What is a Tyrant?
You may think you know what makes a tyrant but think about it. Before turning to a dictionary, let’s derive at least some meaning from popular usage. We may hear people claim, “My boss is a tyrant,” or “My dad is a tyrant,” or “Hitler was a tyrant.”
So, can just anyone be a tyrant?
Well, if we take the examples as illustrative (and any definition must take account of how the word is used), we see that, no, not just anyone can be a tyrant. To be a tyrant, people must be in a position of authority; they must be able to exercise at least some control over other people.
So a tyrant is someone in a position of authority who exercises tyrannical control of the people in their charge.
These are necessary details but not defining. A tyrant must be a person in authority but not all people in authority are necessarily a tyrant. It is necessary to make that distinction.
Looking up “tyranny” in the dictionary gives us, as usual, several definitions. Fortunately, all these definitions are related — they refer to some nuances of the same thing; not like, say, the word “fast” which may be defined as 1) to refrain from eating, 2) to move quickly, and 3) to not be able to move at all! With “tyranny,” we can each choose a different dictionary entry and still be referring to essentially the same thing.
However, there are differences between the formal, dictionary definition and what we were able to derive from common usages. The second and third dictionary entries mention “absolute” power or rule. But tyranny doesn’t require the tyrant to have absolute control over people. Any control will do.
Of all the entries, the one I like best is the first one: arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority.
But of all the descriptive terms used here, more than “unrestrained” or “despotic abuse,” the most important, because it is the most identifying, is “arbitrary.”
So a tyrant is someone who exercises control over someone in an arbitrary way.
This may seem like a morally weak definition, especially as the dictionary definitions contained descriptions like “oppressive or unjustly severe,” “undue severity or harshness,” and “cruel.” Arbitrary fails to convey this feeling of evilness.
While such loaded adjectives may be good descriptions of most real-world political tyrannies, they are not identifying descriptors. A tyranny could accurately be described as a cruel tyranny, but the cruelty is not necessary for the rule to be tyrannical.
In my previous post, I describe freedom as being able to act according to one’s own decisions. There are no limiting factors such as good decisions or sound decisions or well-thought-out decisions. If you are free, when you decide to do something, you do it.
An obvious corollary to that definition is that you and only you are responsible for the outcome of a free act. If you acted well and the outcome was beneficial, you absorb the benefits. If you acted foolishly and the outcome was catastrophic, you absorb the costs. Either blame or praise, it all belongs to you.
A tyrant is one who comes along and says, “No. You can’t act on your own. I will make the decision for you.”
This doesn’t apply to people who have been asked for advice. All of us will, at some points in our lives, face decisions that require knowledge or experience we simply do not have. It makes sense then to ask others for advice. But the decision to act according to the advice, to modify the advice or ignore the advice altogether is still ours to make. The advice may have been good or bad, the results may be beneficial or severe, but the decision to act was still ours so we reap the costs or rewards.
So, if we are on the cusp of acting according to a very bad decision and a tyrant comes along and forces us to act according to his decision — which turns out to lead to a better outcome — is this still an act of tyranny?
Of course. It is the use of force — or threat of force—to make us act against our will that constitutes tyranny. So tyrannies may be — and usually are — described as oppressive and cruel. But a tyranny can be intended to do good — the tyrant genuinely means to bring only benefits to the people he controls. He acts only “for the common good.”
I stress intended to do good, because intentions are insignificant. We cannot read minds. We can only judge the morality of an act according to the results of that act, not the actor’s intent.
So it is possible for a tyranny to result in better results than if the populace was allowed to act according to their individual decisions. This outcome would be exceedingly rare. In fact, I can’t think of a single real-world example.
This doesn’t mean the tyrant doesn’t intend to be benevolent. I have no reason to doubt that if we could have gotten into the minds of some of the world’s most cruel tyrants — Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao Zedong — we would see they intended good results for their people.
(One wonders how they could have held on to such ideas after resulting in the deaths of millions of their people, but then we get into a discussion that is outside the scope of this article.)
Some of the tyrants of the past are listed above. Who are today’s tyrants?
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean President Kim Jong-un are obvious candidates. Actually, the leader of just about any country of Africa, Middle East and Asia are listed as “dictators.” A dictator is really just a tyrant with control over an entire country.
But a tyrant could well be a governor of a state, a county supervisor, a mayor, or a member of a town council or school board. Even on the country level, a tyrant could be a member of Congress or other national assembly. Tyrants are not defined by how much power they have or the scope of that power but rather how they exercise their power.
While America is known as a “free” country, even American Presidents can be and arguably have been tyrants. In fact, it may be the rare President that has not at least attempted some exercise of power that could well be described as tyrannical. But we Americans have our Constitution and the other two branches of our federal government to rein in abusive Presidents. This can severely limit the extent of their tyranny.
In supposedly free countries all over the world, the advent of Covid-19 has triggered a tsunami of tyranny, at all levels of government. How many times in the last 18 months have we heard the word “mandate” bandied about? Any government mandate is, by definition, tyrannical.
“But,” someone may object, “things like vaccine mandates and mask mandates perform a public good. It keeps us safe. If this is tyranny, it is for a very, very good reason.”
Whether or not the Covid-related mandates keep us safe, or safer than any other available option, is highly debatable. However, keep in mind that people only relinquish their rights for very, very good reasons. No dictator ever took control for trivial reasons.
Is tyranny ever an exceptable alternative? Does tyranny always lead to bad results? If so, why? Stay tuned.
