On Strongmen

I remember when I was a high school student that I used to idolize certain 'fascinating' personalities. Growing up with a family who talks about current issues and history while dining or watching Tom and Jerry, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, and The History Channel, I came across history's big names.

What fascinated me the most were those war documentaries, and what was mostly aired were World War II documentaries. So Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler, Eisenhower, Hirohito, Yamashita, De Gaul, Mussolini, Goering, Himmler, Goebbels, etc. became common names to hear. I have to admit, that I did admire Hitler and Stalin. Not only just admired but went into a deep sense of fascination for these people.

  Regardless of my parents telling me about the crimes against humanity that these big names did, I could not help but draw a swastika or a hammer and sickle with the association to either Hitler or Stalin. Moreover, a strategy game such as Red Alert made my fascination even grow. Honestly, the symbols invoked a mystical reverence to me. The colors, the choice of icons, and the symbols' association to these leaders created an ecstasy that made me duty-bound to worship these representations. Such zeal made me even justify their violence and atrocities as a conscious moving of history. (A perilous take of history as a driving force of human progress.) I even thought that the monstrosities were necessary to make us have the kind of world right now. As I grew older that kind of reasoning was the same that these people espoused as they ravaged many others in the name of isms.

Honestly, young as I was back then, I found that reason to be so enticing and went full-scale subscription because I intoxicated myself with the notion of the necessity of evil in order to have progress. I was sold out to such thought, and my college thesis even reflected the same topic. The title was “Hegel’s Dialectics and the Problem of Evil” and I aimed to necessitate evil. In an honest admission, I did write about it to justify to some extent the crimes that these strongmen did.

Imagine what fascination did to me. Fascination, awe, or wonder made me even to foolishly defend them to the core even in the obviousness of the wrongdoings. The same ecstatic feelings that aroused me made me rationalize violence as a necessity and with absolute stand, saw it as a stepping stone to the future. My reason here became the slave of my wonder.

I reached that far to justify genocide, violence, and pure brutality. I turned a blind eye to the victims. Imagine others who are like the-me-of-before. Imagine those who too, turn a blind eye to violence and to the victims. Imagine them saying that it is just, necessary, and all in the name of rational concocted isms. Hitler had his National Socialism, Stalin had his Communism, and currently, the same kind of distorted push for federalism and nationalism 

Let us take away those who are trolls for a living and look at those sincere people who do think in such a dangerously peculiar manner. Many of the Germans were swayed by the master propaganda of Goebbels. Hitler with his cohorts made a practical reason to control the press in order to shape the thinking of the status quo. The propaganda rationalized the system that the Nazis did such as calling it in terms like the “unfolding of history” or the “destiny of the people”. Let us reflect now on how many of our Filipinos today are that gullible to buy these explanations. I managed to reach out to philosophy for help to justify the atrocities, but let us say most do not have that twisted scholarly pursuit and just simply agree under the sway of fascination. Let us again think, how many of the Filipinos were like the-me-of-before. Fascination has brought fanaticism.

I started first from a personal level in order to assume the experience of what an individual might have in the face of a strongman. Strongmen like Hitler and Stalin made a huge impact on me as I have just narrated. We would just likely assume that others feel the same way as the me-of-before especially for the popular strongman that we have right now in our government. Strongmen do want to preserve and conjure an image that is beneficial and manipulative. I will just try to ask if the majority of the people have that approximately similar experience especially to most Filipinos to what we have right now.

As the term indicates, strongman has this macho tone, and along with it, a strong macho concept, plus add media and "sensationalization" then we have an effective edifice. As this is the person who would like to wage war or wield weapons to end arguments. And this is the first establishment of fascination, his brashness. Although it is a respectable task to deliberate and healthily argue when there are problems, but the strongman takes the easy way out. The easy way out is to evade from deliberations in order to solve things fast. Moreover, the majority of the people are too tired or not even trying to think when facing hurdles, that is why the strongman is a breath of fresh air when he just simply solves things quickly. Sometimes the quick things are even the worst solutions, like kill the enemy, kill those, and all the more add the solution with rationalizations such as “for my country”. Further, add hyperbolic rhetoric and you have the gullible masses laugh and say yes because they too are limited to such simpleton language. Simpleton’s language reflects a simpleton’s thinking. And this is where the strongman capitalizes when he delivers his message to the masses. The strongman’s words give people the strength they need to feel coming from a long experience of powerlessness. The strongman is the source of strength for the people; thus, he must appear like the people’s champion.

Let us say that the majority of the Filipinos do not have yet the capability to be a critical participant in the socio-political field and we could also say that the Filipinos are tired of what they have seen so far i.e. the accumulated experience which cannot be equated to progress or change and what takes precedence with this stagnation is the long deliberative processes of argumentation and debates. The masses wanted change, and the most noticeable change is a change that is abruptly felt. To have quick change is to go for the brash tactics.

The strongman capitalizes on the cries of the majority. We have a country wherein the poor at times just accept their poverty as fate and as a natural occurrence of life and that is why there is a popular notion of working hard in order to succeed and that kind of mantra hardly works for them especially given the opportunities present. Poverty has already been side-tracked as an urgent problem and that is why the strongman hits it where everybody can talk and everybody is passionate about regardless of economic status. Here I can relate to Hannah Arendt in her description of the term ‘masses’ as those people who have already removed the class barriers i.e. poor and rich and group themselves accordingly to convictions or in a higher sense, ideologies. So the strongman removes economic distinctions by uniting the people into a certain direction which all feel pain and can easily relate such as crime rates, drugs, corruption (the irony), and cleanliness programs. Here, we have seen Just-now-ManilayBay-inspired-environmentalist and the Citizen-proDeath-Squad. We have heard of divide and conquer, but now it is more of regroup and divide according to interests.

Capitalize even the little things to be done and show that it could not happen because of the strongman's will. Make it appear that is the case. Any official could have the beach cleaned as it is expected of them to do such, but make it appear that he is the only one capable, and we have the masses roar in glorification. But not all leaders could help solve inequality although not radically, but at least slowly eliminate economic inequality. I sometimes see that kind of overemphasis on trivial efforts of what is expected to be done in student body organizations such as donating trash bins to the school and without further ado, with those are huge signages of the president’s or governor’s name to tell the people that this is what the particular official has done. Since cleanliness is a no-brainer and what I mean is that everybody without double thinking says that it has to be addressed that is why everybody will congratulate and glorify the actors of change when the task is accomplished or even in the middle of mobilization. I am not against cleanliness, but even at the school level, it can be a highly politicized agenda when it is a typical thing to be done even without political concerns. Pleasing the majority gives strength to the strongman as he has the approval of the many. Strength in numbers. The gullible simpleton majority.

Let us not forget that Hitler and Stalin had their parties as well. And for me, there is no actual strongman, only a representative. He is the appropriate and effective mouthpiece of related interests. Hitler cannot become popular if nobody in the German pubs supported him by giving him the chance to speak in front of the people. And when he has gained a liking from the attendees, those who strive for political leverage used Hitler to continue on his tirades and even rented the entire pub to make that happen. Stalin became the representative of the Soviet bureaucrats who wanted to take power in the name of succeeding Lenin. Did he manage it on his own? I think not, without the massive support from his party friends but, it so happened that he is the representative, the voice of their interests. Sometimes, when we encounter the strongman, we think that he is a lone man wherein everybody follows and this is the blind spot because to be in power especially from an unequal society, one has to be placed by those already in power. Or to be in more power, you have to be recognized and supported by those who have the power as well and again presuming an unequal society. In the end, we were torn into thinking that the strongman is indeed THE strongman, or he is just the perfect mouthpiece of the people of interest. Consider him the best actor of the group.

Hitler was the best excuse for the German medical professionals' disturbingly novel pursuits. Seeing that he has the tendency to round up all conceived enemies of the state, then the medical professionals and pharmaceutical companies further developed the idea of extermination into where they can expand and progress as a corporation by giving it a medical and scientific cast. And since the idea of racial biology reached its pinnacle from evolutionary perspectives, then there is now the addition of rationally concocted isms to further claim soundness of the said mass extermination. Hitler was the voice but the parrot as well of the interests of the pro-genocide. Although this may seem like a contradiction to what I said earlier on simpleton’s language, these medical professionals were mostly not your average person. This is the other dimension of the strongman phenomenon, not only he speaks for the simpletons, but he is the speaker of the opportunists. Not only he is the speaker of the opportunists, but the propagator of their interests. Yet for the common people, we see and hear the strongman and those who have vested interest would rather enjoy the shadows and let the strongman be their greatest showman under the spotlight. And if the strongman faces conviction, the commoners can only convict him but will have a hard time finding those who are behind him. He has become also the scapegoat of those people with interests. Hitler was left to die in his bunker while those who fueled his tirades escaped.

In summary, maybe the strongman so too can be the symbol of everything opposite to what I have claimed. Let us say that the opportunists are those who wish to have good programs intended for all. Let us say he champions for everybody and also serves as a model of civility. Let us say that he is not brash but a gentleman in Confucian terms. The strongman can be the symbol of hope, a symbol of progress, but with what we have right now I am more inclined to what I have said earlier. Here I treat the strongman as a tool because he alone cannot make the entire system run according to his whims. He is still part and allowed even by certain players in society to function accordingly. It just so happens he has the face or is the face for the crowd. The strongman simply reflects the prevailing power where he is situated. We must accept that the strongman has in himself the value of the present dominating power if we are referring to particular strongmen. He is value-laden as he represents a particular situation. But if we just simply refer to strongman outside the situational context, thus, we can say, he is neutral as he is only to embody a value on a certain situation.

Lastly, since the strongman is a reflection of power in society, maybe the focus is whether or not the strongman can push democracy or threaten it but it should be on the populace first. The problem of power among the people of how it is disadvantageous for the many and only a few will benefit has to be thought of and changed. But power is not only about a position but power in common. If the society is geared towards the common interest for all, then the strongman is championed in order to echo the call and even push for its preservation. If society is truly democratic then the strongman placed will embody it. There might be chances of deviance coming from the strongman but if he does so, under a truly democratic society he will be justly removed. If society realizes this power in common and power of the common then the strongman serves as no threat, but since we have a divided populace with distorted or no clear socio-political goals, then we remain predatory to the ruling powers and the possible manipulation of society and cementing the inequality with a strongman. The strongman does not only have to be the president or an emperor but so too are opposition leaders, they too embody the ideology and the will of those who are aligned to his interests.

Again, the strongman simply embodies the power fed unto him, if we wish for a strongman that can save, the people so too should realize the power in common and of the common to execute the saving as well. This is the hardest task of all, to educate, mold the people because this power in common has been alienated and been forgotten, and we then hopelessly lay our hopes to a strongman that might echo our concerns. We hopelessly accept that power is theirs and not from us, and then we tilt the imbalanced scale further by making the strongman even stronger when we have a miseducated populace who in themselves are not capable of critical political participation. The cohorts of the strongman capitalize on this situation to their advantage. Again, the strongman reflects the power where it is situated in. Let us not expect one man to move boulders, let us all move the boulder and along the way, there is this person who is the symbol and the reminder that we should keep moving forward.