“I
should bury the way of love.” (Han Fei)
When it comes to genuine power politics - totally shorn
of all other considerations - there’s only one
real
place to turn. And,
no...it’s
not Machiavelli - or Hobbes - given that neither were
willing to advocate the suppression of all other aspects
of life in pursuit of power. Nietszche was also remiss
in certain ways here, being - in the final analysis -
far more interested in the develpment of potential than
in power as a (pure) end in itself:
“People
who stay unmoved by reward or praise, and remain undaunted
by punishment
or injury are intransigent
in spite of the employment of the four means.
They should be exterminated.”
(Han Fei)
No...for the
real
logic of power - and (by implication) the potentially
psychotic consequences for all who get inextricably caught
up in its workings - we need to turn back to the ancient
Chinese Legalists...the scholar/administrators behind
the First Emperor (and his ceramic bodyguards) - you know,
the one who burned all the books - because, here, at last,
we can see just
exactly
what we’re up against:
“Those
who detract from command should die, who add to command
should die, who do not
implement command
should die, who fail to communicate command should die,
and who
do not obey command
should die. These five categories of death sentences
should never
be pardoned.” (Han Fei)
Still, as you can see, recommending the Legalists - outside
of China, still the best-kept secret in realpolitic -
is a bit like slipping crack into a baby's bottle...hence,
I feel rather...
uncertain
about this essay. People in the West are so used to thinking
of
The Prince
as basically the last word in power politics, that it
seems almost a shame to disillusion them. But...then,
I just remind myself that a quarter of the world's population
has been controlled via their approach for nigh-on two
& a half millennia - even if under a Confucian mask
(the truism in Chinese governmental history has always
been "outside Confucian, inside Legalist" (
wairu
neifa), but always (and only) about earlier dynasties
- and that it's only rampant sinophiles who've prefered
to ignore them in favour of the pretty pictures...
“The
intelligence of the people, like that of the infant,
is useless.” (Han Fei)
So, here’s Han Fei yet again - universally acknowledged
as the greatest of the Legalists - with the extended &
genuinely
chilling
piece of advice which first introduced me to these particular
monsters:
“The ruler, wise
as he is, should not bother, but let everything find its
proper place; worthy as he is, should not take things
on himself, but observe closely his minister’s motives;
and courageous as he is, should not be engaged, but let
every minister display his prowess. So cast off the ruler’s
wisdom, then you will find the minister’s intelligence;
cast off the ruler’s worthiness, then you will find
the minister’s strength....
Thus, the intelligent
ruler does nothing, but his ministers tremble all the
more. It is the Tao of the intelligent ruler that he makes
the wise men exhaust their mental energy and makes his
decisions thereby without being himself at his wits end;
that he makes the able men exert their talents and appoints
them to office accordingly, without being himsel at the
end of his ability; and that in case of merit the ruler
gets the praise, and in case of demerit the ministers
take the blame, so that the ruler is never at the end
of his reputation. Therefore the ruler, even though not
able, becomes the master of the able, and even though
not wise, becomes the corrector of the wise men...
Be empty and reposed
and have nothing to do. Then from the dark see defects
in the light. See but never be seen. Hear but never be
heard. Know but never be known. If you hear any word uttered,
do not change it or move it, but compare it with the deed
and see if word and deed coincide with each other. Place
every official with a censor. Do not let them speak to
each other. Then everything will be exerted to the utmost.
Cover tracks and conceal sources. Then the ministers cannot
trace origins. Leave your wisdom and cease your ability.
Then your subordinates cannot trace your limitations.
Keep
your decision and identify it with the words and deeds
of your subordinates. Cautiously take the handles of
power and hold them fast. Uproot others’ want
of them, smash others’ thought of
them.... Be too great to be measured, be too profound
to be surveyed.” (Han Fei)
The logic is inescapable...once you are willing to let
absolutely
nothing
- including your own need for human contact - stand in
the way. From below, everyone assumes that you - the ruler
- want to keep and extend your power - but they don't
know
anything
else about you at all...since you deliberately offer no
clues. This forces them to compete viciously in all ways
and, as all compete for the same turf, they literally
have no real ground for collaboration - dependency is
total.
“To
trust men is to be controlled by men.”
(Han Fei)
So...what you're
really
delegating isn't power, but uncertainty, as it's only
advice that's sought - power to act is not delegated to
any real extent, and advisors and subordinates seem to
be both self-policing as groups, as well as spied on constantly
by another group, whose sole role is as internal spies!
Oh, and the spies spend much of their time spying on each
other, by the way...
“Those
of the same status and unified interest cannot be allowed
to check on each other.
The former kings instituted
mutual guilt by association to foster conflicting interests
and contradictory
harms. Thus, under excellent governance, spouses and
friends
cannot conceal crime
and misdeeds for each other.” (Lord
Shang)
“Any
ruler who wants to govern his state must eliminate the
formation of groups....
If they are not wiped
out, then people will congregate into crowds.”
(Han Fei)
Now...I'd suggest that rather than delegation - the Legalists
had actually solved this one - their
genuine
problem was the ensuing insanity of all that were high-ups
in the system, as well as the difficulty of remaining
totally inscrutable...
Because...any ideology or preference apart from realpolitic
can be exploited to turn the system back upon the ruler.
He needs (therefore) to remain totally isolate and unpredictable
as to methods - ends are
purely
power and nothing else. In short, he has to be a complete
psychopath, even more than his subordinates. Social animals
are much saner than this, however nasty & power-hungry
they can be at times... Rather than Swift & his Yahoos,
therefore, I'd see Orwell as the Westerner closest to
understanding this model - because...if you read
1984,
it’s pretty much a worm's eye view of a Legalist
culture & society, especially the total emotional
isolation...
“Scholars,
freelance politicians, independent aristocrats, people
with connections to senior officials, and merchants
and craftsmen are the vermin of the state. If the ruler
does not exterminate
these...it
is not surprising that there are states that break apart,
and
dynasties that decline
and go to extinction.” (Han Fei)
There are thus no "real" supporters, as nothing is real
except power
- and, if Foucault had been a genuine scholar, not (mostly)
a faker, he might have written a great book on the Legalists,
as his notion of power was v. close to theirs. It's not
the "real" world - no social group, however small &
elite, could function long-term w/such a fully-blown psychopathic
approach - but it's a hell of a cautionary model to help
explain elite power-craziness at its worst:
“Among
the myriads of things in the world, there is nothing
more valuable than
personal glorification, supreme status, greatness of
the ruler’s authority,
and the momentousness of his power.”
(Han Fei)
“Within
the state of a wise ruler, there are no books.”
(Han Fei)
“There
is nothing constant to rule over the people. Any
decree
conducive to governance
is the law.” (Han Fei)
And, remember, (from the scientific camp) game theory
predicts that in many types of one-on-one repeated interactive
games, the best strategy is randomisation.... Don't think
Von Neumann read the Legalists (bloody difficult to tell
w/a great thinker who’s that broad-ranging), but
he - also - clearly reinvented that wheel from first principles.
So...you should (definitely) read 'em, if only for (perverse)
amusement... And, because - as J.G.A. Pocock so
aptly remarked - all the others
have
problems - the Legalist ruler
is
the problem...
“It
is inappropriate to rule the world by humaneness and
justice.” (Lord Shang)
“A
well-governed state has many punishments, but few rewards.”
(Lord Shang)
Who - by the way - was torn to pieces between chariots...a
punishment he devised, after being captured (whilst fleeing
from fabricated evidence) due to the close surveillance
of the very police state measures he had introduced. This
is not the only such tale...Han Fei himself met his death
due to the trumped-up charges laid against him by an old
school “friend” who feared for his own position
in the First Emperor’s court, and later suffered
a similar fate in yet another internal scuffle...
“A
wise man creates laws, but a foolish man is controlled
by them; a man of talent reforms rites,
but
a worthless man is enslaved by them.”
(Lord Shang)
Reaction against their policies was
so
extreme that it soured the Chinese on materialism permanently
- well...until recently, on the mainland, at least. What
the Han (the next dynasty) did here was particularly interesting.
They rescinded the book ban - but then banned the Legalists!
Even bigger joke is that the Legalists had insisted that
all non-purely practical books be banned - even/particularly
their own, as only the ruler actually needed to have access
to policy advice/ideas, and the rest should be kept in
the dark... Feeding them bullshit (the watered-down Confucianism
that the Han made official) was the Han innovation, and
it (obviously) had
real
staying power. The ban was only lifted during the Cultural
Revolution, when Mao, in his dotage, declared they were
the real forebears of Chinese Communism, and had them
taught in the schools...
“The
wise ruler employs the law to eliminate the private
interest;
hence the state is rid of vermin.” (Shen
Dao)
So, regimes were "justified" by Confucian ideals, "official"
countercultures were Taoist and Buddhist, but Legalist
ideas underpinned Chinese realpolitic - it was a sort
of "secret mandarins' business"... And, I'd buy this interpretation...as
there are
far
too many Legalist manuscripts around - dating from various
periods too - for comfort. As to what they created...well,
most of this material speaks for itself, no matter what
sort of comforting gloss people may try & put upon
it:
“During the Warring
States period, the Han state appointed Master Shen, and
the Qin state recruited Shang Yang. They established the
statute of guilt by association and the punishment of
execution of the three branches of relatives. They increased
corporal punishments and capital execution, including
the punishments of drilling through the head, pulling
out the ribs, and boiling in water.”
(Ban Gu)
As to why we should study them carefully, well...I’ve
already touched upon their (eternal) relevance to the
inherent logic of total power - and recurring elite patterns
of psychopathy - but I’ll just finish
this
little primer w/two juxtaposed quotations...and leave
you to draw what conclusions you will...
“The
real threat to democracy comes not from overmanagement,
but from undermanagement....
Vital decision-making...must
remain at the top.”
(Robert McNamara, in
1968, whilst “managing” the Vietnam War)
“People
who cannot be shepherded are outside the pale; those
outside
the pale should be
exterminated.” (Han Fei)
John Henry Calvinist
