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Tyranny is an undesirable kind of state, in which a single ruler (or tyrant) exercises both absolute sovereignty and absolute executive power. With no legal checks to limit their power, tyrants put their personal interests above the general will of the people, whom they often oppress as they see fit. Rousseau explains that tyranny usually forms when a government is monarchic in structure (meaning that the ultimate power to implement the laws is concentrated in one person’s hands), and then the monarch usurps the power of the legislature and begins making their own laws.
Tyranny Quotes in The Social Contract
The The Social Contract quotes below are all either spoken by Tyranny or refer to Tyranny. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 1, Chapter 7
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Hence, in order that the social pact shall not be an empty formula, it is tacitly implied in that commitment—which alone can give force to all others—that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the whole body, which means nothing other than that he shall be forced to be free; for this is the necessary condition which, by giving each citizen to the nation, secures him against all personal dependence, it is the condition which shapes both the design and the working of the political machine, and which alone bestows justice on civil contracts—without it, such contracts would be absurd, tyrannical and liable to the grossest abuse.
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Book 4, Chapter 8
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Christianity preaches only servitude and submission. Its spirit is too favourable to tyranny for tyranny not to take advantage of it.
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Tyranny Term Timeline in The Social Contract
The timeline below shows where the term Tyranny appears in The Social Contract. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 2, Chapter 10: The People: Continued
...people’s rate of population growth. Finally, forming a state also requires “peace and plenty,” while tyrants tend to pass laws during times of crisis so that people do not notice.
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Book 3, Chapter 10: The Abuse of Government and its Tendency to Degenerate
...power.” This dissolves the social contract and creates anarchy, or more specifically ochlocracy, oligarchy, or tyranny (if the government started out as a democracy, aristocracy, or monarchy, respectively). “Tyrant,” Rousseau clarifies,...
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Book 4, Chapter 6: Dictatorship
...emphasizes that dictatorship should never last longer than “one short term,” because it “becomes either tyrannical or useless” when there is no immediate crisis that needs resolution.
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Book 4, Chapter 8: The Civil Religion
...so would be easily conquered). Christianity encourages “servitude and submission,” which creates the conditions for tyranny to form. “Christian troops” who fight in holy wars are not true Christians, but rather...
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