Demonstration of power, and the prestige problem

[Rodion Romanovich]

It's widely believed that a government that acted morally wrong shouldn't surrender and change their opinions when faced by rebellion or demonstrations, because it then shows itself as weak, and will then encourage further rebellion and disorder.

I claim that's one of the most ridiculous myths ever to have existed in the history of mankind. If you refuse to surrender when you were wrong, when will you surrender? Not until you're too weak to uphold your wrong beliefs in order to look strong; not until you're too weak to be able to kill, defame or silence everyone who protests against you? If you refuse to listen to the people because you think it might make you look weak, then when you finally surrender everyone will know, without doubt, that you're too weak to fight back. Can you imagine a scenario where a leader will be more totally crushed by his people? Can a such leader, who refused to do the right thing when the people rebelled or demonstrated expect any mercy at all, when he has shown himself to be a both cruel and incompetent leader? When he has shown himself to be so weak and ruled by fear that he couldn't do the right thing of fear of being seen as weak?

A leader who surrenders to cricism, a leader who listens to demonstrations, and alters his politics according to what the people wants, will not be seen as weak. It takes strength and courage to admit that you were wrong, and try to repair the damage (the damage you did before you got the information that proved you're previous opinions and political programs were wrong). If you surrender to rebellion and demonstrations and change your opinion, at worst people will get the false impression that you're weak, and revolts among people with unjust claims might be encouraged. What does it matter if they THINK you're wrong when you aren't? You can quickly show them that this isn't the case. However, if you consequently refuse to surrender and change your ideas when you ARE strong, when you finally have to surrender, everyone will know you're weak for real, and will revolt, and be successful.

How come the concept "strong leader" is related to people who are so afraid of being seen as weak when they're strong and thereby use politics which are far from what the people wants, and often also far from what they want themselves? How come the concept "weak leader" is related to men who listens carefully to what the population says, and does his best to coordinate their wills?

To quote Oscar Wilde: "always play fairly when you have the winning cards"

There's nothing good in "demonstrating power" by unethical behavior when you have it. If you leave others alone, if you try to follow and ethical point of view, and alter your political views when new information is recieved by demonstrations and protests from the people, and other source, and you really HAVE much power, you'll get a chance to demonstrate it sooner or later, and your demonstration of it will not be of a kind that creates thousands of new enemies to your regime.

Only those who are weak and doubt their power, needs to demonstrate it. A strong leader is he who surrenders when wrong, and fights dissenters when he is right. A weak leader must use terror and demonstration of power to keep people from constant revolts, and it's a short-term solution as it means that when you finally lose power - and it eventually happens, it's a necessity that it must eventually come - nobody will doubt your weakness, and nobody will show mercy.

Am I correct or wrong? Is maintaining an unethical view making you look stronger as a leader and a good tool for preventing attacks from dangerous outer (and perhaps also inner) enemies?

[Louis VI the Fat]

It's widely believed that a government that acted morally wrong shouldn't surrender and change their opinions when faced by rebellion or demonstrations

Look, you bring up some good points, but we can't surrender all the time now, can we?

[Meneldil]

Well, actually I think our governments sucked (and still suck) because they change their opinion as soon as they have to face a demonstration.
They say "We'll do that", a few people meet in the street, demonstrate, and here we go, they'll change their mind to "We'll, it was a bad idea, we won't do that afterall. We'll just sit here doing nothing and amassing the money".

[solypsist]

i am an american citizen so while i openly criticize this country's government (and some its citizens) it is in my best interest that the u.s. remain top dog, regardless of who is right or wrong.

it is a paradox i must suffer through.

[Louis VI the Fat]

i am an american citizen so while i openly criticize this country's government (and some its citizens) it is in my best interest that the u.s. remain top dog, regardless of who is right or wrong.

it is a paradox i must suffer through.

But the two aren't mutually exclusive at all.

What makes a country strong, is plurality of opinion, heated debate, a critical opinion, democracy and an open society.

It's people like you that made America top dog. And with 'people like you' I mean any well-informed, outspoken citizen. The Bush administration couldn't have been further off the mark with their regarding dissenting opinion 'unpatriotic'.

[Aurelian]

It's people like you that made America top dog. And with 'people like you' I mean any well-informed, outspoken citizen. The Bush administration couldn't have been further off the mark with their regarding dissenting opinion 'unpatriotic'.

I agree thoroughly.

The Bushies have an authoritarian mindset. Bush himself is on record 'joking' about how things would be easier if the US was a dictatorship - as long as he was the dictator.

Authoritarian personality types are most comfortable with power structures that are rigidly hierarchical. They tend to worship the top dog and despise the underdog. They think that submission to what they consider to be legitimate forms of authority is the highest virtue. A masculine God, the ultimate personification of the alpha-male, is at the top of the power structure. Masculine men rule on earth. Women are under them, followed by children, foreigners (or colored people), heathens, heretics, and homosexuals (who by taking on a feminine sexual role threaten male authority). In that chain of being, those farther up the chain are considered to have more intrinsic natural ability, virtue, and authority.

This is ultimately why authoritarians hate feminists, the UN, peace protesters, homosexuals, etc... because it threatens the chain of authority that they have internalized. They think that if this chain of authority is altered or challenged the universe will break down into anarchy. People marrying their dogs, etc. Authoritarians are comfortable with a little torture, firebombing, or election fixing as long as it keeps those at the top of the chain in power, and those lower down it subservient. Doing whatever is required to win becomes the primary morality.

Not all governments are run by authoritarian personality types, but most are run on authoritarian principles. Governments often see "knuckling under" to protests, or objective reality, to simply be an admission of weakness... an admission that those at the top of the chain of authority made bad decisions and no longer deserve the loyalty of their subordinates. That's why governments hold on to stupid policies until they become completely untenable. They feel that if they can hold on long enough, something might change that will vindicate them. At the very least, they can hold off the moment when they have to admit to failure. In the meantime, they'll often do whatever they can to discredit their critics and turn public opinion against them.

[bmolsson]

It's widely believed that a government that acted morally wrong shouldn't surrender and change their opinions when faced by rebellion or demonstrations, because it then shows itself as weak, and will then encourage further rebellion and disorder.

In a democracy, we have elections to change government, not rebellion and disorder.....

[Soulforged]

Am I correct or wrong? Is maintaining an unethical view making you look stronger as a leader and a good tool for preventing attacks from dangerous outer (and perhaps also inner) enemies?

You're correct, but this a problem is a direct derivation of the fictionary democracy and the preference of stability over freedom, over political involvement. Since the creation of the Benefactor State people started to believe that the state was there forever and that any "uprising" or criticism should be repressed like anti-politic. That's totally false....The government has the imperium of all the means of "legitime" communication under the power of burocracy, even the ones that are alternative, like sindicates, could end up in the same situation, and in fact with a powerful state there's nothing to stop it to get it all. That's why people usually use other means, in wich case I consider that any mean is acceptable and that the government should surrender, replacing it for another will generate the same problem again, but yes a "wrong" oriented government should not push it's life more than necessary and accept that it's an instrument of society.

[PanzerJaeger]

Bowing to demonstrators is weakness incarnate. Demonstrators are often the lowest common denominator in a democracy, the people without jobs or functioning lives who only wish to cause trouble.

A strong politician should stick to his core beliefs and let the voters decide when those beliefs are not right for the country.. thats why we have term limits.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Interesting replies!

@Louis IV the Fat: True, this is of course problematic. If someone shows you're wrong and you change opinion, someone in a competititive camp will prove you wrong again, but if you then alter your opinion in a way that is based on both the new and the old criticism, you'll eventually have an opinion that won't need change next time there's criticism, IMO.

@Meneldil: yes, a turncoat behavior is not what I desire. When altering opinion to protests, old protests and groups not represented by the protests should also be taken into account. Obviously, if the last group that used violence is favored over others, then you're encouraging violence and unrest. But if a disfavored group gets the situation improved after protests, I think it's a valid behavior from the leader. We must of course have some kind of limitation to what is "being disfavored". If the differences are too small then we can't go on changing opinion all the time for practical reasons. I agree that many European leaders are showing weakness by going too extremely in the other direction, i.e. by changing opinion to the one of those who protested last, and forgetting the others.

@solypist: they're not necessarily paradoxes. Actually, choosing a stabile and ethical position is a good way of making America top dog, whereas seeking battle by unethical behavior is a good way of losing it all. I think the outer threats to America are limited, therefore there's no need to demonstrate power outside. America is still stronger than all of it's potential outer enemies together! Perhaps the biggest threat to America losing it's top dog status is the industrialization of China and other Asian countries, and the risk of getting a maniac dictator as leader, followed by a trigger-happy warmonger who attacks neutral or allied nations. Of course, it's hard to solve the problem with China growing in power through wide industrialization without unethical means, but I think trying to apply unethical means will in the long run create more problems for America, just to take an example.

@bmolsson: this phenomenon has existed long before there were any democracies, and in order to get enough material to make a statistical analysis of it, historical examples are useful to include. A theoretical analysis is still possible without it though. But what you're bringing up is in a way one of the problems of modern so-called democratic societies. If they ARE perfect democracies, so that starting new parties is easy and voters base their voting only on who is having the correct political program, and parties are scandalised if and only if they break promises, and never due to personal scandals of the party members, then rebellion and disorder can be considered 100 percent criminal. However, as we lack that, and in the latest few years have infringed democratical rights in many ways, rebellion and disorder becomes more and more legitimate. Of course, that in itself is a threat to the democracy we have left, but it's not the fault of the rebels, but the fault of governments infringing democratic rights.

@PanzerJager: well, I just read that one third of all citizens at normal age for working in many European countries are unemployed. Many of those who are employed, are afraid to lose their jobs. There are many more jobs than workers. This doesn't make an unemployed person trash. In fact, being only slightly below the average in luck, social contacts, merits and actual skills is what makes you belong to that unemployed third.

[Watchman]

...I do wonder if PJ's post could be viewed as a case-in-point of what Aurelian was saying...?

[Lazul]

Bowing to demonstrators is weakness incarnate. Demonstrators are often the lowest common denominator in a democracy, the people without jobs or functioning lives who only wish to cause trouble.

A strong politician should stick to his core beliefs and let the voters decide when those beliefs are not right for the country.. thats why we have term limits.

wait, you belive in democracy? I allways thought you where a fascist... really i thought so.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Aurelian, you just managed to sum up my entire political philosophy in three paragraphes!

I bow to your superior wisdom.

[solypsist]

wrong thread

/post deleted

[Geoffrey S]

What is there to be lost by telling the truth consistently? Lies only lead to more trouble in the end, and most certainly should not be used to prop up otherwise shaky policies. Failed policies can be accepted by a public, but being lied to is something a public cannot (and should not) accept.

LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix, I couldn't agree more.