Oppressed people will rebel regardless of rulers’ divine claims
Evidence
But it will be said, this hypothesis lays a ferment for frequent rebellion. To which I answer, First, No more than any other hypothesis: for when the people are made miserable, and find themselves exposed to the ill usage of arbitrary power, cry up their governors, as much as you will, for sons of Jupiter; let them be sacred and divine, descended, or authorized from heaven; give them out for whom or what you please, the same will happen. The people generally ill treated, and contrary to right, will be ready upon any occasion to ease themselves of a burden that sits heavy upon them. — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 281
Categorization
- XREF: Locke’s rebuttal of divine-right absolutism grounds the course’s contrast between consent-based and divine right theories. — connects to: Peace purchased by submission to force is worthless — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 285; The people who depute power are the proper judge of its abuse — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 303; Violence by the oppressed does not justify original aggression against them — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 504 (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Violence by the oppressed does not justify original aggression against them
#qualifies(0.85) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 504 - State power and force never extinguished liberationist rebellions
#corroborates(0.85) - Religion and myth armed enslaved peoples for eventual impossible rebellion
#corroborates(0.82) - Oppressed groups gain deliverance only by accumulating power to enforce change
#expands(0.82) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 1009 - Oppressors disguise human-made conditions as natural facts to block revolt
#corroborates(0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 86 - Resistance of colonized peoples merits support regardless of its form.
#expands(0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 361 - Violent revolt infects the oppressed with the oppressor’s own evil
#qualifies(0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 98