It is our moral compass: essentially the same as one’s conscience. It consists of beliefs about right and wrong, what is obligatory and what is impermissible. The ego ideal is a mental representation of one’s guiding values. Second, he argued that followers identify with the leader by substituting him for what Freud called the ego ideal. The leader is seen as an exemplary, heroic human being shorn of every serious flaw. First, Freud argued that those who are attracted to authoritarian leaders idealise them. It is, like most of Freud’s works, a complicated text, but there are two main themes that stand out. Group Psychology focuses on the psychological dynamics of followership. His thinking culminated in the book Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921). But how does this happen? What is it that induces otherwise rational people to yield to adopt such dangerously unrealistic views? To explain it, we need to dig deeper.Īt precisely the same time that Weber was developing his theory of charisma in Berlin, Sigmund Freud was wrestling with similar ideas in Vienna. His followers believe that he can work miracles and transform their lives. The rising tyrant has a special, almost magical aura. Weber’s insights deepen Plato’s sketchy account. Charismatic leaders inspire devotion, and are regarded as prophetic figures by their followers. Weber, one of the founders of sociology, developed the concept of ‘charismatic authority’ – a ‘certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities’. Now fast-forward two-and-a-half millennia to the early 20th century, and consider the work of the German sociologist Max Weber. ‘Pastry baking has put on the mask of medicine,’ Plato disparagingly remarks, ‘and pretends to know the foods that are best for the body, so that if a pastry baker and a doctor had to compete in front of children, or in front of men just as foolish as children, to determine which of the two, the doctor or the pastry baker, had expert knowledge of good food and bad, the doctor would die of starvation.’ In the Gorgias, written around the same time as the Republic, he tells us that such politicians entice the masses with unhealthy promises rather than nourishing the public good. He believed that democratic forms of government create a licentious and undisciplined populace who are easy prey for smooth-talking politicians skilled in the art of pandering to their desires. Plato was no fan of democracy, perhaps because it was the Athenian democracy that sentenced his beloved teacher Socrates to death. He argued in the Republic, written around 380 BCE, that democratic states are destined to collapse into tyranny. Plato was one of the first and most influential thinkers to address the problem of tyranny. And today, the ominous rise of authoritarian regimes the world over renders this question as pressing as ever. Why have people welcomed tyrannical, authoritarian leaders time after time? For millennia, philosophers and political theorists have tried to explain why we willingly participate in our own oppression by submitting to authoritarian leaders.
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