Richard Schwartzman
The Future of Freedom Foundation
September 14, 2011
Individual men and women don’t need enemies. Many want a challenge with an opponent, someone with whom to compete cooperatively, but not an enemy. Governments, however, do need enemies to get their citizenry to submit to coercion.
Some of us accept that as almost axiomatic, a self-evident fact that’s so blatant we can’t understand why the rest of society doesn’t recognize the obvious. So the question arises: Why are people so willing to put on blinders and wear a yoke?
In her August 29 Washington Times commentary regarding the Transportation Security Administration 10 years after 9/11, Gail A. Jaquish made several interesting references.
One was to F.A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom. Summarizing one of Hayek’s points, Jaquish wrote, “Once a population internalizes that authorities have the power to coerce, few will experience actual coercion because passive submission avoids it. Excessive government control ultimately leads to a psychological change in the people of a nation.”
That sounds much like the change that takes place in persons who exhibit what’s called the Stockholm syndrome. The simplest definition of this syndrome is that it’s a “paradoxical psychological phenomenon” in which hostages begin to identify with and even defend and work for their captors.
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Its name comes from behavior exhibited by four employees of a bank in Stockholm, Sweden, who were held captive for six days in 1973. The victims began to so identify with their captors that they saw them as protectors. They became so attached that they actually defended those who held them hostage.
Patty Hearst exhibited similar behavior in 1974. After being kidnapped by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army she helped the SLA rob a bank.
Psychologists say the syndrome explains certain cult membership allegiances, why women remain in abusive relationships, and a host of other coercive and intimidating situations. There is no reason not to think it happens on a national scale. Indeed, the model fits almost too well.
While we are not forced to stay in a given country (relationship), emigrating (leaving) is the exception rather than the rule. Most people are psychologically “stuck” with the government (abusive spouse) in charge. The government defines what the people (abused spouse) can and can’t do in the same manner as captors decide what their victims may do. The government has the guns and it will put people in jail if they disobey.
Then throw in the enemy, be it a bad economy, an enemy attack, immigrants, blacks, Jews, Muslims, Tea Partiers, communists, or anyone or anything that can be used to provoke fear and an artificially manufactured need for security. Government might also declare a voice of reason to be an enemy should that voice speak out against a given government policy. Too many people will identify with the government and give up any and all liberty in order to feel safe and secure, as did the bank employees in Stockholm.
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