Speaking of certain African races Major Leonard observes: “I have
seen more than one hardened old Haussa soldier dying steadily and
by inches, because he believed himself to be bewitched; so that no
nourishment or medicines that were given to him had the slightest
effect either to check the mischief or to improve his condition in
any way, and nothing was able to divert him from a fate which he
considered inevitable.
“In the same way, and under very similar conditions, I have seen
Kru-men and others die, in spite of every effort that was made to
save them, simply because they had made up their minds, not (as
we thought at the time) to die, but that being in the clutch of
malignant demons they were bound to die.”
The gregarious individual must obey the master leader on pain of
death. In gregarious life the whole pack attacks the disobedient
individual for challenging the chief, king, priest, the god-man,
the lord of the horde. Obedience is a virtue, disobedience
is a mortal sin, affecting the whole horde, hence a horrible
death of the sinner is the sole punishment. The independent
personality is inhibited, the individual falls into a state of
social somnambulism, and the will-less, self-less subconscious, a
semblance of personality, charged with self-preservation and fear
instinct, obeys the commands of the master leader who is often a
brutal type, a Nero, a Domitian, a Caracalla, a Caligula, a John
the Terrible.
In a society where the socio-static press is always at work,
where political pressure is far stronger than even in the ancient
despotic monarchies, where a class government is in possession of
all modern improvements, where gray uniformity and drowsy monotony
reign supreme, obedience must be the rule. Blind, stupid obedience,
that slavish obedience which is peculiar to somnambulic subjects,
characterizes such societies.
Servility is well illustrated by the following historical incident:
Prince Sougorsky, ambassador to Germany in 1576, fell sick _en
route_ in Courland. The duke of the province often inquired as
to his health. The reply was always the same: “My health matters
nothing, provided the sovereign’s prospers.” The duke, surprised,
said, “How can you serve a tyrant with so much zeal?” He replied,
“We Russians are always devoted to our Czars, good or cruel. My
master (Ivan the Terrible) impaled a man of mark for a slight
fault, who for twenty-four hours, in his dying agonies, talked with
his family, and without ceasing kept repeating, ‘Great God, protect
the Czar!’”
The same is true of modern class societies where the Demos is the
despot. God preserve the Demos! When the business demon of the
Demos requires sacrifice, self immolation, anticipate his order.
Pray for the Demos; Great God, protect the greedy Demos! The Demos
is my Lord, to him is due my servile loyalty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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