each other they must be loyal to one each other one another
00:38:46.700
and that's why part of the american declaration is swearing your sacred oath
00:38:52.820
you're swearing your sacred oath to other men it's not just the ideology yes we agree on the
00:38:59.440
ideology yes we follow these principles and then we swear our sacred oaths to each other
00:39:05.080
because the loyalty is what mattered that's what actually gets the job done again it's not that
00:39:10.200
you don't have principles but it's that loyalty comes first
00:39:13.960
and by having loyalty to each other you will generally arrive at common principles
00:39:20.760
but not always the other way around and that's once again causality order of operations that i
00:39:27.480
think often completely gets lost and then three he says the tyrant desires that his subjects shall
00:39:36.380
be incapable of action for no one attempts what is impossible and they will and they will not
00:39:43.140
attempt to overthrow a tyranny if they are powerless under these three heads the whole policy of a tyrant
00:39:48.620
may be summed up and to one of them uh one or other of all of them all the all of his ideas
00:39:56.140
may be referred one so distrust among his subjects to take away their power three he humbles them
00:40:04.000
so here he says look you need to make it seem that overthrowing the tyrant is just impossible
00:40:10.420
because no one's going to attempt the pot impossible no one wants to charge in the sheen gun nest
00:40:15.300
if nothing's going to happen okay you might charge a machine gun nest if it's going to save 30 of your
00:40:22.140
buddies and you're going to win this battle and you're going to get awarded this medal and there's
00:40:28.240
going to be your name in a history book for decades then you might charge machine gun nest but no one is
00:40:35.620
charging machine gun nest for cause they think is impossible for a cause they think is unwinnable
00:40:41.660
and that's what he's saying so this is why it's important that we have a realistic view okay there's
00:40:47.380
a balance here on one side there's we need to have a realistic view of what can be done
00:40:54.000
what are the true real political applications of what we see around us like we need to understand
00:41:02.480
that we can't lie to ourselves and say oh well if i just follow this thing or do exactly what the
00:41:07.200
constitution says here i'll be just fine and i don't have to think about it at all
00:41:11.660
like you don't want that that's naive but at the same time you don't want the black pillars
00:41:16.340
who are just like well nothing's ever going to happen and trump's never going to do anything
00:41:20.740
and there's just nothing we can ever do and you just give up and sit on your computer and complain
00:41:26.920
because there's just never any hope right like we need to have a middle ground no i don't trust
00:41:33.260
trump or any other republicans should just do something because they got elected
00:41:36.880
no i don't think the majority of the government actually uh behaves the way it says in the
00:41:42.260
constitution when you win an election i'm not going to be naive about those things i'm going to think
00:41:46.160
about power i'm going to think about how to win power i'm going to think about how to secure this and
00:41:50.080
push forward but at the same time i'm not going to sit around and say nothing can ever be done
00:41:54.360
no victories can be had we're always going to fail you should never trust anyone don't get out there
00:42:00.380
and organize it's probably all federal agents don't get out there and build your skill set it's all
00:42:05.440
useless anyway don't bother trying to date a woman don't bother trying to get married don't bother
00:42:09.720
trying to have kids don't try to seek a relationship with god don't do any of that stuff don't try to
00:42:14.400
build wealth it's all just going to get inflated away anyway that stuff is just that black pill you
00:42:21.500
streak is just nothing but useless that's going to keep you that's what a tyrant will want you to
00:42:26.380
believe so that you don't actually try to figure things out he says this is uh this is then one of
00:42:34.240
the two methods by which tyrannies are preserved and there is another which proceeds upon an almost
00:42:40.920
opposite principle of action the nature of this latter method may be gathered uh from a comparison
00:42:46.420
of the causes which destroy kingdoms whereas one mode of destroying uh kingly power is to make the
00:42:53.300
office of king more tyrannical so the salvation of a tyrant is to make it more like the rule of the
00:42:59.200
king but one thing the tyrant must be careful he must keep power enough to rule over his subjects
00:43:05.180
whether they like him or not for if he once gives this up uh he gives up his tyranny but though power
00:43:12.580
must be retained as the foundation and all in all else the tyrant should act and appear as a
00:43:18.900
to act in the character of a king in the first place he should pretend to care about public revenues
00:43:25.200
and not waste money in making uh presents of a sort at which the common pledge get excited when they see
00:43:31.960
the uh hard won earnings snatched from them and lavished on courtesans and strangers and artists he
00:43:38.580
should give an account of what he receives and of what he spends a practice which has been adopted by
00:43:43.400
some tyrants for he will then seem to be a steward of the public rather than a tyrant nor need he fear
00:43:50.480
that while he is the lord of the city he will ever be in want of money such a policy is at all events
00:43:56.060
much more advantageous for the tyrant when he goes from home than to leave behind him a horde for then the
00:44:02.620
garrison who remain in the city will be less likely to attack his power and a tyrant when he is absent
00:44:09.140
from home has more reasons to fear the guardians of his treasures and the citizens for the one
00:44:15.120
accompany accompany him but the others remain behind so he should start acting as if he's a king
00:44:20.460
all right so you can do the the classic hard power all the things we just ran down with a tyrant you know
00:44:26.600
humiliate the people keep them poor keep them fighting keep them separated keep them busy or you can
00:44:32.120
start acting more like a king but you need to make sure to keep all that power you can start looking
00:44:37.460
more responsible you can start looking like you care about the people you know keep keep a keep a
00:44:43.280
log of the money you're taking in and how you're spending it so you can show them you know but that's
00:44:48.800
going to be an advantage for you because when then when you're gone abroad you don't have to worry about
00:44:54.200
people basically coming around and stealing your stuff stealing your power they're not going to be as
00:44:58.440
inclined to stab you in the back if you're a tyrant and you leave to like go fight a war somewhere or
00:45:03.640
deal with something then everyone who hates you is going to try to rush in and take all your power
00:45:08.220
and destabilize everything so you want to have that appearance that no why would you want to do that
00:45:12.620
i'm ruling in your interests i'm not really a tyrant in the second place he should be seen to collect
00:45:18.680
taxes and require public service only for state purposes and that he may form a fund in case of general
00:45:24.820
a case of war and generally ought to make himself the guardian and treasure of them as if they belong
00:45:31.940
not to him but to the public he should appear not harsh but dignified and when men meet him they should
00:45:37.900
look upon him with reverence and not fear it is hard for him to respect to be respected if he inspires no
00:45:44.240
respect and therefore whatever virtues he may neglect at least he should maintain the character of a great
00:45:49.460
soldier and produce the impression that he is one neither he nor any of his uh associates should
00:45:55.440
ever be guilty of the least offense against modesty towards the young of either sex who are his subjects
00:46:01.180
and the women of his family should be a should observe a self-control towards other uh other women
00:46:08.080
the insolence of women uh has ruined many tyrannies in the indulgence of pleasure pleasure he should be the
00:46:15.100
opposite of modern tyrants who not only begin at dawn and pass the whole day in sensuality but want
00:46:21.080
other men to see them and they and may admire their half uh their happy and blessed lot and these things
00:46:27.220
a tyrant should should if possible be moderate or at any rate should not parade his vices in the world
00:46:33.900
for a drunken and drowsy tyrant is soon despised and attacked uh not so he is uh not so if he is
00:46:41.640
temperate temperate and wide awake his conduct should be the uh very reverse of nearly everything
00:46:49.140
which has been said before about tyrants he ought to adorn and improve his city as though he were not
00:46:55.460
a tyrant but the guardian of the state also he should appear uh to be particularly earnest in the service
00:47:02.120
of the gods for if the men think a ruler is religious and has a reverence for the gods they are
00:47:07.340
less afraid of suffering injustice at his hands and they are less disposed to conspire against him
00:47:13.720
because they believe him to have the uh very gods fighting on his side if any of this sounds familiar
00:47:19.440
this is blow by blow pretty much what machiavelli eventually says about princess okay yeah you might
00:47:27.920
not want to fault you might not personally have these things you might not be a good christian you
00:47:32.500
might not be generous you you know you you might have these desires but even if you do you you need
00:47:38.940
to act as if you don't you need to act as if you're religious you need to watch yourself around other
00:47:43.880
men's wives that's a big thing machiavelli talks about taking his their property you need to look above
00:47:49.500
the board you need to look as if you care about the people's well-being even if you don't so all that
00:47:55.240
cynical advice that machiavelli is so you know uh celebrated forgiving well he didn't exactly get it out of
00:48:02.360
nowhere so you'll see him he continues to talk uh thoroughly about all the ways in which uh tyrant
00:48:12.860
can like adopt these kingly ways to basically uh avoid looking like a tyrant at the end of the day
00:48:20.240
right and he'll go on that for a while uh and of course if you have not read the politics you should
00:48:24.660
we're not going to go through the whole thing today just due to time but i generally wanted to give you
00:48:28.720
that snapshot of what a tyrant looks like to aristotle because so much of this just ports
00:48:36.740
one-to-one to us today right like you mean it's not sitting in front of the city gates it's uh your
00:48:41.320
you know the the spyware on your on your cell phone and you know kind of the tyranny of the panopticon
00:48:46.220
of social media instead of the city gates but you know outside of those technological advancements
00:48:51.520
all the ideas about what put the tyrant in power what keeps him in town and power they're all here
00:48:58.040
right they're all here uh so i just thought it was interesting to go back and take a look at this
00:49:02.100
because uh you can really tell that there's nothing new under the sun and this is why uh ancient
00:49:08.040
philosophy is just as relevant to us today as it was back then because these cute these are huge
00:49:14.640
observations about human nature and politics might change quite a bit in certain areas because of
00:49:21.100
technology or other advancements but human nature it's the same meaning that we can continue to
00:49:27.040
learn from these examples all right guys let's take a look at the questions of the people we have
00:49:33.780
here real quick cherry coke nixon says has been interesting to watch boomers face the consequences
00:49:38.980
of their uh for crazy violent speech they're so used to the offline world where words vanish i think
00:49:47.600
you might need the on i think you might mean the online world because that's where the words would
00:49:52.960
vanish right or offline world where words vanish yeah i'm a little confused uh with what i think you
00:50:00.900
mean the online world there but uh yeah ultimately it has been interesting to watch a lot of people
00:50:05.900
thought that they were involved kind of in this uh you know the return of the 1960s oh we're gonna get
00:50:11.600
one more hippie protest in at the end of the day uh turns out no actually um you know you're not just
00:50:17.920
having this like uh green card to run through and and do whatever you want uh there is going to be
00:50:23.980
some consequence hopefully that's kind of what we've been pushing for uh we've already seen some
00:50:28.560
you know violence is real uh you might actually face a criminal charge you might actually get in
00:50:33.760
trouble you might lose a job uh these are things that just didn't happen to leftists before and now
00:50:38.500
those are real consequences so yeah it has been interesting to see uh cherry coke nixon also
00:50:44.540
says millennial slash gen z grew up in a world of self-censorship yes this is absolutely true and
00:50:50.300
again essential for tyranny to reign nixon says uh feudal lords uh red bullet bureau clicks and blm
00:50:58.480
equals the same uh well not exactly i mean uh you know the the point is here uh that feudal lords
00:51:05.180
uh might be somewhat different uh but again if they're tyrannical then yes they would be right
00:51:11.160
like the point is tyranny it's not the system it's not so much the the structure of the system do i
00:51:17.280
have a monarchy then it's a then it's a tyranny if i have a democracy i'm free no democracy and tyranny
00:51:23.280
are both bad versions of government they're both disastrous in fact they share many of the same
00:51:28.220
disastrous qualities which is aristotle's point there nixon also says intellectual vegetables versus
00:51:34.420
current events candy i was just glad that i finally got to do something besides go over
00:51:40.540
uh current events yes i i've been wanting to get back to the theory we just had so much going on
00:51:45.440
with minnesota it was so much important stuff to talk about that uh we have been over there but yeah
00:51:50.600
we're hopefully these are tasty vegetables hopefully these are well-seasoned vegetables
00:51:54.220
uh but i am glad that we're doing something a little more substantial today
00:51:57.760
j6 2.0 said reading the 16th century not nikio machiavelli especially uh discourses on livy
00:52:05.580
chapter 18 how a republic should handle corruption it's not pretty no it's not no it's not uh but it
00:52:12.240
is very important and if you haven't read discourses livy if you've only read the prince
00:52:16.140
i do encourage you it's definitely a more challenging book it's longer you've got to have a
00:52:20.740
little more familiarity with the with the references of roman history but it is ultimately very rewarding
00:52:26.740
nixon says politics shows that human nature doesn't change yes absolutely 100 the whole
00:52:32.180
reason we're doing this uh mart gates says i love the philosophy episodes well thank you very much
00:52:40.000
man appreciate it like i said i'm glad to finally be back to them uh had had enough of current events
00:52:45.600
glad to be able to do something i think it's a little more evergreen a little more useful in the
00:52:49.760
long run he also says crazy how bad some of the right are at being sapped into viewing mass
00:52:55.000
deportations as an evil thing it's like george floyd all over again yeah there really is just
00:52:59.960
there there's this impulse as soon as i see something bad on tv i saw i saw a bad video on
00:53:05.200
the internet we've got to run away now we've got to end everything you know throw the country away
00:53:09.720
you know i saw an immigrant cry that's the the meme uh but it really is true and sadly it's true of a
00:53:15.340
large amount of conservatives uh even though it's you know that's supposed to be the side that at
00:53:20.160
least understands the severity of the situation dixon says mint boomers are used to pre-2000 free
00:53:26.380
speech okay okay i see what you're saying there gotcha so a a pre-2000s understanding of how the
00:53:32.160
country was supposed to run a blessed 90s uh liberal understanding uh if you were all right well thank
00:53:39.160
you very much guys i appreciate you all watching if it's your first time watching on youtube you need
00:53:44.680
to click the bell notifications so you know when we go live i know we're having more people watch on
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00:53:53.120
as well and of course uh if you'd like to get these podcasts or these broadcasts as podcasts you need
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00:54:05.540
also make sure you're going on apple spotify and joining there when you do leave a rating or review
00:54:11.740
it helps with the algorithm magic thank you guys for watching once again and as always i will talk to you