Tag: Political Philosophy

Despotism

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Despotism is a state of government where a ruler has absolute power. In modern usage despot and despotism is almost always pejorative. The word comes, originally, from the Greek despotes literally meaning ‘master of the house’ and usually translated as ‘lord’ or ‘owner’ (Douglas n.d.). In the Byzantine Empire Despot was an official court title bestowed on the heir apparent. Several other minor kingdoms throughout the middle ages imitated the Byzantines by having despots of their own (Billarsky 2011, 277)

When despot entered the Enlightened European’s vernacular during the 18th century, it did so as a more general term for a king, monarch, emperor or other dictator, with no pre-existing ideological baggage (Bonney 2003).

In the mid 18th century, ‘despotism’, as derived from the older ‘despot’ came in to use for the first time as a term to describe ideologies where the ruler of a nation should possess unlimited and unchecked power. Many enlightenment Philosophes discussed despotism. Voltaire believed that a single well-educated ruler, unburdened by debate or scrutiny, was the ideal form of government, and praised Catherine the Great as an example of this ‘Enlightened despotism’ (Mishra 2017, 98. Lentin 1971). Voltaire believed that democracy did not offer protection against the idiocy of the masses, and that an absolute sovereign who acted in the best interests of his subjects was the most effective way to govern (Shank 2015). Joseph De Maistre also believed that a single enlightened despot was the most effective kind of leadership, although he disagreed with Voltaire on almost everything else (Mishra 2017). Others such as Montesquieu (Bok 2014) and Rousseau were much more critical of despotism and despots, just as most modern thought is (Burney 1993).

During it’s Enlightenment heyday, despotism was a mostly neutral term, as wider democratic attitudes spread across the world, despot increasingly became a negative descriptor. This was especially true of the fiercely democratic United States. North American newspapers used the term as a clear pejorative as early as the 1850s (n.a. 1856).

Statistically, the use of the word despotism peaked around the end of the 18th century, in line with the French revolution, and the broader political climate it inspired. In the wake of the incredible violence of the French Revolution, the great political thinkers of the day often had to align themselves against either the tyranny of the few that had led to the revolution, or the tyranny of the masses that had led from it. Today the western world has made its choice and despot has become a charge to level at some distant autocrat, but that was not always the case.

Grace Michael

 

Further Reading:

  • Bonney, Richard. 2003. “Reconsidering Absolutism in Early Modern Europe: The development of an Idea” Ajia-Taiheiyou Ronso 13, 91-135. Historical Abstracts.
  • Burney, John. 1993 “History, Despotism, Public Opinion and the Continuity of the Radical Attack on Monarchy in The French Revolution, 1782-1789” History of European Ideas 17:2/3 245-263
  • Lentin, A. E. 1971 “Catherine the Great and Enlightened Despotism” History Today 170-1771 Historical Abstracts

Additional Works Cited:

  • Mishra, Pankaj. 2017 Age of Anger. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.
  • n.a. 1856 “Another Great Republican Meeting in the Tabernacle.: FREEDOM AND FREMONT. How the Despotism of the Day has Grown. Speeches of Senator Wilson, Lieut, Gov. Raymond. and Hon. B. G. Noble.” New York Daily Times, Sept. 18th, 1856.