MARCH 9 — Umberto Eco, in his article, The Wolf and the Lamb — The Rhetoric of Oppression (from which the title to this article is borrowed), posits that often enough, an oppressor — such as a dictator — would try to legitimise his oppression. He or she will even try “to obtain the consensus of those he is oppressing, or to find someone who will justify it” by using “rhetorical arguments to justify his abuse of power.”
(At this juncture, I would like to add to Eco’s example of an oppressor. In addition to a dictator, I would add a “totalitarian democrat” who is a so-called leader elected through a controlled democratic process. I would also add to the list what Rawls terms as the “benevolent absolutist.”)
The need for legitimisation of an act or acts of oppression, to my mind, stems from the desire to justify such acts, which in turn is driven by purely egoistical motivation, or perhaps is due to a deep feeling of guilt. Added to that must be the desire to gain acceptance of the people and to pander to the middle class intellectual probing.
