Home > The Kap'n > Awesome.

Awesome.

I found this hanging around online, unable to attribute the source, but I reckon you should read it.

The La Boétie Analysis (1552 or 1553)

Grasping the “La Boétie analysis” is a key to understanding advanced freedom strategies. La Boétie approached his subject like an outsider observing the strange phenomenon of political behaviour. He wrote like someone who had jumped out of “the system” and viewed it without preconceptions. He somehow unbrainwashed himself so he could adopt a “Martian viewpoint.”
What is so remarkable is that La Boétie did this in 1552 or 1553 – four-hundred-and-forty years ago! It is also interesting that modern tyrants use the same formula today to subjugate and dominate their victims. Here are the main elements of the La Boétie analysis as I see it:

1. The only power tyrants have is the power relinquished to them by their victims.
2. The tyrant is often a weak little man. He has no special qualities that set him apart from anyone else – yet the gullible idolize him.
3. The victims bring about their own subjection – they “win their enslavement.”
4. If without violence the tyrant is simply not obeyed, he becomes “naked and undone and as nothing.”
5. Once you resolve to serve no more, you are free.
6. We are all born free and naturally free.
7. Grown-up adults should adopt reason as their guide and never become slaves of anybody.
8. People can be enslaved through either force or deception.
9. When people lose their freedom through deceit, it is because they mislead themselves.
10. People born into slavery regard it as a natural condition.
11. In general, people are shaped more by their environment than by their natural capacities – if they allow it.
12. Habit and custom are powerful forces that keep people enslaved.
13. There are always some people who cannot be tamed, subjected, or enslaved. Even if freedom were to be entirely extinguished, these people would re-invent it.
14. Lovers of freedom tend to be ineffective because they are not known to one another.
15. People who lose their freedom also lose their valour (strength of mind, bravery).
16. Among free people there is competition to do good for humanity.
17. People seem to be most gullible towards those who deliberately set out to fool them. It is as if people have a need to be deceived.
18. Tyrants stupefy their victims with “pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes.”
19. Tyrants parade like “workers of magic.”
20. Tyrants can only give back part of what they first took from their victims.
21. Tyrants attain their positions through: (a) Force; (b) Birth; or (c) Election.
22. Tyrants create a power structure, consisting of a multi-layered hierarchy, staffed by a conspiracy of accomplices. Accomplices receive their positions as a favor from the tyrant.
23. The worst dregs of society gather around the tyrant – they are people of weak character who trade servility for unearned wealth.
24. Accomplices can profit greatly from their positions in the hierarchy.
25. If people withdraw their support, the tyrant topples over from his own corrupted weight.

Categories: The Kap'n Tags: ,
  1. No comments yet.
  1. No trackbacks yet.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.