de la boetie
If tyrannical leaders are so few, and the people over which they rule so many - then why do the masses so often take it on the proverbial chin? What prevents the vast numbers of the oppressed from refusing to submit to the relatively small numbers of individuals who are doing all the oppressing? It's a good question that many are asking today - and that French political essayist Étienne de La Boétie asked more than 450 years ago in his now classic treatise The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude. Seeing injustice all around him, and while still an idealistic student of law, La Boétie's questions provided the groundwork for political thought and action for centuries to come - influencing thinkers of the calibre of Tolstoy and Gandhi - and form a point of departure from which many sought to reasonably act without calling hell upon their heads.

This week on MindMatters we examine The Politics Of Obedience and what it seems to be saying about power structures, the nature of servitude and the conditioning that citizens are largely subject to - and need to be rid of. Analyzing its virtues and flaws, we ask how we can apply the writer's answers to today (short of taking out the pitchforks), and what it means to be truly free in a world of nameless technocrats and their rules and agendas.


Running Time: 00:57:11

Download: MP3 — 52.4 MB