Introducing the Book Tyranny by Mohsen Renani (with Download Link)

Mohsen Renani: In April 2010, the file of the book Tyranny by Manès Sperber came into my hands. I read it in those first few days, and because it was so compelling, I sent it as a Nowruz gift via email to some friends. I also wrote a description to introduce it and create motivation for studying it, and sent it attached to the email.

Here is that description and the file of this book:

Hello friends,

Happy New Year to you. I hope a blessed year lies ahead for our nation.

This Nowruz, I had the opportunity to finish reading the book A Critique and Analysis of Tyranny by Manès Sperber. This German psychologist wrote this book at the age of 32 in the 1930s (seventy years ago), meaning before Hitler dragged the world into the Second World War. In his book, through the psychological analysis of dictators' behavior, he even predicted that someone like Hitler would ultimately commit suicide. When this book was published, its author was not only forced to go into hiding to escape the wrath of the Nazis, but even the communist followers of Stalin banned the reading of this book, and their followers even refrained from touching it.

This book was translated into Persian by Karim Qasim and published by Damavand Publications in 1984. Due to the book's reception, it reached its third printing within a year, and it was after this third printing of the same book in 1985 that, after three years of activity, Damavand Publications was shut down.

In this book, which has a very fluent and engaging text, Sperber, through a psychological analysis of the personality and behavior of tyrants, shows that tyrants do not become tyrants by themselves; rather, they are the product of the behavior of masses in whom a tyrannical disposition is partly inherent. For tyranny and dictatorship to be banished forever from a society, the tyrannical spirit of the masses must be eliminated (let us not forget that we Iranians do not have a good relationship with creatures weaker than ourselves. See how easily our children throw stones at cats and dogs, drivers show no mercy to pedestrians, we all rule in our own professional positions. The grocer is a ruler, the baker is a ruler, the taxi driver is a ruler. The police officer, the judge, and everyone, in our professional positions, we all want to rule. When we catch a thief on the street, instead of handing him over to the police, we first give him a thorough beating; our police, when arresting an offender, first beat him, and there are countless such examples. These are all signs of the latent tyranny that exists in all of us).

Sperber shows how the psychological personality of a tyrant gradually evolves over time and deprives him of a normal life, such that the tyrant gradually develops sadism (harming others) and, in later stages, masochism (harming oneself). In fact, according to Sperber, tyrants are patients whose illness remains hidden from themselves and from others amidst the clamor of the masses, and for this reason, the opportunity for treatment is also taken from them.

By categorizing types of fear, Sperber shows that tyrants suffer from "aggressive fear," and in fact, a large part of their behavior stems from this type of fear. Sperber believes that the addiction to creating enemies and the idea of "considering anyone who is not with us an enemy" by tyrants is the product of the deep fear hidden within them. He writes, quoting Plato, "Anyone can be worthy of the attribute of courage, except the tyrant." And then he himself beautifully demonstrates, through psychological analysis, how precise this statement of Plato is. In fact, he shows that tyranny is a characteristic that substitutes for a lack of courage. And this behavior manifests at all levels of power (father, teacher, office boss, neighborhood police officer, etc.). But when the individuals of the masses, who are personally tyrannical, align in the real world with one of the tyrants and support him, they make him a ruler who is a dictator in the fullest sense of the word.

Sperber shows how fear transforms over time into hatred, and then the masses, to satisfy their sense of hatred for some, assist a tyrant in destroying them. And then a time comes again when the masses, out of hatred for this very tyrant, hand him over to the gallows with the help of another tyrant.

He beautifully demonstrates how tyrants, by simplifying the complex issues of life, offer popular—yet unworkable—solutions, and are not at all concerned about the impracticability of these ideas of theirs, for they have learned that when their solution fails to yield results, they can easily shift the responsibility for this failure onto others (imaginary enemies), turning this failure into an opportunity to show how powerful their enemies are and how they prevent them from achieving their goals.

Sperber, of course, does not direct his analysis at any specific political figure, but he draws some of his examples from the behavior of the dictators of his time (Stalin and Hitler). Nevertheless, the beauty of this book is that when we remove the names of Hitler and Stalin and insert the name of any other dictator, we see how fresh the analysis is, as if Sperber wrote it just yesterday to analyze the behavior of the dictators of our own time.

Attached to this email, the PDF file of the book Critique and Analysis of Tyranny is presented to you. Try to read this book in the remaining days of Nowruz. Also, send it to your friends and recommend they read this book. Friends who have blogs should also post it online and introduce it to others. For the betterment of our country, no action is more effective than raising awareness. Dictators ride on the waves of ignorance.

Be happy and proud

Mohsen Renani

March 28, 2010

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This book has two translations, one published under the above title in 1984, and the other in 2005 under the title A Psychological Examination of Autocracy. Both translations are accessible via the links below:

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Critique and Analysis of Tyranny (Manès Sperber - translated by Karim Qasim - 1984)

Download from server One | Two | Three

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A Psychological Examination of Autocracy (Manès Sperber - translated by Dr. Ali Sahebi - 2005)

Download from server One | Two | Three

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Source: Official website of Dr. Mohsen Renani

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