“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.” — Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
After college, I used to teach a basic class on different forms of government to my fellow Navy Sailors and US Marines. Whether you agree with the concept or not, I found the horseshoe theory of politics to be quite instructive. The idea is that the different forms of government in practice are not on a linear spectrum, but on one where the far-right and far-left extremes actually bend toward each other like the ends of a horseshoe. At this convergence of the two heels is totalitarianism and ultimately autocracy — the centralization of absolute power in the hands of one person (and his cronies) and the subservience of everyone else to that dictator and his (it is almost always a male tyrant) state. At the toe or the curve in the horseshoe, the part farthest away from the extremes, is autonomy. What the far-left and the far-right fear the most is individual freedom for all. They hate it when “you do you.”
You might say, “why isn’t the opposite of an autocracy a democracy?” Well, even a well-meaning democracy can unwittingly (or wittingly) vote into office an authoritarian dictator who consolidates power and strips away the liberties of his own people to do it, typically wrapped in a thin veneer of patriotism and religion. Sadly, illiberal democracies, also known as electoral authoritarianism, are on the rise. Look at all the autocrats around the world and throughout history who have extended or violated their own term limits, weakened the non-executive branches of government, and tried to overturn free and fair elections to strengthen their own grip on power. “People unfit for freedom — who cannot do much with it — are hungry for power.”
There is nothing an autocrat fears more than a society of truly free individuals, especially if they are acutely aware of their own “certain unalienable Rights.” While the autocrat publicly voices their own desire and fight for freedom, beware as what they are really talking about is their flavor of “freedom” and only for people like them, not everyone. What we have to remember about a truly autonomous society is that you will most certainly be offended at some point by what your neighbors do, but so long as it does no real harm to you or others, you have to respect it if you want to be afforded the same freedom for you to do things they may not like. In other words, live and let live AND love and let love. As an example, I like to say, “It disgusts me that you would burn our American flag, but I risked my life for us all to live in an America where you are free to do it without reprisal.”
As a political science major at the US Naval Academy, I was drawn to study courses on terrorism, low intensity conflict, revolutions, and failed states. I learned a lot about what forms of government work well and which ones don’t based on the revolutionary changes people have demanded throughout history and which ones they have been willing to fight and even die for. What really intrigued me and still does is, “why would anyone willingly give up their own freedoms and fight to spread the same oppression to others?” The philosopher that I felt best answered this question was Eric Hoffer — famous for writing The True Believer and many other insightful works. Hoffer establishes what it is about a potential convert that compels him or her to join such a horrible and self-enslaving cause:
Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, “to be free from freedom.” It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility?
Hoffer goes deeper, exposing the roots of why anyone would join such an evil movement and choose to fight and die for it:
People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief of the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.
In modern times, this is where Putin has stepped in to “plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.” He is giving us a horrifying example of a power-hungry dictator who is preying on the insecurities of his own people — people he has oppressed, terrorized, and robbed of their constitutional freedoms for more than two decades. In professor Alexander J. Motyl’s recent Op-Ed in Politico titled Putin Isn’t Just an Autocrat. He’s Something Worse. He calls on us all to admit to and name the dark reality about Putin that we have been avoiding:
Analysts have usually shied away from asking just what type of regime has these specific characteristics, preferring to say that Putin’s Russia is Putinist or merely authoritarian. But there is a word that many historians and political scientists use for an authoritarian state with a charismatic leader who promotes a personality cult. That word is fascism. Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany fit the bill, but so does Stalin’s Soviet Union and Kim’s North Korea. Fascism, in other words, can be found on the political right or the political left. And, as most Ukrainians and many Russians agree, it’s now the best word to describe Putin’s Russia.
Putin is a Fascist. A war criminal. And is massively insecure. He is overly worried about his legacy and look at what it is going to end up being. He is forcing a genocide on the innocent, freedom-loving people of Ukraine. Putin is rich with money and power and poor in heart and spirit. Putin seeks more power because he cannot achieve much without it. Putin, like Hitler and Stalin before him, is afraid of having to live up to his own human potential. Putin cannot build himself up, so he tears down others to feel bigger and better than them. Putin, in the words of Hoffer, is a “have not.”
The desire for power is basically an attribute of a “have-not” type of self. If Hitler had had the talents and the temperament of a genuine artist, if Stalin had had the capacity to become a first-rate theoretician, if Napoleon had had the makings of a great poet or philosopher they would hardly have developed the all-consuming lust for absolute power. Freedom gives us a chance to realize our human and individual uniqueness. Absolute power can also bestow uniqueness: to have absolute power is to have the power to reduce all the people around us to puppets, robots, toys, or animals, and be the only man in sight. Absolute power achieves uniqueness by dehumanizing others.
To sum up: Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
In 2022, I believe most of us aspire to live “in an atmosphere of freedom” and wish that for all of our brothers and sisters around the globe. However, less than 20% of the world’s population lives in a free country and freedom has been on the decline for the last 15 plus years, including here in the United States. Ukraine has become the frontline of freedom for the world and the stakes could not be any higher. The US, Europe, and all people who desire freedom and autonomy have a lot to lose if we allow Putin to win. We cannot stand idly by while one man tries to “have the power to reduce all the people around us to puppets, robots, toys, or animals” or even worse — murders and kidnaps them, which he is doing.
The question still remains:
Will we do enough, fast enough to secure our freedom and the freedom of the world? #standwithukraine
