Tyranny and Desire

What the end of politics looks like

She's the dollars
She's my protection
Yeah, she's a promise
In the year of election

-U2, ‘Desire’

Let us cut to the chase. Leo Strauss once made the observation that tyranny is a ‘danger coeval with political life’. From the very beginning of political organisation, in other words, politics itself has had an enemy, a threat, an opposing force: the tyrant. The tyrant, we are to infer, is that force which brings political life to an end.

My argument is that we are currently confronted with such a radically destabilising force. In this post I will describe what it is, and go on to suggest what it signifies about the threat to political life which we are currently experiencing.

To do this, I will start by briefly describing a once obscure text, made somewhat infamous by its having been made subject to an exegesis by Strauss, which is Xenophon’s Hiero. In this dialogue we find the tyrant of Syracuse, Hiero, talking to the poet Simonides, who has visited his court. Hiero, we learn, is unhappy. Although he is a tyrant, he cannot enjoy his status. His people fear and envy him, so he lacks what we would nowadays call ‘human connection’. He cannot find love, because although he can have sex with whatever young man he likes, he cannot be sure that his lusts are reciprocated – his partner is only ever with him because he has to be. He cannot sleep easily at night for fear of assassination. He has to constantly surveil his people with a network of spies. And he cannot travel and see the world, because it would be dangerous to his person. Although he has status and power, in other words, he cannot enjoy its fruits. His existence is lonely, isolated, unrewarding, unfulfilled. And the worst thing is that he cannot even give it up. He cannot go back to being a normal man and relinquish the throne, so to speak, because then his enemies will probably kill him. He is trapped.

After Hiero concludes this lengthy whinge, Simonides comes up with some advice. Your problem, he tells Hiero, is that you are thinking only of your own needs and insecurities. You are not thinking positively about how you can use your situation to your advantage. How can you get the pleasurable, rewarding, fulfilling life you seek, and remain a tyrant? Well, Simonides says, the thing to do is try, in effect, to rule benevolently. Hold festivals so the people can enjoy themselves. Give them gifts and bestow rewards. Enrich them. Give them opportunities to excel. Care for them. Try to secure their loyalty and love. The trick, he says, to avoiding a life of fear for yourself is to make sure the population do not fear, but love you. The only thing that they should fear is the prospect of your disappearance. Then they will always feel as though they need you. And you will be secure and happy for the rest of your life.

We do not hear Hiero’s response to this. And the text of the Hiero is very ambiguous. Is Xenophon writing in the vein of the ‘mirror to princes’ – is he genuinely hoping to have an influence on how real tyrants conduct themselves? Is his text didactic, for students to use as a discussion piece? Is it a satire – is he making fun of the tyrant, or indeed of those who would advise them? Or, is it, as Leo Strauss seemed to suggest (he did not use this language), a kind of immanent critique of tyranny? Does the dialogue aim to reveal the nature and consequences of tyranny in exposing its internal logic?