“A man does evil not only because he is a villain, but also because he is accustomed to this weak-willed self-abasement in others. Slavery not only corrupts the slave, but also the slaveholder; unbridled man is unbridled not only by himself but also by the social environment, which allows him to unbridle himself; a despot is impossible if there are no reptiles; ‘everything is permitted,’ only where people have allowed each other everything.”
Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyan
On Resistance to Evil by Force
I’ve only read a few books (comparatively speaking) by EO writes but whenever I have those authors strike me as incredibly thoughtful.
“All of the great many people who have not developed a strong-willed character have neither a ‘king in their head,’ nor reigning sanctities in their hearts and so prove with their acts their inability to self-govern and their need for social education. And the tragedy of those who run away from this task is that it remains for them inescapable.
“All people continuously educate each other, whether they want to or not, whether they are aware of it or not, are good at it or not, are sincere or careless. They educate each other with every one of their manifestations: their replies and inflections, a smile and its absence, arrival and departure, exclamation and silence, request and demand, treatment and boycott. Every objection, every disapproval, every protest corrects and strengthens the outer edge of the human personality: man is socially dependent and socially adaptive being, and the more spineless a person is, the stronger this law of return and reflection.”
Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyan
On Resistance to Evil by Force — p. 31
This underscores what I’ve contended for quite some time and that is that most people are social chameleons and that regardless of their age. Most people will reflect and parrot the social background in which you place them. It’s just the nature of the human-animal to do so. This truth, in part, explains the impact of polling. If societally, there is an overwhelming movement towards consensus on this or that issue then precisely because humans are social chameleons it makes any contentious issue more likely to be permanent in change. In our unfortunate democracy massive social change only occurs because people are social chameleons.
It is only those who have quality character and who are of the leadership class who change their surroundings and don’t blend in to the social setting. It is these same people who are roundly hated by all the chameleons who want to just go with the herd.
“To educate a characterless child or, that which is almost the same, a spineless adult, means not only to awaken in him a spiritual sight and to spark love within him, but to teach him cathartically in the discipline of self-compulsion and peremptorily in the discipline of self-restraint. For a man incapable of good self-inducement, the only way to lead him to this art is to subject him to external pressure emanating from others.”
Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyan
On Resistance to Evil by Force — p. 31
Ilyan is spot on here. Character is built only by love of the good and love of the good will not come without that standard of good being set in the community around the characterless child and the spineless adult. Peer pressure can be a positive thing. This is why it is danger to let the collective character go down the tubes.
“In the face of evil, which can be contained by no other means, a forceful response, is not only permissible but becomes a knightly duty. Heroic courage consists not only in recognizing this duty but in bearing its heavy moral burden without fear.”
Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyan
On Resistance to Evil by Force
