«THE PEOPLE MUST FIGHT FOR ITS LAW AS FOR ITS WALL»…
«The people must fight for its law as for its wall».
«To me one man is equal to ten thousand, if he is the best». (Heraclitus)
About 2500 years ago, from a noble and influential family living in Ephesus, descended the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, whose profound saying — «Everything is transient» is known to many.
«A man’s character forges his destiny»,- he asserted, and he also reminded of «those who sleep while awake».
Heraclitus was convinced that power must belong to «the best few and not to the worst majority or to the ignorant multitude, which does not tolerate the wise and the strong».
The 16th-century French writer-humanist and jurist Étienne de La Boétie (1530-1563), when only 19 years old, in 1549, set down the «Discourse on Voluntary Servitude», in which he examines the reprehensible phenomenon of peoples who, as a result of their tolerance and credulity, submissively support tyrants abusing power.
Here, then, is an excerpt from that discourse in my translation:
«… For the present I would only like to understand how it happens that so many men, so many provinces, cities, so many nations sometimes endure a single tyrant, whose only strength is the power that they themselves give him, and who can harm them only as much as they are willing to endure, and who could do them no harm whatsoever, if they did not willingly prefer suffering to opposing him. Truly, it is a strange thing – and yet so widespread a phenomenon that one must rather sigh (lament) than be astonished, seeing how millions of men are wretchedly enslaved, their heads placed under the yoke, not because they are compelled by brute force, but because they are charmed, one may say — bewitched, solely by a mere name, which they ought not to fear, since he is alone – nor love, since he is inhuman and cruel toward all.
Such, however, is the weakness of men: forcibly enduring the obedience imposed upon them, they cannot always be stronger»…
Nevertheless, he clearly points out the way out.
«Resolve firmly — to serve no more – and you will be free.
I do not ask you to push him or to shake him, only support him no more, and you will see how — like a great colossus whose base has been broken, he will collapse under his own weight and shatter»…
