“Hobbesian state power was not intended for greatness, but to curtail challenges from below. It succeeded when its subjects merely stood still or got out of its way. Their immobility was the outward sign of their fear … a fear all the more potent for the minimal power that aroused it.”

— Corey Robin

Fear: The History of a Political Idea

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Corey Robin5

American academic 1967

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“there is every reason to fear that the State is growing ever more powerful, more autonomous, more indifferent to its own inhabitants.”

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“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”

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Context: It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four a-gati, the four kinds of corruption. Chanda-gati, corruption induced by desire, is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the sake of those one loves. Dosa-gati is taking the wrong path to spite those against whom one bears ill will, and moga-gati is aberration due to ignorance. But perhaps the worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not only does bhaya, fear, stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and wrong, it so often lies at the root of the other three kinds of corruption. Just as chanda-gati, when not the result of sheer avarice, can be caused by fear of want or fear of losing the goodwill of those one loves, so fear of being surpassed, humiliated or injured in some way can provide the impetus for ill will. And it would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear. With so close a relationship between fear and corruption it is little wonder that in any society where fear is rife corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched.

“Kings and princes have much more power when they undertake some enterprise on the advice of their subjects. They are then more feared by their enemies.”

Philippe de Commines book Mémoires

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Bk. V, ch. 19.
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“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”

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Part II Section II
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“In many ways, fear is the force that stands between human beings and their dreams. Fear of conflict and the weapons of war. Fear of a future that is different from the past. Fear of changes that are reordering our societies and economy. Fear of people who look different, or come from a different place, or worship in a different way. In some of her darkest moments, when Aung San Suu Kyi was imprisoned, she wrote an essay about freedom from fear. She said fear of losing corrupts those who wield it -- “Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” That's the fear that you can leave behind. We see that chance in leaders who are beginning to understand that power comes from appealing to people’s hopes, not people's fears.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

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“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.”

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“Because knowledge is power, every hegemonic power challenged by “another knowledge” must try to stay in the center of knowledge. However, not every power is the right center for every knowledge. Reflective knowledge cannot be separated from its subject.”

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Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 77

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