On The Origin of Tyranny

The meaning of "origin" is "the beginning or cause of something" (Cambridge Dictionary, cf Oxford).

Obviously tyranny did not, because logically it cannot, emerge in a nation or civilization that does not or did not yet have it.

That is, tyranny does not originally emerge for the first time from itself, so logically it must emerge in a non-tyrannical womb ("the place where something originates and develops").

So, what type of environment, nation, or civilization does tyranny emerge in?

The only answer I can come up with, after reading The Origin of Tyranny (PDF), is:

any environment, nation, or civilization where tyranny does not yet exist.

Thus, the short answer is that tyranny can emerge in any environment, nation, or civilization, but the most vulnerable to it are those with the "It can't happen here" mindset (LieGate).


Another historian studied the situation at length in terms of the womb of tyranny, focusing on the tyranny that brought them down:

"In the Study Toynbee examined the rise and fall of 26 civilizations in the course of human history, and he concluded that they rose by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities composed of elite leaders. Civilizations declined when their leaders stopped responding creatively, and the civilizations then sank owing to the sins of nationalism, militarism, and the tyranny of a despotic minority. Unlike Spengler in his The Decline of the West, Toynbee did not regard the death of a civilization as inevitable, for it may or may not continue to respond to successive challenges. Unlike Karl Marx, he saw history as shaped by spiritual, not economic forces" ...

(How To Identify The Despotic Minority). In that post I wrote about the womb of tyranny, which is "a despotic minority", but I did not talk at link about the nature of their tyranny itself.

That is because to historians the tyranny itself is naturally associated with the particular characteristics of the particular minority which has become despotic at a given time in history.

It is up to us, then, to identify the characteristics of the particular tyranny of the despotic minority in our lifetime.

The book The Origin of Tyranny, which I mentioned and linked to in Section I above, identifies many possible minorities.

It can be a wealthy minority (e.g. The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy, 2, 3, 4, 8), a disenfranchised minority or most any sort (e.g. Storm The Bastille), or a military (e.g. Will The Military Become The Police?, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).


Remember that the tyranny we are analyzing is "the tyranny of a despotic minority."

So, let's begin with "despotic", which stems from despot, which is:

"a person, especially a ruler, who has unlimited power over other people, and often uses it unfairly and cruelly"

(Cambridge Dictionary).  Dictionaries tell us that "tyranny" is:

"unlimited authority or use of power, or a government which exercises such power without any control or limits" (Cambridge Dictionary)

"oppressive power exerted by government" (Merriam Webster)

"A tyranny is a cruel, harsh, and unfair government in which a person or small group of people have power over everyone else. " (Collins)

A despotic ruler is a minority of one, but the power actually comes from a minority group of people supporting the despot.

There is a lot of enlightenment on the psychology of both the ruler and the followers in a book entitled "The Authoritians" (How To Identify The Despotic Minority - 3).


The way a despotic minority evolves depends on the culture, however, much of the particular dynamics are understandable (Etiology of Social Dementia, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18).


The bottom line is that both the tyranny and the despot are defined by the characteristics of the minority that has become despotic.

That "minority" can be millions of people, can be multiracial, one race, multicultural, one culture, etc. (e.g. United States presidential election, 2016).

However, the one thing that such a minority must be is despotic.

Finally, the one thing it must espouse is tyranny.