Some Thoughts on The Psychology of Despots

Some Thoughts on the Psychology of Despots
Feb. Tuesday 15, 2011

Psychologically, power or authority has blazes that cannot be resisted by their holders who may be either uplifted or burnt down by any of these blazes. Mastership or supremacy, in the world of politics, has its own rules and conditions if it is wanted to continue in a world characterized by fast changes on the communication level and easy and open space of information and data that create some sort of globalization where different thoughts are conflicting for better environment for people on the human level. However, supremacy, power or authority can inflict its holder with some psychological reactions that may turn into psychological diseases that may anticipate its end as its effects extend to the self-antagonism and antagonizing the public without any discern. In this article light will be focused on the roles, rules and conditions of the power holders who turn into despots and tyrants with psychological complexities that result in an unexpected course of events which may lead to the tragic downfall of the whole system and regime.

A leader, any leader, is the top managing authority of an establishment, organization or institution (including the state). This leader has the executive power, no matter how this power has been transferred to him/her, to achieve certain goals that he/she (and the individuals/citizens) think will put their establishment in a better situation for the welfare of its people or society in general. This means that the focus of all the goals is the welfare of the society of human beings. In other words, protection of humans with their rights and duties is the center and focus of all political and social establishments. And according to the social contract, people give away some of their freedoms and powers to their leaders who seek for every opportunity to better the ways of their lives. In other words, the executive power applies the law with the aim of achieving justice and equality on equal opportunities that the executive power creates in all fields and aspects of life.

In this meaning, simple rules of supremacy and mastership can keep the relationship between the leader and the citizens safe and immune. One of the simplest rules says if you want to be the master you have to be the servant of all people, with the result that your sensations of what they love or hate and of what may be useful or harmful to them will heighten; moreover you can feel their pulses in yours. In this way you abide by the social contract which is the source of your power; hence you keep modest and humble at heart. And if so, you will listen to your people with all their tendencies, trends, differences and similarities in a way that people feel you are one of them for all of them towards better life; and the definite and detailed laws (including the constitution and the integrating laws) besides people’s individual differences (represented in other independent powers such as the legislative parliament, jurisdiction and free press) are the watchdog of both the leader and people’s behaviors. All these powers and individual differences and talents working in harmony are the dynamics which can adapt the laws to what anticipate progress which results from creativity and innovations of its leaders. Again, a leader should be knowledgeable, informative, informed and aware of all what happens around him on both national and international levels; so he will be able to emerge with his people into the stream of progress and welfare in a diplomatic way without being drifted to one side or another, taking into consideration that diplomacy is the science of the feasible or the possible, where a diplomat’s serenity and discern enable him/her to study and scrutinize any unexpected situation so that he can take the right decision on the right time while politics is a sport where there is no loser or winner as both of them enjoy what they practice for the sake of growth and development of the nation.

Unfortunately, things does not always go easily like this as the boundaries which keep the independence of powers so as to function properly, including the executive power whose main task is to serve (apply) the laws for the welfare of all people equally, collapse and melt, thereby merging in the executive power whose heads cannot resist the blazes of powers and gradually turn into despots and tyrants beginning with acting like sympathetic and empathetic trustees (parents) and ending with cold-blooded slaughterers. Power can inflict its holders, consciously or unconsciously, with different psychological diseases. Despots begin like parents as swearing that they will do their best for the welfare of their peoples. People believe blindly without tracking the words as the despot considers himself/herself as a parent who feels that he/she is the source of their lives and hence has the right to punish those who may disobey, not the general laws but his own set of laws, which is called the customary law. Gradually the parent turns into a trustee who focuses his concentration on the wealth of his people to allow himself to loot as much as he can. And to achieve this he surrounds himself by security system and religious lining whose individuals will have their own shares of the wealthy loots. With these security and religion facades the leader turns into an infallible hero then a demigod; thus he begins to inflate with pride, arrogance and haughtiness that gradually keep him at distance from his public, sufficing himself with the reports of his lining which deliberates his complete isolation and separation from the public. Thus the hero or demigod with his tools surrounding him turns into a blind, deaf, sadist, masochist, arrogant, intolerant and aggressive god muddling into corruption and ruling with iron and fire. Sarcastically, fear of the ruler dominates the people while he in fact turns into a doll in the hands of his lining.

When a despot is put under test as his people revolt against this tyrant’s regime which has led them into explosion as a result of poverty, destitution, non-creativity, infertility, insecurity, sterility, immorality, barrenness, chaos, repression, injustice, and anarchy, he cannot stand the test. When the people put their requests forward to him, he meets them with stubbornness, bullheadedness and haughtiness. In accordance with the recommendations and advice of his consultant lining, he begins to experiment with his tools, first by using his police force, then by offering some consents for the change. Thus the charisma of the leader begins to fade away and the up-rise acquires some ground of legality and legitimacy while the legality and legitimacy of the system diminishes. Here, fear transfers from the revolutionists who have nothing to lose to the system and the regime who may lose everything. The more give-ups the despotic regime/system offers, the higher the revolutionists escalate their demands. The tyrant begins to dissolve and to be stunned in disbelief of what is happening, in disability of taking a courageous decision even against his wish for fear of scandals and outrages as his lining begins to fall off his body leaving him bare and alone to his destiny with the revolution. Then comes what he has never thought of, his being ousted as a sabotaged structure that has been demolished by its owner.

In conclusion, unless a state leader follows the rules of politics and understand his role as a mere factor of serving and helping his people to develop and progress towards better life according to the social contract, he may find himself in a situation where he turns into a psychopathic despot surrounding himself by a system with which he becomes a looting tyrant who can not face the explosion of his people as a result of the corruption mire where he has brought them, even though he responded to their needs and demands thee escalate to his resignation.

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