The Idea Man: No. 23 in a Series The
Four Tyrannies: Human History in One Page
Fast-forward two centuries, Human history continues to look like nothing so much as one long struggle meeting, full of loud, angry white noise, with only occasional bleeps of coherence which later eras then revere as "golden ages." Here's way to analyze the noise which suggests that it may not be quite as random or as meaningless or as simple and clear-cut as it seemed to T. Jefferson. Sure, it's one big, long struggle, but you can break it down into four smaller struggles. Moving so slowly (three steps forward, two back in the best of times) out of the primeval ooze, we've been involved with overcoming four tyrannies: 1. The tyranny of nature over man. 1. Science and technology Of course, what has taken us a long time to realize is that the luxuries of one age become the necessities of the next, which has tended to slow things down somewhat. In addition, wretched excess we shall always have with us. 2. Politics It's been a long dark night where the bigger, the stronger, and the luckier have repeatedly beat up on the smaller, weaker, and less lucky, and the bigger / stronger / luckier then strut about proclaiming their superiority. The best antidote to this stupid hubris we've come up with, imperfect though it is, is the rule of law, not men. Again, the future looks fairly bright. Having tried any number of systems, some of which really looked good on paper, we do seem to be moving generally toward some form of law-based society which at least encourages the possibility of equality of opportunity for everybody. 3. Religion and philosophy Here progress seems almost imperceptible. Perhaps that is because we're dealing with intangibles. It often seems a matter of who can shout the loudest. MY SYSTEM OF BELIEF IS BETTER THAN YOUR SYSTEM OF BELIEF! And if shouting doesn't work, then we resort to physical violence and this part of the struggle becomes a matter of who can kill the most. The problem may lie here: Pascal's old observation comes to mind ("The world's problems arise from that fact that it's impossible for one man to sit quietly alone in a room for one hour"). We have developed highly effective tools in this area, but they are extremely subtle, literally self-deprecating. Persons who discover and use these tools are given neither to shouting nor killing. 4. Language
Illus: Holbein woodcut: Expulsion from Eden.
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That was easy for Tom to say back when tyranny was simple. Remember George III,
one of the first Windsor family members (though hardly the last) to flaunt his two-digit
I.Q.? Finding good reasons to revolt against George III was about as difficult as finding
good reasons to revolt against, well, Bill Gates.