Quotes from ‘The Politics of Obedience’ by Étienne de La Boétie
Philosopher, Poet, Magistrate, Anarchist. An average day for a 16th Century aristocrat
Born in France in 1530 to an aristocratic family, La Boétie’s life was one of prestige, controversy and tragedy. Raised by his uncle after losing both his parents at young age, he pursued a life of law and philosophical writing, achieving a law degree from the University of Orléans in 1553, and pursued a career as a judge and diplomat until his death from illness in 1563. The nature of his close relationship with renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne has been the topic of debate, but it seems that the two were heavily inspired by each other’s work. Although a skilled poet specialising in sonnets, La Boétie was best known for his essay Discours de la servitude volontaire ou le Contr'un (Discourse on Voluntary Servitude), which was translated by Harry Kurz and released as The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude in 1975, and remains the seminal translation to this day.
I wish I could say it was my deep knowledge of 16th century French philosophy that brought me to La Boétie’s work. Or that some wildly inspiring patriarchal character once passed me a copy after an all-night chinwag about the state of the world. But alas, I know as much about French renaissance politics and writing as I know wildly inspiring characters, i.e.,nada. It was actually Amazon which recommended me the book. Until that point I had no idea who Étienne de La Boétie was. The book was about £3 and came highly recommended by other customers! What could go wrong?
Well, nothing, actually. I really enjoyed The Politics of Obedience, and found it an enlightening and fascinating read. The Politics of Obedience is at times entertaining, and yet utterly relatable today. I read it during the pandemic and it lit a fire under me which led me to writing. Go on, give it a read. It’s cheap as chips, readable in an hour or so, and brilliantly quotable.
As a teenager I was heavily into Punk music, especially the wave of 80s and 90s American Punk– bands like Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, DRI, Pennywise and Bad Religion. Anarchism, anti-statism and other such anti-establishment rhetoric was rife within both the music and the Punk scene, and in, I suppose, a more intellectual manner than it was back in the spit and spikes of 1970s British Punk. No longer just angry street urchins, these new Punk kids were well-read and politically aware, the most notable example being Bad Religion’s Gregg Graffin, who has a PhD in Zoology, co-wrote the book Anarchy Evolution and in 2008 Graffin received the Rushdie Award for Cultural Humanism.
I fell into this new academia-centric Punk world as a young upstart who refused to fit into a mould for anyone, and finding comfort in its free-spirited, free-thinking individualism. Funny then, how after many political swings and roundabouts in my life, I would end up back at the helm of anti-authoritarianism, with this stalwart of civil disobedience. I wouldn’t say I’m an anarchist by any stretch of the imagination, but in these times of ever-increasing state control and looming technocracy, I find the writings of La Boétie hold both a comforting relevance and an angsty nostalgia for me. Well, I’m still listening to Punk!
Anyway, here are my favourite quotes from The Politics of Obedience:
"He who has received the state from the people...ought to be, it seems to me, more bearable and would be so, I think, were it not for the fact that as soon as he sees himself higher than the others, flattered by that quality which we call grandeur, he plans never to relinquish his position. Such a man usually determines to pass on to his children the authority that the people have conferred upon him; and once his heirs have taken this attitude, strange it is how far they surpass other tyrants in all sorts of vices, and especially in cruelty, because they find no other means to impose this new tyranny then by tightening control and removing their subjects so far from any notion of liberty that even if the memory of it is fresh it will soon be eradicated."
"It is incredible how as soon as a people becomes subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say, on beholding such a situation, that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement."
"Men are like handsome race horses who first bite the bit and later like it, and rearing under the saddle a while soon learn to enjoy displaying their harnesses and prance proudly beneath their trappings."
"It is truly the nature of man to be free and to wish to be so, yet his character is such that he distinctively follows the tendencies that his training gives him."
"There are always a few, better endowed than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot restrain themselves from attempting to shake it off: these are the men who never become tamed under subjection and who always, like Ulysses on land and sea constantly seeking the smoke of his chimney, cannot prevent themselves from peering about for their natural privileges and from remembering their ancestors and their former ways. These are in fact the men who, possessed of clear minds and far-sighted spirit, are not satisfied, like the brutish mass, to see only what is at their feet, but rather look about them, behind and before, and even recall the the things of the past in order to judge those of the future, and compare both with their present condition. These are the ones who, having good minds of their own, have further trained them by study and learning. Even if liberty had entirely perished from the earth, such men would invent it. For them slavery has no satisfactions, no matter how well disguised."
"Men of strong zeal and devotion, who in spite of the passing of time have preserved their love of freedom, still remain ineffective because, however numerous they may be, they are not known to one another; under the tyrant they have lost freedom of action, of speech, and almost of thought; they are alone in their aspiration."
"Liberty once lost, valour also perishes."
"The mob has always behaved in this way - eagerly open to bribes that cannot be honourably accepted, and dissolutely callous to degradation and insult that cannot be honourably endured."
"There are some who...never undertake an unjust policy, even one of some importance, without prefacing it with some pretty speech concerning public welfare and common good."
"It is pitiful to review the list of devices that early despots used to establish their tyranny; to discover how many little tricks they employed, always finding the populace conveniently gullible, readily caught in the net as soon as it was spread. Indeed they always fooled their victims so easily that while mocking them they enslaved them the more."
"Friendship is a sacred word, a holy thing; it is never developed except between persons of character, and never takes root except through mutual respect; it flourishes not so much by kindness as by sincerity. What makes one friend sure of another is the knowledge of his integrity: as guarantees he has his friend's fine nature, his honour, and his constancy. There can be no friendship where there is cruelty, where there is disloyalty, where there is injustice. And in places where the wicked gather there is conspiracy only, not companionship: these have no affection for one another; fear alone holds them together; they are not friends, they are merely accomplices."
"A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or, rather, apparently welcomes it."
Cheers for reading.
References
https://philosophynow.org/issues/136/Etienne_de_la_Boetie_1530-1563