The Primate Model of Chief Executive Rulers as Alpha Males

In most political communities around the world and throughout history, one person has held the highest political position--the office of the ruling chief executive.  There is always someone who is the big man, the chief, the monarch, the dictator, the emperor, the prime minister, or the president--the number one man (and it's usually a man).  Much of politics is all about the competition for that alpha male position.

Why is that?  Why do some people strive to be at the top, even when that striving exposes them to hardships and dangers, even death?  Why do many people defer to dominant rulers, while others resist being dominated?

The best way to answer these questions, I believe, is to say that human beings have biological drives to dominance, deference, and resistance to dominance that they share with other primates (monkeys and apes). One of the best theories supporting this view is Arnold Ludwig's primate model of political rule, which he set forth in his book King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership (University of Kentucky Press, 2002).  A slightly revised version of his model is a fundamental element of what I have called biopolitical science.  (Some years ago, I wrote "Why Males Rule," a review of Ludwig's book for the Fall 2003 issue of The Claremont Review of Books.)

Ludwig presented his theory as an empirical science based on the study of three kinds of data.  His first--and most rigorously collected and analyzed--database was the list of all the political leaders of all independent nations who held chief executive power for any length of time in the twentieth century (from January 1, 1900 to December 31, 2000), which was 1,941 individuals from 199 countries.  From this list, he then identified those who had separate encyclopedia entries in either the Encyclopedia Britannica or the Encyclopedia Americana.  He then did a bibliographic search to identify those on this shorter list for whom there was adequate data available about their personal lives and professional careers, who were selected as a sample for in-depth study and analysis.  This special sample contained 377 rulers.

He then prepared information forms to record all appropriate biographical data about all 377 rulers.  Based on these forms, he prepared data forms consisting of 182 items to be filled out for each individual, with definitions and criteria for recording all these variables.  With this, he could then do statistical comparisons among ruler types and other categorial variables to determine relative frequencies or percentages of certain characteristics or events for these rulers.

For example, Ludwig saw that 36 percent of the rulers in his sample had come to power with the help of mentors or colleagues.  He could then determine the likelihood of their betraying or remaining loyal to those who had helped them.  He found that 58 percent remained loyal, while 42 percent betrayed their friends.  He also saw that 100 percent of the tyrants and 86 percent of the monarchs were betrayers, while only 25 percent of the democratic rulers were betrayers.  It also seemed that betrayal was advantageous because while the loyalists spent an average of eight years in office, the betrayers spent an average of fourteen years in office.  He concluded that this confirmed Machiavelli's advice in The Prince that it is foolish for a new ruler to "keep faith" with those who helped him come to power: "because they are bad, and will not keep faith with you, you too are not bound to observe it with them" (94-95).

Ludwig's second kind of data consisted of anecdotal biographical data to illustrate the generalizations from his statistical data.  So, for example, after giving the statistics for betrayal and loyalty, he gives six instances of betrayal by dictators and three instances by democratic rulers.  The first case comes from Pakistan:  "As prime minister of Pakistan, Bhutto appointed General Zia, a little-known military officer at the time, as chief of the army staff in 1976 because he felt he was completely trustworthy.  About one year later Zia overthrew his benefactor and hung him on the charge of murdering a political opponent" (95).  Ludwig relates these biographical anecdotes in vivid and often amusing ways that engage the reader.

This is similar to Machiavelli's writing in The Prince because he often states a general principle or maxim for prudent princes that is followed by dramatically colorful stories that illustrate the point.

Finally, Ludwig's third kind of data came from the reports of primatologists (like George Schaller, Jane Goodall, Frans de Waal, and Robert Sapolsky) that show how the striving for alpha male status among monkeys and apes resembles the political life of human beings.  For example, as evidence that political betrayal and shifting allegiances in the competition for political dominance is common in other primates, Ludwig quoted from Sapolsky's account (in A Primate's Memoir) of the political competition in the savanna baboon troop in Kenya that he had studied for over twenty years.

When Sapolsky was 21 years old, he first joined the troop of sixty baboons in 1978.  Solomon had been the alpha male for three years, but this became his last year because he was unseated by Uriah.  Then, in 1980, Saul deposed Uriah after one day of fighting.  

Saul proved to be an extraordinarily successful ruler.  Whenever he was challenged, even if it was a trivial provocation, he responded with a ferociously vicious attack.  Consequently, everyone learned to never challenge him about anything.  But he never started fights.  He never engaged in aggression pointlessly.  "Saul was what most males aspired to, if only they had a stitch of smarts or discipline or energy" (A Primate's Memoir, 103).  He was the model of a baboon Machiavellian prince.

There was a group of young males in their prime who were frustrated by their lacking the ability to individually challenge Saul.  Finally, they decided to form a cooperative coalition.  Joshua and Menasseh made coalitional appeasement gestures to each other that established their partnership.  They jointly challenged Saul, but he defeated them.  The next day, Joshua and Menasseh formed a coalition with Levi; but Saul forced them to run away after only a few seconds of fighting.  The day after that, four of them--Joshua, Menasseh, Levi, and Nebuchadnezzar--fought jointly with Saul, but they failed.

Then, the next day, these four had formed an even bigger coalition with two others--Daniel and Benjamin--so now it was six against one.  In their fight, Menasseh got in a lucky hit on Saul's haunches.  Saul fell, and all the others jumped on him.  His body was punctured with many canine bites.  He survived.  But he went to the bottom of the hierarchy.

What happened to the victorious coalition of six?  Sapolsky reports:

"The wonderfully cooperative junta that had overthrown Saul lasted all of a morning before it disintegrated into factionalism and both metaphorical and literal backbiting.  All hell broke loose for months afterward.  Joshua, Menasseh, Levi, Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, and Benjamin were clearly the upper-ranking cohort now.  For example, in a social interaction, any one of them dominated a subadult like David, Daniel's old buddy.  But they didn't have a clue where they stood with respect to each other.  Ranks flip-flopped daily. . . . Chaos reigned.  Everyone was scheming, spending hours forming coalitional partnerships that would collapse within minutes of their first test.  Nearly 40 percent of the time, when it did collapse, the erstwhile partner would wind up on the other side.  The number of fights went through the roof, as did the rate of injuries" (Sapolsky, 169; Ludwig, 124).

Ludwig quotes this to show that political alliances are as easily broken up by betrayal among baboons as among human beings.

There is one weakness, however, in Ludwig's comparisons of human beings and other higher primates as showing the Machiavellian drive for alpha-male dominance:  this does not seem to be true for one ape species--the bonobos--who seem to show female dominance and a more peaceful life than is the case for the other great apes and monkeys.  Ludwig refers to this "apparent exception of the bonobos," but without explaining it (Ludwig, 8-9, 355, 376, 410).

THE PRIMATE MODEL

One way to summarize the primate model of politics is to list the similarities in the struggle for alpha-male dominance among human beings and other primates.  Here's Ludwig's list (355):

GAINING POWER

Males Dominant

No Special Experience or Skills Needed

Danger of Physical Harm

Vie with Competitors for Power

Form Alliances to Topple Leader

Repetitive Attempts to Depose Leader

Physical Prowess and Courage

Cunning and Deviousness Useful

EXERCISING POWER

Greater Access to Females

Breeding Advantage

Material Rewards

Deference by Subordinates

KEEPING POWER

Keeping Peace among Subjects

Risking Harm During Challenges

Repeat Mistakes of Past Leaders

Resist Giving Up Power

Posturings and Displays

Change in Demeanor and Manner

Fending Off Challengers

As I have indicated previously, I agree with Christopher Boehm in seeing a Lockean political rhetoric among chimpanzees that turns on three themes--dominance, deference, and counter-dominance.  Ludwig is not as clear as he should be about the theme of counter-dominance.  To make that clear, I would add a fourth part to his primate model:

LOSING POWER

The Alpha Male Is Overthrown by the Ambitious Few Who Want to Dominate

The Alpha Male Is Overthrown Because the Normally Deferential Many Resist His Oppressive Dominance

SIX KINDS OF CHIEF EXECUTIVE RULERS

Ludwig distinguishes six different ways of ruling as an alpha male--four kinds of dictators and two kinds of democrats (41):

DICTATORS

Supreme Monarchs

Consecrated by Church or Authority by Kinship to Esteemed Figure

Absolute Rule or Strong Constitutional Powers

Rule for Life

Endowed with Special Powers Such as Healing Touch, Infallibility

For Example: Ibn Saud, King of Saudi Arabia (1932-1953)

Tyrants

Authority to Rule Based on Military Backing

Decrees and Edicts, Implemented by Force

Commonly Display Cruelty, Greed, Corruption

No Ideological Basis for Governing

For Example: Francois Duvalier ("Papa Doc"), President of Haiti (1957-1971)

Visionaries

Totalitarian Rule

Promotion of a Particular Political Ideology

Social Engineering

No Fixed Term in Office

For Example: Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister of Italy (1922-1943), Duce of the Italian Social Republic (1943-1945)

Authoritarians

Dictatorship Established to Preserve Social Stability

Emphasis on Law, Order, and Tradition

Bureaucratic Rule Common with Emphasis on Regulations

No Fixed Term in Office

For Example: Janos Kadar, First Secretary of Hungary's Communist Party (1956-1988)

DEMOCRATS

Transitional Democrats in Emerging Democracies

Rule Country After Liberation or Independence

Introduction of Constitutional Democracy with Fixed Terms in Office

Usually Show Autocratic Tendencies

Many Have Special Status as "Father of Nation"

For Example:  Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe (1987-2017)

Democratic Leaders of Established Democracies

Elected to a Limited Term in Office

Executive Powers Defined by Constitution

Balance of Power with Judicial and Legislative Bodies

Greater Emphasis on Negotiation and Compromise

For Example: Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States (1933-1945)

We do not see these six kinds of alpha-male rulers among non-human primates.  Because many of the factors here--such as ideology and religion--arise from uniquely human traits such as language and hypersociality.  But we do see the dichotomy between dictators and democrats.  For example, Frans de Waal has observed that while rhesus monkeys show a "despotic dominance style" in which subordinates cannot challenge dominants, chimpanzees show an "egalitarian dominance style" in which subordinates can restrain dominants.  Dominant individuals are expected to mediate conflicts within the group and to lead the group in conflicts with other groups.  Among chimpanzees, dominant individuals can be challenged or even deposed if they do not properly carry out their conflict-mediation role.

THE MOST DANGEROUS PROFESSION

Holding high political office is a dangerous profession.  Being a chief executive ruler of a country is one of the most lethal activities known to human beings.  Ludwig's data shows that 12 percent of all twentieth-century rulers died a violent death--either by assassination (7 percent), execution (4 percent), or suicide (1 percent).  Within the sample of 377 rulers, the death rate was 18 percent.

Even if they are not actually killed, rulers have to worry about assassination attempts.  In the twentieth century, if the ruler was a tyrant, there was a 77 percent chance that someone would try to kill him.  For a monarch, it was a 61 percent chance.  For a visionary, a 56 percent chance.  For an authoritarian, a 46 percent chance.  Leaders in an emerging democracy had a 51 percent risk of being attacked.  Leaders in established democracies had a 19 percent chance of being exposed to attempted assassinations.

American presidents have faced many assassination attempts.  Four presidents have been killed in office--Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John Kennedy.  Others have been shot and came close to death--Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.

Prior to the twentieth century, the danger of violent death for rulers was even greater.  In the first systematic and quantitative study of regicide in Europe, Manuel Eisner has collected data on the frequency of violent death and regicide among 1,513 monarchs in Europe between AD 600 and 1800 ("Killing Kings: Patterns of Regicide in Europe, AD 600-1800," British Journal of Criminology 51 [2011]: 556-577).  He has distinguished four categories of violent death: accident, battle death, murder, and legal execution.  He found that in the seventh century, the frequency of regicide was 2,500 murders per 100,000 years in office.  There was a long decline in regicide.  So that by the eighteenth century, the frequency of regicide was about 200 per 100,000 years in office.  By comparison, the homicide rate in Western Europe today is around 0.6-1.5 per 100,000 person-years.  Clearly, then, European kingship before the Industrial Revolution was one of the most dangerous occupations in the world, comparable to that of soldiers in combat.

Eisner found that for most of this history, regicide was carried out within the noble elite in the competition for political rule.  But, then, by the seventeenth century, regicide became increasingly a matter of legal execution--such as the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the execution of Louis XVI in 1793.  In the Glorious Revolution of 1688, James II was deposed without being executed.

Even if they do not die a violent death, rulers face a high chance of bad outcomes.  In the twentieth century, tyrants faced the greatest risks: assassination (15 percent), thrown out of office by election (10 percent), deposed by coup (50 percent), or overthrown in a lost war (10 percent).  As Ludwig said, "that is a whopping 85 percent chance of leaving office in disgrace or in a casket" (120).

Simian alpha males face a similar likelihood of bad outcomes, including assassination.

In my next post, I will apply this primate model of political rule to the history of the Stuart monarchy in seventeenth century England.

The Machiavellianism of Our Chimpanzee Politics

So what would Niccolo Machiavelli say about Hosni Mubarak's political career?

Machiavelli might admire Mubarak's rise from a military career to princely rule in Egypt. His military success--particularly in the October War of 1973--showed his mastery of war and his understanding that "good laws" depend upon "good arms."

As Vice President of Egypt, Mubarak became President after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, so he understood the vulnerability of princes to assassination. Mubarak himself was the target of a least a half-dozen assassination attempts. He understood, as Machiavelli taught, that even the most powerful ruler can be brought down by any assassin willing to lose his life in an attack.

He also understood that if a prince has to choose between being feared and being loved, it is better to be feared, and consequently, he maintained his princely power for 30 years through a declaration of emergency law that allowed him to arrest and terrify his political opponents without due process of law.

His mistake towards the end of his career, however, was in failing to see that even if the prince is feared, he must avoid the hatred and contempt of the people, particularly that coming from the young men. The popular demonstrations of the last few weeks showed that this hatred and contempt coming from the people would make him vulnerable to those ambitious few around him who were looking for the first opportunity to take his power from him. His dependence on the military then left him open to the military decision to force him out of office.

Reports suggest that Mubarak's son--Gamal Mubarak--was pushing him to cling to power, for the obvious reason that Gamal was his successor. The military leadership of Egypt has declared that the Constitution and the Parliament is suspended, and that until elections occur, the country will be represented by Egypt's Defense Minister, Field Marshall Mohammed Hussein Tantawi. Previously, he has been a loyal supporter of Mubarak. But now he appears to be a shrewd opportunist who might have managed Mubarak's ouster.

The leaders of the Egyptian protestors had studied the techniques of non-violent resistance--the techniques of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others, as presented in some books by Gene Sharp. Such techniques work only if the police and soldiers refuse to kill the protestors. In this case, the decision of the military leaders to order their soldiers to assume a posture of neutrality deprived Mubarak of the terrorizing force that might have stopped the public protests.

We can see here Machiavelli's political psychology as based on the three or four distinct "humours" or personality traits in any community--the one, the few, and the many.

Every political regime must have one person at the top, someone who exercises the chief executive power. Even in the most primitive societies of foragers, who have no formal ranks of political power, some individuals exercise leadership, particularly in war. And once human beings settled into agrarian states, the position of war leader was transformed into formal military command. Today, even in modern democratic regimes, the chief executive acts as commander-in-chief in time of war.

The one prince is surrounded by those Machiavelli called "the great ones"--the ambitious few or the elites--who naturally want to rule, and thus want to take the place of the prince. Those with military power might be considered a distinctive "humour," or they might be considered as belonging to the ambitious elite. The prince must fear these people the most, because they are the ones who have the ambition to replace him.

The great majority of people have no ambition to rule. They naturally submit to being ruled by the prince and the ambitious few. But they also resist being exploited by the few. They want to be secure in their property and their private lives. Even though they don't want to rule themselves, their hatred or contempt of their rulers will move them to violent resistance or revolution. Even if the prince is feared, a successful prince must avoid the hatred or contempt of the people, and he does this by keeping his hands off their property and their women.

This dark view of politics makes Machiavelli's political realism disturbing to most of us. But it's hard to deny the basic truth of his teaching as a description of political history. In every political community, we see rule by a single person, usually a man, who shows a powerful drive for dominance. Around that alpha male, we see a small group of people--mostly men--who are naturally ambitious for power, and who are the natural rivals of the alpha male, although they will support him if he pulls them into his political coalition. Finally, around the prince and the ambitious few, we see the great multitude of people--men and women--who have no political ambition, who submit to political rule, who seek only security in their private lives, but who can be provoked to rebellion if they feel unduly oppressed by the rulers. Even in democracies, we never see absolute equality, with everyone having equal power, because democratic citizens exercise only indirect and episodic power, as in elections, and they depart from their natural submissiveness only in rare circumstances where their feeling of being oppressed has become unusually severe.

One way to explain this Machiavellian pattern in politics is to say that this shows the biological nature of human beings as political primates ruled by alpha males. That's the argument of Frans de Waal's book Chimpanzee Politics, based on his study of the chimpanzee colony in the Burgers' Zoo in Arnhem, in the Netherlands. Support for de Waal's argument comes from Arnold Ludwig's book King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership, which is a study of the human political leaders in the twentieth century.

If de Waal and Ludwig are right about this, this would confirm Aristotle's political biology. Aristotle identified the political animals as those animals who are naturally inclined to organize themselves into social groups for collective action, and he identified human beings as similar to those political animals who need "leaders" (hegemones). Moreover, Aristotle observed, since males tend to be more "hegemonic" than females, males are naturally inclined to seek the highest positions of political leadership. Although Aristotle did not identify chimpanzees as political animals, he did recognize that chimpanzees were the animals most similar to human beings, a conclusion that he reached after a meticulous dissection of chimpanzee bodies. Also, there's very little in Machiavelli's political realism that can't be found in Aristotle's political biology--particularly, in what he says about how tyrants preserve their power and what has to be done in times of revolutionary upheaval.

Now I know that the followers of Leo Strauss assume that Aristotle's talk about human beings as political animals by nature is only his "exoteric" teaching, and that his "esoteric" teaching is in agreement with Hobbes--that politics is artificial, not natural, because it depends on the artifice of statesmen establishing political traditions. But, as I have argued in DARWINIAN NATURAL RIGHT, this assumes a false dichotomy between nature and artifice, which ignores the fact that human beings (like other political animals) have natural instincts for social learning, so that political order arises from a complex interaction of nature and nurture. To assert that politics is purely cultural and not natural at all would be to embrace an implausible "blank slate" view of politics. But then the Straussians contradict themselves on this point, because they insist that the utopian teaching of Plato's REPUBLIC is "against human nature," which suggests that there really is some natural structure to human social and political life.

Quoting Chapter 9 of Machiavelli's Prince ("Of the Civil Principate"), de Waal sees the political life of chimpanzees as conforming to Machiavelli's political psychology. Machiavelli writes that when a private citizen becomes a prince through the favor of his fellow citizens, which he calls a "civil principate," the prince comes to power either with the favor of the people or with that of the great. "For in every city, these two different humors are to be found. Thus it is that the people desire not to be commanded or oppressed by the great, and the great desire to command and to oppress the people." Consequently, the great will elevate one of their own to make him prince if he will help them oppress the people; or the people will make one man the prince if he will protect them from the oppression of the great.

Machiavelli explains:

. . . He who comes to the principate with the aid of the great maintains himself with more difficulty than the one who attains to it with the aid of the people--for he finds himself prince with many around him who opine themselves his equals, and because of this he cannot command or manage them in his own mode.

But he who arrives at the principate with the popular favor finds himself alone, and there will be no one or very few around him who are not prepared to obey. Besides this, one cannot with honesty satisfy the great without injuring others, but one can well do that with the people. For the end of the people is more honest than that of the great, the latter wanting to oppress, the former not to be oppressed.

One who becomes prince by means of the favor of the people ought, therefore, to keep them his friends. This is made easy for him, for they ask of him only that they be not oppressed. But one who becomes prince with the favor of the great, against the people, ought above all things to gain the people to himself; which is easily done when he undertakes their protection.

This point about how easy it is for a prince to please the people--by just not oppressing them--is stressed by John Locke in his account of how a "wise and godlike prince" can exercise the executive power without resistance as long as he refrains from oppressing the people. Only foolish princes become so oppressive, Locke observes, that the people must assert their right to resistance.

This is what de Waal saw in his chimps at Arnhem. The alpha male needed to gain the support of the adult females and the children by keeping the peace through impartial intervention into disputes. By contrast, an alpha male who was too dependent on other high-ranking males was insecure, because these ambitious males would look for the first opportunity to overthrow him and take his dominant position.

De Waal explained the political ambition of the adult males--their drive to become the alpha male--as a product of evolution by natural selection, because the dominant males had more access to fertile females, and thus the dominant males would, on average, have higher reproductive fitness.

De Waal concluded that his study of chimpanzee politics sustained Machiavelli's teaching about human politics:

Nearly five centuries ago, Machiavelli described the political manipulations of the Italian princes, popes and influential families such as the Medici and the Borgias without equivocation. Unfortunately, his admirably realistic analysis has often been mistaken for a moral justification of these practices. One reason for this was that he presented rivalries and conflicts as constructive and not negative elements. Machiavelli ws the first man to refuse to repudiate or cover up power motives. This violation of the existing collective lie was not kindly received. It was regarded as an insult to humanity.

To compare humans with chimpanzees can be taken to be just as insulting, or perhaps even more so, because human motives seem to become more animal as a result. And yet, among chimpanzees, power politics are not merely 'bad' or 'dirty.' They give to the life of the Arnhem community its logical coherence and even a democratic structure. All parties search for social significance and continue to do so until a temporary balance is achieved. This balance determines the new hierarchical positions. Changing relationships reach a point where they become 'frozen' in more or less fixed ranks. When we see how this formalization takes place during reconciliations, then we understand that the hierarchy is a cohesive factor, which puts limits on competition and conflict. Child care, playing, sex, and cooperation depend on the resultant stability. But underneath the surface, the situation is constantly in a state of flux. The balance of power is tested daily and if it proves too weak, it is challenged and a new balance established. Consequently chimpanzee politics are also constructive. Human beings should regard it as an honour to be classed as political animals.

Like Aristotle, de Waal recognizes that human politics is unique because of the uniqueness of human language and conceptual reasoning, which allows human politics to express the human rhetorical debate over concepts of the good, the just, and the useful. Nevertheless, de Waal sees in human politics the same spirited desire for dominance that he sees in chimpanzee politics.

This claim that human politics manifests a primate political nature based on rule by alpha males becomes more persuasive if one considers Ludwig's study of political leadership. Ludwig's book shows that the political history of the 20th century confirms the claim of Aristotle, Darwin, and de Waal that male dominance of politics is rooted in human biological nature. Ludwig supports his argument with a meticulous analysis of the 1,941 chief executive rulers of the independent countries in the 20th century. He illustrates his points with lively anecdotes from the lives of the 377 rulers for whom he had extensive biographical information. In addition to this anecdotal evidence, he provides quantitative measures of the behavior of political leaders that confirm his argument.

The political history of the 20th century clearly supports Roberto Michels' "iron law of oligarchy": despite the attempts of socialists to establish absolute equality, every social group and political community shows a tendency to oligarchic rule by those elites ambitious enough to seek power. Moreover, we also see a tendency for power at the top to be taken by single person exercising executive rule.

And, in most cases, these highest positions of power are filled by men. Of the 1,941chief executive rulers in the 20th century, only 27 were women. Of those 27, almost half came to power through their connection to their politically powerful fathers or husbands. For example, Benazir Bhutto rose to power in Pakistan after the assassination of her father. After being expelled and then returning to power, she herself fell to an assassin. Corazon Aquino rose to power in the Philippines after the assassination of her husband. Only a very few women--like Margaret Thatcher--rose to power on their own without any tie to a powerful man. But even in these cases, women like Thatcher were embedded within a male-dominated political world. And their success depended on showing manly propensities--showing that they had "balls."

As indicated by Machiavelli and de Waal, Ludwig's study shows that rulers who oppress the people, and thus provoke hatred and contempt, are exposed to assassination, military coups, and violent revolutions. Those rulers that Ludwig identifies as "tyrants" or "authoritarians" are much more likely to meet a bad outcome than rulers in a democracy. If democratic rulers become unpopular, they can be removed from office by defeat in an election.

The spread of modern democracy--based on limited government with checks and balances--confirms the suggestions of Machiavelli and de Waal that our politial nature can be managed through a balance of power in a mixed regime. The ambitious few can satisfy their ambition by seeking the highest public offices. And the prince can satisfy his desire for dominance by filling the chief executive office. But this drive for dominance is channeled through a constitutional system of limited and balanced powers so that--as James Madison said--"ambition is made to counteract ambition." Consequently, the great multitude of the people who have no ambition to rule, but who only want to be free from oppression, are protected from exploitation by the ruling few, although there remains the threat of popular revolution if the constitutional restraints on power fail.

Ludwig explains modern constitutional democracy as showing how human beings can use cultural institutions to restrain their biological drives for dominance. But I am persuaded by Christopher Boehm's argument that constitutional democracy is rooted in the evolved natural tendency of subordinates to resist being exploited--a tendency that can be seen in chimpanzees as well as human foragers. Thus, we can understand constitutional republicanism as a mixed regime that balances the evolved biological propensities of the one, the few, and the many.

And yet there are some obvious objections that should be answered. Surely many people would object that while the primate model of rule by alpha males depends on the alpha males having greater reproductive success than other individuals, it's not clear that this holds for human rulers.

Ludwig answers this objection by showing that there really is some reproductive benefit for human rulers. He calculates the rate of "sexual profligacy" among married male rulers--their rate of sexual promiscuity, infidelity, or polygamy; and he shows that the most powerful rulers have higher rates of sexual profligacy. The highest rate is 95% for tyrants, and the lowest rate is 40% for democratic rulers. Apparently, the limits on the power of democratic rulers constrain their sexual behavior. But even so, the 40% rate for democratic rulers is a little higher than the estimate of the Kinsey Report for married men in the United States who have had at least one extramarital affair--37%.

Another objection is that the primate model of rule by alpha males fails to account for the potential of alpha females. After all, even among chimps, females have their own dominance hierarchy. And among some primates--particularly bonobos--the females seem to be dominant over the males. Furthermore, we could argue that the human pattern of male dominance is changing as more and more women are beginning to rise to the top.

Ludwig only briefly refers to bonobos, and he doesn't consider the possibility suggested by de Waal that human beings might be "bipolar primates" who combine chimp and bonobo propensities--who might, therefore, be open to female rulers as well as male rulers. Ludwig does suggest, however, that human politics could benefit from having more women in high positions of power so that they can introduce a more "estrogenic approach" to politics that would bring more peace and less war. Here Ludwig would be on the side of Malcolm Potts, who hopes that giving more influence to women will moderate the male propensity to war.

It is not clear to me, however, that this is likely. It is certainly true that women today have more freedom than ever before in modern democracies to pursue political careers. But most of the women who enter politics prefer to concentrate on local politics where they can do some good for their communities. Those women who might pursue the highest offices--women like Maggie Thatcher ("The Iron Lady")--are likely to be high testosterone women who will show all the character traits of manly dominance.

Some of my essays and blog posts on related topics can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The Machiavellian Biopolitics of Assassination and Conspiracy

It appears for now that the military dictators of Burma have suppressed the public protests against their rule led by Buddhist monks. But now there are reports that the rebel groups in the countryside are plotting to overcome their ethnic differences so that they can successfully launch an assault on the government.

This is a reminder of how political rule depends ultimately on violence and military force. And although the appeal to violence might seem to favor tyrannical rule, just the opposite is true. Tyrants are more vulnerable to violent attacks than are rulers with some claim to justice. This is as true for chimpanzee politics as it is for human politics.

Studies of chimpanzee groups both in captivity and in the wild show that becoming the dominant ruler or alpha male is not just a matter of physical strength. Dominant chimps must have the personality traits that allow them to manage the complex social life of a chimpanzee society. When adult males are fighting for dominance, their fights are ritualized through bluffing displays that minimize violence, even though the canine teeth of an adult male are powerful enough to kill with one bite. But the threat of physical violence is always there, and both Frans de Waal and Jane Goodall have reported a few cases of lethal violence in fights for dominance.

The same is true for human beings fighting for political dominance. The fighting can generally be ritualized in ways that prevent actual violence. But the threat of violence runs throughout political life.

The longest chapters in Machiavelli's Prince (ch. 19)and his Discourses (III, 6) are on the danger that princes face when--being hated by their people--they are exposed to conspiracies, and particularly conspiracies for assassination. In fact, these chapters are actually little treatises on how to assassinate or otherwise conspire against tyrants. This explains why Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, coauthored with Voltaire a book--Anti-Machiavel--attacking Machiavelli's Prince as a handbook for regicide.

There is some empirical evidence supporting the conclusion that tyrannical leaders who become hated are more likely to suffer a bad end than are democratic leaders. Arnold Ludwig's book King of the Mountain (2002)supports the claim of Aristotle and Darwin that male dominance of politics is rooted in human biological nature. He argues that the male desire to be the supreme political ruler expresses the same biological propensities that support the dominance of alpha males among monkeys and apes. He develops his argument through a meticulous analysis of the 1,941 chief executive rulers of the independent countries in the twentieth century. He illustrates his points with anecdotes from the lives of the 377 rulers for whom he had extensive biographical information. He shows that the struggle for social dominance is a "dangerous game" (chap. 4). A tyrant is much more likely to be victimized by assassination plots or to be overthrown by violence than is a leader of an established democracy. "Tyrants, by far, are most likely to suffer a bad outcome, with half of them being deposed, one-fifth being ousted after having lost a war or being voted out of office, and another 15 percent being assassinated or executed. That is a whopping 85 percent chance of leaving office in disgrace or in a casket" (120).

As Machiavelli indicated, the history of politics is largely determined by the history of war and violence. But this harsh reality of political violence does not necessarily favor tyranny, because tyrants who become hated are likely to be assassinated, executed, or overthrown. This favors republican or democratic politics. For example, the execution of Charles I in 1649, which opened the way for the English Republic, was a dramatic illustration of how popular violence can check the power of a tyrant. Similarly, the American and French Revolutions showed the vulnerability of would-be tyrants to revolutionary violence.

Republican institutions supporting limited government are designed to so limit power that recourse to political violence will be minimized. But when political conflicts of interest and principle become so deep that persuasion cannot resolve the dispute, then there is no final settlement except by force of arms--as was the case, for example, in the American Civil War.

A Darwinian political science recognizes that political order always rests on a natural rivalry for power and dominance that must be resolved either by persuasion or by force.

Hermann Goering's Natural Desire for Dominance: The Movie "Nuremberg"

 

                                                    The Trailer for the Movie "Nuremberg"

The movie "Nuremberg," based on Jack El-Hai's book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, is the story of how American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley studied the imprisoned Nazi leaders who were brought before the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal in 1945-1946, and how Kelley became particularly fascinated by Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, who had been Hitler's designated successor until he fell from Hitler's grace near the end of the war.  The movie stars Russell Crowe as Goering and Rami Malek as Kelley.  All of the acting is superb, and it's a powerfully moving and intellectually stimulating movie.

The movie and the book have made me wonder how Goering would fit into the evolutionary psychology of political leadership that I have developed in this blog and in my books.  I have written about psychopaths in this blog and in Darwinian Natural Right.  And I can see that Goering and the other Nazi war leaders had some psychopathic traits.  But Goering was not a pure psychopath.  Goering was a grandiose narcissist who was driven by a natural desire for alpha-male dominance as described by Arnold Ludwig.  

Donald Trump shares those same traits, but his political situation differs from Goering's.  Goering pursued dominance in a totalitarian dictatorship that did not allow anyone to challenge Nazi Party rule.  Trump's desire for dominance has led him to establish a competitive authoritarianism in his second term, in which there is some weak countervailance to his dominance coming from the threat of electoral defeat.  If Trump were to cancel the midterm elections next year, that would turn America into a totalitarian dictatorship like Nazi Germany.

JUSTICE AT NUREMBERG

Just before the final collapse of Germany in the spring of 1945, Goering suggested that he should become the Fuhrer once Hitler was dead, which led to Hitler's order that he be killed.  Once it became clear that Germany would lose the Battle of Berlin, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945.  That left Goering as the highest ranking Nazi leader left alive.  On the day before Germany's surrender on May 7, Goering sent a letter to U.S. military command offering to help the Allies form a new government for Germany with Goering himself as the new leader.  When Goering was captured by U.S. troops, he asked to meet General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, so that he and Eisenhower could arrange for the new government of Germany.  But instead, Goering was taken to a prison camp in Mondorf-les-Bains, Luxembourg, where he joined fifty-two other high-ranking German leaders.

In early August, Captain Douglas Kelley arrived at Mondorf.  He had worked in the medical service of the U.S. army, and his new assignment was to maintain the mental fitness of Goering and the other Nazi inmates.  Kelley wanted to find out if there was a "Nazi mind" that would account for their heinous deeds.  His great ambition was to write a book on this based on his studies of the captive Nazis, knowing that this would make him famous.  If the psychic flaws of the Nazi personality could be understood, then this might prevent the future emergence of another Nazi-like regime.

On August 8, the four Allied powers (France, Great Britain, the United States, and the USSR) agreed on a charter for an International Tribunal that would try the Nazi war leaders for war crimes.  Nothing like this had ever been done.  The U.S. took the leading role, and Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson agreed to head the prosecution.  Jackson targeted Goering as the top-ranking Nazi who need to be convicted.  The International Tribunal would meet in Nuremburg, Germany.  On August 12, the Nazi prisoners were moved to a prison in Nuremberg to await their trial.  Kelley moved there with them.  

Kelley spent hundreds of hours with all of the prisoners, but he was most interested in Goering.  They developed a strange personal relationship, perhaps even a friendship, based on mutual respect.  Kelley's primary psychiatric methodology with all the prisoners was the Rorschach ink blot test.

On October 20, the Allied prosecutors delivered their indictments against the prisoners to the tribunal.  That same day, Gustave Mark Gilbert arrived at the Nuremberg prison.  He was charged with maintaining the mental welfare of the prisoners so that they would be fit to stand trial.  But Gilbert was a psychologist who had the same ambition as Kelley--he wanted to write a book that would explain the psychology of the Nazis.  He was also like Kelley in that he relied on the Rorschach ink blot test for studying the minds of the Nazi prisoners.

Goering liked to brag about his heroic achievements as a military and political leader.  He had been a flying ace in World War I.  He was once shot down. He was credited with shooting down twenty-two enemy planes.  At the end of the war, he flew the unit of planes he commanded into Germany while refusing to surrender to the Allies.  He received his country's highest military award for his exploits.

Goering told Kelley how he first heard Adolf Hitler give a speech.  In the early 1920s, he heard Hitler in Munich speech shout: "You've got to have bayonets to back up your threats."  Goering explained: "Well, that was what I wanted to hear.  He wanted to build up a party that would make Germany strong and smash the Treaty of Versailles. 'Well,' I said to myself, 'that's the party for me! Down with the Treaty of Versailles, goddammit! That's my meat!" He saw that this young, small party was open to new members who could quickly rise to leadership positions--"that meant I could soon be a big man in it."  This desire for becoming a "big man" confirmed his mother's prediction: "Hermann will either be a great man or a great criminal!" (El-Hai, 11).

That he became a great man seemed clear by the long list of titles he had in World War II, which he was happy to rattle off to Kelley: President of the Reichstag, Hitler's deputy, Prime Minister of Prussia, Reich Minister of Aviation and Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe, Minister of Economics, member of the Secret Cabinet Council, director of the massive Hermann Goering Works manufacturing combine, field marshal, chairman of the Reich Council for National Defense, and Reich Forestry and Hunting Master.  Goering was most proud of the title Reichsmarschall--a rank similar to a six-star general--held only once before, two hundred years earlier, by Prince Eugene of Savoy, who was the most distinguished field marshal in the Army of the Holy Roman Empire and of the Austrian Hapsburg dynasty.

Goering insisted to Kelley that he had become the supreme leader of Germany once Hitler died:

The people flocked to us, the old soldiers swore by us--and I became head of the nation. . . . Too late you would say?  But perhaps not.  Anyway, I made it. . . . You know I shall hang.  I am ready.  But I am determined to go down in German history as a great man.  If I cannot convince the court, I shall at least convince the German people that all I did was done for the Greater German Reich.  In fifty or sixty years, there will be statues of Hermann Goering all over Germany.  Little statues, maybe, but one in every German home (El-Hai, 114).

On the morning of November 20, 1945, the tribunal convened to begin its public trial.  "Goering entered first," El-Hai writes.  "He wore his pearl-gray, brass-buttoned Luftwaffe uniform, stripped of all insignia and symbols of rank, and he appeared energized to retake the world stage" (128).  Goering had had months to plan his defense, and he expected to speak eloquently of the glories of the Nazi German Reich.

But then, on the afternoon of November 29, Goering's plans for his defense were undercut when the prosecution showed filmed footage of the concentration camps shot by British and American troops less than a year earlier.  Everyone was transfixed by the images of emaciated camp inmates, stacks of corpses, and bulldozers pushing mounds of bodies into mass graves.  At least ten minutes of the movie were given over to these films.  And even though most of us in the theatre had seen some of these images previously, to see them again was as disturbing as it was for the courtroom audience in the movie.  Even Goering coughed nervously and leaned on the railing of the dock and covered his face with his right arm.

Later, Goering said to Kelley: "It was such a good afternoon, too, until they showed that film. They were reading my telephone conversations on the Austrian affair, and everybody was laughing with me.  And then they showed that awful film, and it just spoiled everything" (El-Hai, 136). 

By the end of December, Kelley decided that since he had not seen his wife in almost three years, it was time to go home.  When Goering learned that Kelley was leaving, he broke down and wept.  By late January of 1946, Kelley was reunited with his wife in Chattanooga.  This left Gilbert in Nuremberg to continue his psychological studies of the prisoners during the trial.  Here the movie changes the story.  In the movie, Kelley stays in Nuremberg for the whole trial.

And so, in the movie, Kelley was in the audience for Goering's dramatic jousting with prosecutor Robert Jackson in March of 1946.  When Jackson presented documents signed by Goering that referred to the "final solution" to the Jewish problem as evidence that Goering knew about the extermination of Jews in Germany, Goering responded by pointing out that these documents identified the "emigration" of Jews out of Germany as the "final solution," and nothing was said explicitly about exterminating millions of Jews.  

Goering argued that neither he nor Hitler himself knew anything about the deliberate killing of Jews in the camps.  If any Nazi leader was responsible for the Holocaust, Goering insisted, it was Heinrich Himmler, who had died by suicide at the end of the war.  Although most people in the audience probably did not find this persuasive, it did show that the Nazis had not left any documentary evidence that explicitly recognized mass killing of innocent Jews as a deliberate policy.

Goering used the witness chair as a stage for a powerfully assertive speech as if he were speaking at a Nazi Party Rally.  One series of speeches lasted twelve hours over two days.  Everyone saw that Goering was enjoying himself in his passionate display of mastery.  He declared: "The only motive which guided me was my ardent love for my people, their fortunes, their freedoms, their life, and for this I call on the Almighty and the German people as my witness."

Janet Flanner of the New Yorker reported: "When the former Reichsmarschall strode from the witness stand to the prisoner's box after his last session with Mr. Jackson, he was congratulated and smiled upon by his fell-Nazis there, like a gladiator who had just won his fight" (El-Hai, 145).  Indeed, the movie suggested this by filming the scene of Russell Crowe entering the courtroom, with the camera focused on his back and the wide courtroom audience before him, which replicates a scene in Gladiator, when Crowe enters the Coliseum, knowing that he will fight to a glorious death. 

At the end of September in 1946, the judges of the Tribunal delivered their verdicts.  Of the 21 prisoners, 3 were acquitted, and 18 were found guilty.  11 (including Goering) were sentenced to death by hanging. 7 were given prison sentences.  

Goering admitted to Gilbert that his attempt to affirm the glory of the Nazi years and win the admiration of the German people had failed. "You don't have to worry about the Hitler legend any more.  When the German people learn what has been revealed at the trial, it won't be necessary to condemn him.  He has condemned himself" (El-Hai, 150).

Wanting to escape the indignity of hanging, Goering asked that he be killed by a firing squad.  But his request was denied.  

The night before he was to be hanged, Goering bit into a capsule of potassium cyanide that he had somehow hidden from the guards.  His suicide was his final act of defiance.

Remarkably, as the movie indicates in its closing intertitles, Kelley also killed himself with cyanide in 1958.  This ended his own life-long struggle with his inner demons.

NAZIS INTERPRETING INKBLOTS

Both Kelley and Gilbert thought the only way to probe into the deepest recesses of the Nazi Mind was through the Rorschach Inkblot Test, which had been developed in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist.  Rorschach created a set of ten inkblots that were intentionally drawn to be ambiguous.  He thought that when patients were asked to describe what they saw in these inkblot drawings, they would reveal their mental disorders and personalities, even when this was beyond the patients' conscious awareness.  So, for example, if patients responded with lots of descriptions involving color, that indicated that they were emotional and impulsive.  Or if they described people engaged in cooperative activities, that indicated that the patients found social interactions to be pleasurable and helpful.

                                                      How the Rorschach Inkblot Test Works

Although the Rorschach test was popular among psychiatrists and psychologists in the 1940s and 1950s, there is now a general agreement that this test has very limited uses, and that for most purposes it is little more than a variation of astrology and palm reading (Wood, Nezworski, and Garb, 2023).  The test has some validity for detecting disorders such as schizophrenia that involve perceptual distortion and disorganized thinking.  And some of the Rorschach test scores are related to IQ.  But the Rorschach test scores have little validity for providing a general understanding of personality.  And it is certainly not a psychological x-ray that can detect mental realities of which the patient is unaware of.

The failure of the Rorschach test in evaluating the Nazi prisoners became evident when Kelley and Gilbert could not agree in their interpretations of their inkblot tests.  Kelley saw imagination, boldness, and even genius in Goering's responses.  Gilbert saw the mediocrity of Goering's intellect and a lack of originality.  Kelley thought the Rorschach tests of the Nazis revealed that there was no mentally disordered "Nazi mind," because they were ordinary mentally healthy people, which showed that many mentally healthy people could become Nazis in the right circumstances.  By contrast, Gilbert thought the Nazis were mentally disordered in having antisocial personalities with no sympathy for the suffering of others.  Gilbert identified Goering as an "amiable psychopath" with a sadistic aggressiveness (1948).

And yet Kelley and Gilbert could agree on one facet of Goering's personality--his restless desire for dominance and power (El-Hai, 10-11, 74, 113-14, 134, 140; Gilbert, 1948, 212, 220, 225).

DOMINANCE, DEFERENCE, AND RESISTANCE TO DOMINANCE

The political psychology of Nazi politics manifests the tense interaction of three natural propensities of our evolved human nature as political animals: dominance, deference, and resistance to dominance (or counter-dominance).  Dominance is the natural propensity of a few individuals to seek the power over others that comes from superior rank in a group.  Deference is the natural propensity of many individuals to submit to those few who are dominant.  Counter-dominance is the natural propensity of many individuals to resist being dominated.

The desire for dominance and the grandiose narcissism of a man like Goering are easily mistaken as signs of a psychopathic personality.  But as I said in Darwinian Natural Right, pure psychopaths--people who have all the psychopathic traits identified by Hervey Cleckley and Robert Hare--cannot be successful in the pursuit of dominance and power, because the behavior of pure psychopaths will always be self-defeating in that they cannot act prudently for any long-term goal.  As Cleckley said: "The psychopath shows a striking inability to follow any sort of life plan consistently, whether it be one regarded as good or evil.  He does not maintain an effort toward any far goal at all" (Arnhart, 1998, 222).  By contrast, Goering showed self-control and deliberate planning in his pursuit of dominance--in his quest to become the Big Man.

As Goering explained to Kelley and Gilbert, he and Hitler easily won the support of the German people because most people are easily persuaded to defer to the dominance of charismatic leaders.

Nazi Germany did not have a constitutional system of countervailing powers that would have allowed legal resistance to Nazi Party rule.  For example, the Nazi rulers could not be turned out of office through elections.  But Goering and Hitler did see illegal resistance--both armed and unarmed--to their dominance over Nazi Germany (Wikipedia, 2025a).  Over 800,000 Germans were arrested by the Gestapo for resistance activities.  Tens of thousands of Germans were executed by the Nazis.  And hundreds of thousands of Germans deserted from the Wehrmacht, and many defected to the Allies or to anti-Fascist resistance forces.  There were also at least 42 assassination plots to kill Hitler, and some of them came close to succeeding (Wikipedia, 2025b).  (Hitler would have benefited from reading the longest chapter in Machiavelli's Prince, which is about assassination plots as the greatest threat to the Prince who is hated by many of his people.)

All of these armed and unarmed ways of resisting the unjust dominance of rulers are expressions of what John Locke called "the executive power of the law of nature"--the natural right of all individuals to punish those who violated the natural law of individual liberty.

Of course, ultimately the most successful resistance movement was the military resistance of the Allied forces that defeated Germany.  As Leo Strauss (2007) observed in a lecture in New York in December of 1943, what really influenced the Germans who supported Nazi rule was not the silly Nazi doctrines like Aryan racial superiority but rather the Nazi promise that Nazi arms and diplomacy would bring "the solution of all German problems by a short and decisive war," which "convinced a substantial part of the German people that large scale and efficiently prepared and perpetrated crime pays."  Strauss believed that "this doctrine is subject to the test of sense-experience."  First, that this was not going to be a short and decisive victory for Germany became clear as early as 1940 when the British Spitfires blunted the attack of Goering's Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain (July to October of 1940).  By December of 1943, people had seen with their own eyes that the Allies were defeating Germany on the battlefield.  And Strauss foresaw that this "re-education of Germany" would be "consummated by a meeting of British-American and of Russian tanks" in Berlin, and "by the harmonious cooperation of the Western and Eastern occupying forces in bringing to trial the war criminals."  The Nuremberg Tribunal accomplished that.

LESSONS FOR AMERICA?

Many people who see "Nuremberg" will detect a subtext in the movie that suggests questions about America: Can a Nazi-like dictatorship arise in America?  And if so, can this American dictatorship be brought to trial for its crimes?  Can an American dictatorship be overthrown by a popular resistance movement? Is Trump driven by the same desire for dictatorial dominance that drove Hitler and Goering?

That the answer to this last question is yes should be evident once we remember some of Trump's most arrogant boasts about his power--such as "As president, I can do anything I want."

We can hope, however, that unlike Goering and Hitler, Trump will always face the limits on his power that come from a constitutional system of countervailing powers, in which, as Publius said in The Federalist: "Ambition counteracts ambition."  But Trump has been setting aside that constitutional system and replacing it with a competitive authoritarianism--a hybrid regime that combines elements of democracy and authoritarianism, which has emerged around the world over the past 35 years since the end of the Cold War (Levitsky and Way, 2002, 2010, 2025).  A competitive authoritarian regime has multiparty elections, but they are not completely free and fair, because the incumbent's abuse of power tilts the electoral playing field against the opposition, and basic civil liberties are restricted to make it hard for the opposition to challenge the ruling party.

A fully authoritarian regime (like Nazi Germany) allows little or no countervailing power.  A fully democratic regime (like the U.S. until recently) allows strong countervailance. A competitive authoritarian regime (like what Trump is establishing in his second term) allows weak countervailance.

Through various ways, the U.S. could become a fully authoritarian regime.  Trump could declare a state of national emergency that requires canceling the midterm elections next year.  Or the Supreme Court could adopt a version of the Unitary Executive Theory that means that there are no constitutional limits on the power of the President--and therefore Trump is right when he says that as President, he can do anything he wants.

If that were to happen, then we would have to hope that many Americans would join the resistance to dictatorial dominance that has started with the "No Kings" protests.  But these protestors will have to be willing to face imprisonment and violent suppression from the government.  We would also have to hope that military personnel and law enforcement officers would refuse to obey illegal orders from Trump.

It is a dark time in America.  But it could become much darker, perhaps even as dark as in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945.

 

REFERENCES

Arnhart, Larry. 1998. Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature. Albany: State University of New York Press.

El-Hai, Jack. 2013. The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Herman Goering, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and the Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WW II. New York: MJF Books.

Gilbert, G. M. 1948. "Hermann Goerig, Amiable Psychopath." The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 43: 211-229.

Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. 2002. "The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism." Journal of Democracy 13 (April): 51-65.

Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. Cambrige: Cambridge University Press.

Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. 2025. "The Path to American Authoritarianism." Foreign Affairs 104 (March/April): 36-51.

Strauss, Leo. 2007. "The Re-education of Axis Countries Concerning the Jews." The Review of Politics 69: 530-38.

Wikipedia. 2025a. "German Resistance to Nazism."

Wikipedia. 2025b. "Assassination Attempts on Adolf Hitler."

Wood, James M., M. Teresa Nezworski, and Howard N. Garb. 2023. "The Rorschach Inkblot Test: We See an Unsinkable Rubber Ducky." Skeptical Inquirer 47 (6): 39-45.

Is There Any Manly Revolutionary Resentment in Pinker's World?

It is remarkable that while Steven Pinker says a lot in Better Angels about the "Humanitarian Revolution" and the "Rights Revolution," he never supports the right to revolution or the moral resentment against oppression that often motivates revolution.  This reflects his conviction that the decline in violence depends on the soft sentiments of a feminized culture rather than the hard sentiments of a male culture of honor.  But I am not convinced that the moral progress of liberal humanism can be sustained without the spirited sentiments of manly resentment against injustice.

Pinker recognizes the importance of the Declaration of Independence as a statement of the "Humanitarian Revolution" (134, 183, 185).  But he never acknowledges its affirmation of the right to revolution.  Nor does he reflect on the fact that this was a declaration of war signed by men pledging to one another "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

He also recognizes the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) as a statement of the "Rights Revolution" (134, 257-58).  But he never mentions the statements in the Preamble of the Universal Declaration about "barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind" and the justice of "rebellion against tyranny and oppression."

Pinker is troubled by the moral psychology of outrage, rebellion, and honor as rooted in the "inner demon" of revenge (529-47), which drives human beings into moralistic violence.  But while Pinker endorses Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and Smith's idea of how the moral sentiments are expressed by the "impartial spectator" (669-70), he does not recognize Smith's distinction between revenge and resentment.  Revenge is the "excess of resentment," Smith explains, and as such it "appears to be the most detestable of all the passions, and is the object of the horror and indignation of every body."  But a proper resentment against inhuman oppression is rightly endorsed "when properly humbled and entirely brought down to the level of the sympathetic indignation of the spectator" (TMS, 76-77). 

Contrary to Pinker's reliance on the soft, feminine sentiments of nonviolence, I don't see how we can enforce respect for human rights and individual liberty if we don't feel a manly "sympathetic indignation" in response to oppression, and if we don't allow that moral indignation to justify revolutionary violence against tyrannical rule.

Pinker acknowledges the influence of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) in promoting the abolition of slavery by eliciting sympathy for the suffering of slaves (155, 177).  But he says nothing about how some black abolitionists criticized Stowe for presenting Uncle Tom as a purely submissive character who cooperated with his slave masters, who thus implicitly confirmed the proslavery claim that blacks were naturally inclined to slavish obedience and lacking in the spiritedness of free men.

Nor does Pinker say anything about Stowe's other antislavery novel--Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856)--in which she presents some slaves as moved by moral indignation to revolutionary resistance to their enslavement.  Here she depicts slaves who manifest Smith's moral psychology of proper resentment.  She writes: "This sentiment of justice, this agony in view of cruelty and crime, is in men a strong attribute of the highest natures; for he who is destitute of the element of moral indignation is effeminate and tame" (Dred, Penguin Classics, 497).  (This point has been made clear to me by my reading of Chris Thuot's dissertation on the political theory of Stowe's novels.)

Beginning with John Locke and other early modern liberal theorists, liberal political theory has rested upon an ultimate appeal to revolutionary violence to vindicate the natural human right to liberty.  But in Chapter 8 ("Whatever Happened to Revolution?) of James Payne's History of Force, Payne argues that "owing to the evolution against force, the tendency toward revolution has been decreasing" (102).  The same thought is perhaps implied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law."  The suggestion seems to be that if human rights are protected by the rule of law, there is no need for revolutionary violence.  And apparently, Pinker believes that the historical trend toward protecting human rights has become so strong that there is no need for revolution and thus nonviolence can be the rule.

But even if the level of revolutionary violence has dropped in recent history, I cannot see how human rights and liberty can be enforced if there is not at least some threat of revolution to check the power of tyrants.  In fact, as Arnold Ludwig has shown in his book King of the Mountain, the 20th century shows a clear pattern in which despotic rulers are likely to be deposed by assassination or rebellion.  We should regret that some of the most brutal tyrants of the 20th century--such as Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot--did not arouse enough manly resentment in their subjects to provoke revolutionary resistance.

Some posts on related topics can be found here, here, here, and here.