The Essence of Tyranny: And Its Antidote
In a recent video clip on his Instagram channel, author Michael Wolff ruminated about the nature of autocracy. In one sense, he said, it is about rulings, dictates, or policies. But in another sense, it is about a personality.
According to the AI generator on Google, autocracy means “a system of government by one person with absolute power,” a “society governed by one person with absolute power,” or “domineering rule or control.” From these definitions we can make out at least two themes. One is that power is concentrated, and another is that the power is concentrated in a small number of people — namely, one. This is significant for a number of reasons.
With power concentrated in society, especially in one person or a small group, the need for cooperation with others is reduced. A crucial, if not the controlling dynamic, of such is the need or desire to keep if not also expand the power of the individual or group. This promotes and requires solo action and untrammeled self-interest both of which are not conducive to building the aptitudes, attitudes, desires, and abilities needed for good relations between people in society.
As the golden ring in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings had a mesmerizing effect, power holds an allure. Power, and the lust for ever more, ever greater power, is the fuel of sociopaths. Referring yet again to Google AI to provide us a definition of a term, this time sociopath, we see the following: “mental health condition characterized by persistent disregard for social norms, laws, and the rights and feelings of others.” Psychology Today explains sociopathy as “a pattern of antisocial behaviors and attitudes, including manipulation, deceit, aggression, and a lack of empathy for others…..Sociopaths may or may not break the law, but by exploiting and manipulating others, they violate the trust that the human enterprise runs on.” Sociopaths have “a profound lack of conscience—a flaw in the moral compass that typically steers people away from breaking common rules and toward treating others decently…..”i
When the rulers of a society are sociopaths, the society is in danger of devolving into a jungle. A sociopath does not promote cooperation between people, nor assist with social peace.
Anne Applebaum in her excellent little book, Autocracy, Inc., explains that today there is a global network of autocrats. These include Putin, Xi and the Chinese Communist Party, Kim of the People’s Republic of North Korea, Maduro of Venezuela, Orban in Hungary, and others in Africa and elsewhere. Their goal is to destroy the institutions of democracy so as to enhance their own power, their own control and their own wealth in the societies they are supposed to govern for the common good, or the good of all. These autocrats end up governing for their own benefit first and foremost and in the process destroy the state as they turn it towards their personal ends. To do that, they must amass power.
The American Founders saw the danger of concentrated power and defined a tyrant as someone who held too much power. James Madison (1751-1836) wrote in Federalist LI :
“In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself….It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers…”
The ideas of Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de la Brede de Montesquieu (1689-1755), or simply Montesquieu, were essential for the American Founders in fashioning a solution to this problem. The separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial, with each wielded by a separate person or group of persons, is an important way to prevent the concentration of power. The Founders acted upon the wisdom expressed nearly a century later by John Emmerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (1834-1902), known as Lord Acton, who famously said “Power corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The Founders created the machinery of government to disperse power, and that in itself promoted cooperation between people.
As John Reilly in America on Trial explains, the ideas surrounding social governance of the great philosophers from antiquity through the School of Salamanca were transmitted by Algernon Sidney (1623-1683) to John Locke (1632-1704) to the Americans. This occurred through Cato’s Letters and also through Emer de Vattel (1714-1767) who wrote Law of Nations, widely read by the Founders. These philosophers and theologians set forth a definition of tyranny that was remarkably similar among all of them. Tyrants acted unjustly and in doing so enriched themselves at the expense of the society over which they were supposed to rightly rule.
Plato (427-347 BCE) in his Republic explained “A person of great power outdoes everyone else…if you turn your thoughts to the most complete injustice, the one that makes the doer of injustice happiest and the sufferers of it, who are unwilling to do injustice, most wretched. This is tyranny, which through stealth or force appropriates the property of others, whether sacred or profane, public or private, not little by little, but all at once.”ii
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) in DeRegno writes “If an unjust government is carried on by one man alone, who seeks his own benefit from his rule and not the good of the multitude subject to him, such a ruler is called a tyrant—a word derived from strength —because he oppresses by might instead of ruling by justice. Thus among the ancients all powerful men were called tyrants. If an unjust government is carried on, not by one but by several, and if they be few, it is called an oligarchy, that is, the rule of a few. This occurs when a few, who differ from the tyrant only by the fact that they are more than one, oppress the people by means of their wealth….”iii
Robert Cardinal Bellarmine (1542-1621), a Jesuit well aware of Catholic efforts to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I of England, is considered a leading political philosopher and theologian. In his Controversies of the Christian Faith penned between 1576 and 1592, he set forth the definition of a tyrant, and he also explained that there are two types of tyrants:
“There is one kind of tyrant who has seized the throne, not by a just title but by force and unjustly. These tyrants are not kings and rulers in reality, but simply usurp the position of king and imitate the role of royalty…There is another sort of tyrant who, although he is the true ruler and holds the throne by a just title, nevertheless rules tyrannically in so far as concerns his use of governmental power. For to be specific, he either turns all things to his private advantage, neglecting the common advantage, or else unjustly oppresses his subjects by plunder, slaughter, corruption, or the unjust perpetration of other similar deeds, with public effect and on numerous occasions. Such a ruler, for example, was Nero, whom Augustine….numbers among those tyrants whose dominion God does at times permit….[Proverbs 8:15-16]…”iv
Injustice characterizes a tyrant as does the amassing of great power usually for personal gain. The driving force of all of this lies in the breakdown, or absence, of a simple but important principle – friendship.
Friendship – Tyranny’s Antidote
Our AI companion again gives us a definition we can use, and this one is of friendship: “Friendship is a mutual relationship between people who share mutual affection, trust, and support, characterized by enjoying each other’s company and offering emotional and practical assistance through life’s challenges.”
This is an idea well-understood by the American Founders as well as by philosophers and theologians over the ages. Friendship towards fellow countrymen or fellow members of community, is also termed sociability.
Presented in juxtaposition to the concept of “universal distrust and distress” as penned by Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) in Federalist LXXVIII, Professor David Thomas Konig explained this concept of sociability. To James Madison it was the “bands of society” while to John Adams it was “sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments, among the people” and to Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) there was needed “that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.”v
This comported with the Enlightenment idea of man needing society and was “consistent with republicanism” while “nurturing individual enterprise and accommodating the ever more apparent diversity and pursuit of self-interest.” Friendship is essential to our system of governance as it allows many different people to co-exist peacefully while rejoicing in and benefitting from the unique talents, abilities, and even outlooks that each bring to society. This situation assumes and requires cooperation particularly in complex societies as ours.vi
These are not the sentiments, nor are they the goals, of a tyrant or autocrat. As Anne Applebaum writes in Autocracy, Inc., the tyrants or autocrats seek to benefit themselves or their own group first and foremost while beggaring their own people. Essential to doing that is destroying the democratic institutions in society that allow or encourage friendship and openness between people – the media, the courts, fair and free elections, a sense of friendship. Tyrants, or autocrats, in order to rule as they want must create conflict and they do it often by building upon the very thing Hamilton wrote about: distrust and distress. In short, they must sever the bonds of friendship in society as they unite with other like-minded tyrants around the world.
Applebaum explains the international nature of the tyrants’ global schemes as she talks about the protest movements in Venezuela and Belarussia:
“But they were not fighting autocrats only at home; they were fighting autocrats around the world who control state companies in multiple countries and who can use them to make investment decisions worth billions of dollars. They were fighting regimes that can buy security cameras from China or bots from St. Petersburg. Above all, they were fighting against rules who long ago hardened themselves to the feelings and opinions of their countrymen, as well as the feeling ansd opinions of everybody else. Autocracy, Inc., offers its members not only money and security but also something less tangible: impunity.”vii
The autocrats thereby manifest their lack of sociability on the international scene. Most notably, they disregard international law and treaties which are solemn legal and moral obligations based on principles meant to insure good relations between countries. Again we encounter the principle of sociability on the international level or as it concerns international society. Each State “is only a part of a larger whole and that, in consequence, the common good of the whole must prevail over the interests of the parts.” Second, the relations between the different States and in the international community must be “strictly governed by the moral law, which demands above all things good faith and loyalty to the pledged word: Pacta sunt servanda – Promises must be kept.”viii
Humanity is struggling to grow closer in friendship and it is progressing towards a political union, dynamics which are in accordance with the natural law and the moral order. Opposed to this effort exists what was called in another era a “militant antisocial element.” This element, now in a different form but using a similar methodology, is committed to the “`total aggression’ against society” to remake societies and destroy the international order.ix
Applebaum recognizes the autocrats are engaged in a systematic deconstruction of the international order to “rewrite the rules of the international system itself.”x This abrogation of law internationally parallels their efforts at the abrogation of law domestically, and it is part of an attack on sociability or friendship whether that be in the domestic societies they immediately rule over or international societies. Tyrants do not encourage friendship as they must build on a sense of distrust and injustice to advance their own wealth and power.
One of the greatest defenders of a right international order is the Catholic Church. It has promoted such over the years and set forth the four main principles for achieving this: the primacy of the person, the existence of a community of nations, the centrality of the rule of law, and the recognition of peace as the natural end or goal of man.xi America, from our inception, has hearkened to these principles and implemented them.
The Catholic Church re-iterated at the Vatican II Council that “In his fatherly care for all of us, God desired that all men should form one family and deal with each other in a spirit of brotherhood.”xii This is the essence of sociability or friendship. At the same time, the Catholic Church, in surveying the “situation of man in the world today” noted that a “growing conviction of mankind’s ability and duty to strengthen its mastery over nature” and that there was a need to “establish a political, social, and economic order at the service of man to assert and develop the dignity proper to individuals and to societies.” To end the injustices many were experiencing, there was a “growing movement to set up a worldwide community.”xiii The existence of community implies – even requires — friendship and so calls forth the principles of sociability. These things, once again, are eschewed by the tyrants who thrive on injustice. The Catholic Church emphasized and saw intertwined respect for the human person and solidarity as essential components of right order of societies both domestic and international.xiv With right order comes peace.
The tyrants do not want peace. They thrive on conflict, all the better to serve themselves and their interests, and that requires eschewing friendship. If we are to defeat tyrants, we must embrace friendship with our fellow citizens.
Conclusion
Tyranny is sociopathy on a societal level. It thrives on distrust and distress, things that do not build cooperation and that do not encourage friendship or sociability. Without friendship, without sociability, society is poorer and meaner, while the tyrants grow stronger and richer. Hence, the tyrants seek division by emphasizing differences between people on the bases of religion, ethnicity, class and more. They seek to blame and attack, not work together to build. They promote failed, and dangerous, ideas like nationalism and isolationism, or play to negative emotions and false, dark narratives, or resurrect and amplify ancient hatreds. Not only do the domestic societies of the tyrants suffer, but the community of nations is worse off because disorder in domestic societies manifests as disorder in the international community, just as right order in domestic societies manifests positively in international society.
The ultimate antidote to tyrants is friendship. That friendship comes about by the recognition that we are all members of the same domestic society by virtue of our citizenship. And that friendship comes about on the international level by a recognition that all States are members of the same international society by virtue of being members of the community of nations. And all of this is based on the understanding that we are all people, all human beings. All religions have an important role in teaching friendship. The Catholic Church, especially with the Vatican II Council, made clear the interconnectedness of all of us and the need for being friends with all peoples. Americans, relying on the Natural Law, have always understood the importance of friendship in our society which is made up of many different people and many different peoples. Indeed, America is the model for world organization and that model has been implemented in varying degrees since 1945 to the benefit of all the peoples of the world. And so, the tyrants of the world, to achieve their goals of greater wealth and power, must control the Vatican and neutralize America as they try to remake the world order into something monstrous.
i “Sociopathy/Sociopath” Psychology Today, at www.psychologytoday.com.
ii Plato, Republic, 343e through 344a.
iii Thomas Aquinas, De Regno, Chapter 2, paragraphs 11 and 12, https://isidore.co/aquinas/english/DeRegno.htm#2.
iv Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, Controversies of the Christian Faith, (Keep the Faith, Inc., 2016), 804.
v David Thomas Konig, “Jurisprudence and Social Policy in the New Republic,” Devising Liberty: Preserving and Creating Freedom in the New American Republic (Stanford University Press, 1995), 199-200.
vi Ibid., 201-205.
vii Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc. (Doubleday, New York, 2024), 5.
viii John Eppstein, Code of International Ethics, p. 169.
ix See, Eppstein, Code Of International Ethics, pp. 24-25.
x Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc., p. 97.
xi See, David Wemhoff, “America Establishes Principles of Right World Order”, July 14, 2025, The American Proposition. America came into being with these principles as part of our identity.
xii Gaudium et Spes, para. 24.
xiii Gaudium et Spes, para. 9.
xiv See, Gaudium et Spes, paras. 23 through 32.