Montesquieu tied despotic submission to fear and natural stupidity

Evidence

Subjection is predicated upon one principle, “the principle of despotic government,” fear, crainte. It is “the spring of this government,” a government that demands “the most passive obedience.” “Man’s portion here, like that of beasts, is instinct, compliance, and punishment” (3-9-10). Such subjection, like blind fatalism, excludes reason and excludes one from reason: “Excessive obedience supposes ignorance in the person that obeys: the same it supposes in him that commands, for he has no occasion to deliberate, to doubt, to reason” (4-3). What thus joins subject and sovereign is “natural stupidity” (5-14). — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 624

Categorization

• XREF: The figure of the despot as one who never deliberates resonates with the reader’s material on institutions and reputation-based governance — the contrast between reason-deliberating actors and instinct-driven subjects.