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3. 'Tyrants Are Great Only Because We Are on Our Knees'

Falling tyrants, liberated peoples: voluntary servitude, a key concept for understanding the psychological and political mechanisms of submission and emancipation, illuminated through psychoanalytic analysis. 

"Tyrants are great only because we are on our knees."

This quote about individual and collective voluntary subjugation is attributed to Étienne de La Boétie, author of Discourse on Voluntary Servitude. Published in 1576, the text presents remarkably modern insights into the foundations of tyranny and the reasons for people's submission, insights that resonate even more today given the political and social upheavals shaking Lebanon and its surroundings.

La Boétie poses an essential question: How is it that a single man can dominate millions who could easily overthrow him? He answers that this servitude is not imposed by force alone but is also consented to—even desired. It is the people themselves who relinquish their freedom, not merely the tyrant who seizes it.

With psychological acumen, La Boétie dissects the mechanisms through which a dictator establishes and sustains power. He shows how part of the population becomes the instrument of its own enslavement by seeking the complicity and favors of the tyrant. He notes the normalization of submission to the point where the taste for freedom is forgotten.

Above all, La Boétie emphasizes the fundamental illusion underpinning tyranny: the belief that this power is unshakable, whereas it relies entirely on the voluntary submission of those under its rule. This passage from the Discourse remains strikingly relevant:

“It is truly astonishing (and yet so common that we should grieve over it rather than be astonished) to see millions of millions of men miserably subjugated, bowing their heads to a wretched yoke, not because they are compelled by a greater force, but because they are fascinated and, so to speak, bewitched by the sole name of one man, whom they should neither fear—for he is but one—nor love, since he is inhuman and cruel toward them. Such is the weakness of men!”

The metaphor illustrating his argument is illuminating: tyrants are like trees nourished by sap, without which they have no life. If the sap ceases to flow, “they are left bare and broken.” His solution? Do not be the sap! “Resolve not to serve, and you are free.”

Through the clarity of his style and the strength of his arguments, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude stands as a visionary text, anticipating psychoanalytic analyses of the psychic roots of submission. It offers a political and psychological framework for understanding the ever-recurring mystery of the enslavement of peoples.

We now understand that the human psyche is a site of permanent conflict between three forces: the Id, the reservoir of impulses; the Superego, which internalizes prohibitions; and the Ego, which seeks to reconcile their contradictory demands. This dynamic conflict lies at the heart of psychic functioning and can lead individuals to a form of self-tyranny, particularly when the Superego becomes excessively harsh and repressive.

This collective Superego acts as an internalized tyrannical figure, driving individuals to submit to a dominating external authority. This submission operates through defense mechanisms such as repression, which expels dangerous desires and thoughts from consciousness. This self-censorship functions like a mental prison, confining individuals to a state of subjugation to repressive forces they have themselves internalized.

The narcissistic dimension also plays a significant role, as individuals' aggression turns inward in a masochistic movement, leading them to accept—even seek—control. On a personal level (since a tyrant can be found in every family), liberating oneself from internal enslavement involves analytical work to make the unconscious conscious, to uncover and resolve psychic conflicts, and to allow the individual to break free. This process untangles the bonds of alienating submission, enabling access to a freer, self-assured position of desire.

Lacan extended this reflection by focusing on the subject's relationship to the Other, the symbolic order of language and the signifiers that determine them. He showed that the subject is always already caught in a relationship of dependency and subjugation to the desire of this Other. This structural submission can serve as a paradigm for broader subjugation to tyrannical authority.

When individuals derive a form of satisfaction from their subordinate position, they defer to the Other's desire to find solace and meaning in their existence, even at the cost of their freedom. Tyrannical power exploits this psychic predisposition, presenting itself as an embodiment of absolute mastery capable of filling the subject's constitutive lack.

Yet, this posture of total domination is fundamentally a sham. The tyrant's power rests solely on the belief and support of those who recognize him as such. His authority is based on the fantasy of displayed omnipotence, concealing the fragility of his subjective position.

Thus, escaping voluntary servitude requires individuals to free themselves from the Other's desire, to become aware of their own desires and to assume them fully. This emancipation involves a deep process of subjectification, moving from submission to the assertion of a desiring “I.” It necessitates overcoming obstacles such as fear, conformism and societal norms, shedding the comforting illusions of subjugation and daring to become the architects of one's own destiny.

Collectively, a people's liberation from tyranny also involves a complex psychological and political journey. The power's instrumentalization of fear, cultivated and maintained, often inhibits resistance, making submission preferable to the uncertainty of freedom.

Additionally, there is an ambivalent fascination with the tyrannical figure, “the figure of the one,” fueled by identification and fantasy projection to the extent that their fall is felt as a loss. The path to emancipation begins with a salutary realization: recognizing that the tyrant's power is an illusion sustained by our own complicity in their destructive project.

However, this resolution cannot be limited to a simple act of will or a momentary insubordination. It requires profound work of subjectification to overcome a fear of freedom—like that experienced by a prisoner at the end of their incarceration—and to embrace the responsibility of autonomous and sovereign existence. This is both an individual and collective process, sustained by continual vigilance.

La Boétie's call to stand tall against tyrants resonates as an appeal to clarity and courage, retaining all its relevance, particularly in our country. It urges us not to compromise on our desire for freedom, to resist the seductions of both internal and external despotisms.

In this perspective, the most effective strategy is not always direct confrontation. It begins by inwardly refusing consent, withdrawing one's support and legitimization of tyrannical power, thus weakening it and preparing its fall. This subversive form of resistance paradoxically opens the path to a profound reversal of power dynamics—a demanding but hopeful path of emancipation where asserting individual sovereignty aligns with aspiring to a freer, more just society.

The destiny of freedom lies on a fragile yet decisive ridge: in our capacity to refuse to kneel before all forms of oppression, intimate or collective. This is the ever-relevant message of La Boétie, calling on our ethical and political responsibility. His singular voice continues to challenge us through the centuries, inspiring the rise of a creative rebellion within us.