Claritas Moralis

It looks like Americans may have to find a way to survive the rule of a tyrant. The possibility that evidence of vote fraud may overturn the election results still exists, and there is some question how far Mr. Bush will be able to indulge his tyrannical bent, but he's done amazingly well at it so far, and a presidential election has never been overturned. For some Americans, flight is possible, but for many more, it isn't. Let's face our worst-case scenario.

Everyone experiences tyranny at school or in the workplace at least occasionally, but surviving a tyrant is one area in which I can claim some expertise. I was raised by one. Like a national tyranny, it was a very long-term, continuous experience. I can at least offer you what I learned from it, in the hope that it will be of some assistance.

I speak of tyrants in general and not George Bush in particular because although the über-tyrant in tyrannical societies is the most dangerous and adds greatly to the power of all the tyrants lower down in the structure, the vast majority of the citizens of a tyranny only come into contact with the local tyrant. Analyzing George Bush in particular would be of limited value when you are faced with John Tyrannus of Yourtown, USA.

Two thing to keep in mind as you read this list: first, it isn't about courage or morality or any of those things. It's about survival. If you want to be a member of the Resistance, that's fine, it's even commendable, but this isn't the list for that. This one still may be of use to you--organized resistance is generally an underground phenomenon, so you'll still need to survive the tyrant in your public persona--but the rules are not about how to defeat the tyrant other than by outlasting them.

Second, I am giving these rules straight. I'm not being touch-in-cheek or exaggerating for any sort of effect. Yes, the discussion sounds melodramatic, but that's the world the tyrant builds around themselves. In the tyrant's own mind, they are the central figure in a contest between Good and Evil, and so everything is invested with that urgency. If they didn't hold power of some sort, they'd just be delusional, but the tyrant does hold power and uses it to uphold their melodramatic world image. You play their game or they punish you. These are pointers on how to play their game successfully enough that you may still be standing when they eventually fall.

Clari's Rules for Surviving a Tyrant

1. Get Away from the Tyrant If You Can

   If leaving the US is at all an option for you, take it. I know it's an unfashionable opinion, but I cannot emphasize the need to secure your own position enough. Read the accounts of rising Nazi power in Germany. If you can't get out of the country, don't read those accounts; the similarities to today's America will only give you nightmares. People's reasons for staying were even the same. Think of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay--these places are always worse than popular wisdom has it--and get out.

   After all, what are the reasons for staying: that someone must carry on the fight and that all liberals leaving are what the neocons want? Nazi Germany was toppled by outside force; the Resistance did marvelous work and saved many lives, but they did not, in the final analysis, destroy the Third Reich. The Allies' military power did. As for our leaving being what the neocons want, so what? A corpse can't enjoy having denied a tyrant, and it's only a matter of time until the neocons start executing their enemies as "terrorists." The people of Germany in the thirties didn't think such horrors could happen in their enlightened country, but we have the film footage and paperwork to prove that they did. Don't even think about trying to prove you're bigger and badder than they are; you're not even close, and you should be proud of that and want to go on being so as long as you can.

   There is the issue of where to go that's far enough away from the United States' power. Keep in mind that you can always move again. In the thirties, some refugees moved from Germany to France and then to England, the United States, or Canada. Unattach yourself to hampering baggage both physical and mental, hug those you love close, and the lot of you head for the hills as many times as it takes.

   Of course, you may not be able to get away for real reasons. Read the rest of the list and take it to heart. You're not doomed, but you do have the biggest task of your life ahead of you.

2. Know Your Tyrant

   It may look like a truism, but I found it to be the single most important survival skill. The purpose of people other than themselves, from the tyrant's point of view, is to confirm the tyrant's preferred view of the universe. I would hazard the guess that this is because they know on some level that their preferred view is not true--they are not nearly so wonderful or important as they want to believe they are--so they need constant reassurance of the reality of their imagination and respond viciously to the slightest hint otherwise. Confirming your tyrant's worldview is not as easy as it sounds. Although there are a few standards in tyrannical opinions and behavior (see rule 3), tyrants are not as consistent among themselves as those without extensive experience of them expect. There are many tyrants, like George Bush, who wish to be seen as strong and decisive, but others wish to be seen as long-suffering, self-sacrificing, helpless victims, and it is not wise to point out the misery the latter can and do inflict as evidence to the contrary. It generally leads to a demonstration without the tyrant having absorbed your point.

   Another reason you need to know your tyrant well is that their own worldview will not be consistent. They will be most consistent about themselves, but sometimes the strong leader will want to be seen as a helpless victim, and sometimes the victim tyrant will resent being treated as powerless. There will be a few constants in their thinking--George Bush, for instance, will remain a fundamentalist Christian--but everything else is usually very inconsistent: people rise in favor and then are suddenly and dramatically shoved from it; opinions of many kinds, ditto; and you have to like or dislike everyone and everything exactly to the same degree the tyrant does. Add to this the tyrant's propensity to test those around them for support, and you are playing a very scary game of Russian roulette. Tyrants are usually wise to evasive tactics such as "Whatever you think, sir" and "Gee, I've never considered it. What do you think?" The tyrant believes that the rightness of all their own opinions is so self-evident that anyone with the most minimal intelligence will see them so; the only ones who do not are Enemies. You're supposed to know, and your honest opinion must concur with theirs, or you are not fulfilling your purpose. If you do not fulfill your purpose, you are Evil, and the tyrant is right and Good to punish you, even to the point of disposing of you, if that is within their power. If it isn't, they'll search for ways to make you wish it was, and they are very good at this. Tyrants are usually excellent psychologists, even if they have no training as such.

   Therefore no detail about your tyrant is too trivial: favorite color, favorite wine, favorite childhood pet, most hated elementary school teacher. You never know what might tip you off to how the tyrant will react in a given situation. Keep physical notes if you have to; you can always write them up so that it looks like you're studying the Great One's wisdom so that if they find them, they feel flattered rather than threatened. You'll find that the threat the tyrant represents will sharpen your memory for these details, though.

3. Your Tyrant Is Good and Important

   These are the two constants of tyrants.

   The tyrant is Good. The tyrant has a right to demand love because they are Good. Only an Evil person would not love them deeply, above all else on earth. Never express anything less than utter contentment with the tyrant; even a fleeting frown or faint sigh of frustration or even merely one of exhaustion will cost you dearly. To please them is not only a moral duty, it must seem to be your deepest personal pleasure. Those tyrants who believe in a deity believe that they are specially beloved of that deity, and that you cannot love the deity without loving them equally and you cannot love them if you don't also love their deity. Those who do not believe in a deity will be very hostile toward religion because all religions would then be in competition with the tyrant for the adherents' affections. Don't admit to any heroes other than the tyrant or the tyrant's stated heroes.

   Also, as part of being Good, the tyrant is not a tyrant. This is a very important point. Avoid being excessive in flattery or gift-giving unless you've noted that your tyrant responds well to one of them; most tyrants' suspicions are aroused by it. After all, they reason, why would someone resort to such methods? The only answer is to control them, and any attempt to control the tyrant is, of course, Evil. They are Good, remember, and any deviation from Good can only be Evil. You should not seek to protect yourself from their anger via flattery or gifts because, being so very Good, their anger is Good, too, no matter how destructive it gets. At the very least, such fear makes them look Evil to others and the tyrant is not going to let you get away with that! Appearances are of prime importance to tyrants, and you must be careful to protect their image with the wider world.

   Everything is about the tyrant. Nothing that is not all about them has any reality for them, and they don't think it does for anyone else either. Everything anyone thinks or says or does, the tyrant believes is primarily concerned with the tyrant in either a Good or Evil fashion. This is one aspect of their thinking that helps greatly in predicting them: when anything happens, try to find some way to make the event tyrant-centered. The tyrant is continuously doing that at a subconscious level, and so such exercises will help you keep up with their shifting expectations.

   Because the tyrant is so very Good, they are under continuous threat from Evil. Their Enemies, whoever the tyrant has so labeled, want nothing more than to utterly destroy the tyrant, and because the tyrant is Good, the success of their Enemies would be catastrophic on a grand scale. The tyrant must seek out and destroy all threats to themselves. It isn't just a desire; it's a duty.

   Pretty much everything else is up for grabs, even from moment to moment. See rule 2.

4. Keep a Safe Distance

   With all the foregoing, it is probably obvious that you should attempt to keep as much distance between yourself and the tyrant as you can. Of course, you must not seem to be avoiding the tyrant. A good way to do accomplish the first without the second is to keep very busy with approved activities. I don't mean assisting the tyrant in their tyranny; that's collaboration, not survival. Approved activities are things that the tyrant considers "proper" pursuits for well-behaved minions. The list of approved activities varies with the tyrant, but fortunately they are usually easy to discover; the tyrant will underscore them for you in the course of their normal functioning, and you just pick the one most suited to your personality. I would suspect that, in the tyranny we find ourselves in, charitable work, especially if religious and not related to peace, would be a good device, but excessive studying would probably do for students and excessive work for those fortunate enough to be employed. The keys are that the activity be something that the tyrant thinks is important and that the tyrant recognizes the activity to be very time consuming.

   Be careful, though, not to allow yourself to get overtired. You must always look happy because all emotions are about the tyrant. If you're looking cranky, it doesn't matter what you're really cranky about. Also, if you are overtired, you're more likely to act cranky, and that's even worse!

5. Minor Disagreement with the Tyrant Is Impossible

   Loyalty to the tyrant is, in their view, the same as Goodness. You cannot hope to disagree with the tyrant slightly. Their worldview has only Good and Evil settings: you agree with them entirely because you, too, are Good, or you are Evil. Seeming to be against them even once, even slightly, usually is catastrophic.

   Of course, you want to avoid collaboration, but this is where the morality issue gets its cloudiest. If you are pushed beyond mere opinion, if your choice is collaboration or death, what do you do? I can't tell you. Everyone must decide that for themselves. Anyone who tells you that this is a simple and obvious case of right and wrong does not appreciate the situation. You have a right to survive. You also must not help the tyrant harm others. You have to decide how to balance these issues. All I can tell you is what the choice is. You can't disagree with the tyrant, however respectfully and slightly, and hope to avoid their wrath.

   It is for this reason that "Get away from the tyrant if you can" is rule 1.

6. Accept That You Will Get Hurt

   I once saw a TV program that had a self-defense expert who said that one of the reasons people get killed in confrontations with attackers is that they try too hard not to get hurt. He said that if people accept from the beginning that they will get hurt, they are much more likely to get merely hurt rather than killed.

   You will be hurt while in the tyrant's sphere of influence. Tyrants are violent people who broadcast their violence. In addition to direct harm by the tyrant, there is indirect harm in the tense environment, other people will hurt you to avoid being hurt by the tyrant, and you will do violence to yourself and others in attempting to avoid suffering or doing gross harm. That's just the way it is. If you are ready to accept the pain as part of the situation, it's easier to cope with and get on with surviving. Don't let yourself dwell on the injustice of it. Yes, it's unjust, but thinking about that will only put you in danger of an outburst that will destroy you.

7. Find Some Way to Express Your Resistance

   This one is the most difficult, but if you don't find some way to release some of the emotional pressure, you may lose control at some time and in some way that is disastrous. If you're actually a member of the organized Resistance, then that problem is solved for you; if not, remember that resistance takes many forms. A good place to get ideas is the history of African American culture; African Americans have had need of resistance strategies since they were brought to this continent, and often it has been literally a matter of life and death that their resistance not appear to be such. Learn from their wisdom.

8. This Too Shall Pass

   The tyrant will fall. Granted, you may not live long enough to see it, even if the tyrant doesn't have the power to kill you, but no one holds power forever. The tyrant knows this; that's the force behind their constant search for threats to crush. They're doomed to eventual failure; only one challenger has to be successful, and death is the final inescapable challenger.

   I was lucky growing up: I knew the term and the extent of my tyrant's power, and I kept my eye forever at that point on the horizon, watching it come closer and closer. We're not so lucky now. It could be one year, it could be four years, it could be fifty years before America is anything close to a democracy again. It will happen, however. Hold that knowledge to you in the times when your tyrant or the Bush administration seems most powerful.

If I think of more, I'll add them.

Keep in mind that following these rules is anything but easy. In my own case, it took me several years to figure out these rules, so I was already carrying an onus of past Evil when I did get them figured out and started managing my tyrant. I also did not understand at the time the importance of finding a quiet way to express resistance, and the situation devolved to open warfare between myself and my tyrant for the last couple years I was home. My tyrant wasn't in a position to kill me, but at least some of the ones we soon will have in America certainly will be.

Good luck. Here's hoping we're both still standing when fundamentalism falls.