Thesis And Map

Thesis and Map

Charles Nyanway

Institutional Affiliation(s)

Perils of Absolute Government

Man was pre-political but not pre-social in ancient world. He lived his life in a perfect state of equality and other times it proved nasty, short and brutish for him. Be it perfect equality or the nasty life, this system could not move on for a long time due to its shortcomings. So, man used his rationality and came up with a solution to amend this situation. Those people invented government were to act as a tool to manage his affairs effectively and efficiently. However, this government became absolute with the passage of time and snatched man all his inherent or inalienable rights. This gave birth to the concept of absolute government and this is the theme which is mentioned in the several short fictional stories. Time and again, these stories established that absolute government favors none and has serious implications for the people and their liberty.

Government has the tendency to misuse his powers and this is explained in the literature pieces of the Kurt Vonnegut. The story Harrison Bergeron ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"QlW1xiLX","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Vonnegut, 1962)","plainCitation":"(Vonnegut, 1962)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":11,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZD9MNZ2P/items/LEVYDS9M"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZD9MNZ2P/items/LEVYDS9M"],"itemData":{"id":11,"type":"book","title":"Harrison Bergeron","publisher":"Mercury Press","number-of-pages":"6","source":"Google Books","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Vonnegut","given":"Kurt"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1962"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Vonnegut, 1962) is the first example in this regard. A man who was not ordinary was forced to adopt the set benchmarks of the government in order to achieve their desired standard of equality. He was forced and then killed when he defied the government. He depicts the future in his story where the government asks people to adopt specific ways in order to make them artificially equal to one another. The author argues that the forceful creation of equality in not favorable to anyone. This literature piece is the symbol that absolutism in government is hazardous and not good in substance. Equality is not something to be created forcefully by the autocratic will. In essence, equality is the gradual process which requires elaborate efforts and not hasty irrational steps. Thus, the total control of the government is not beneficial to people in the society or for the country in general.

Absolute governments even control lives and their every single aspect when they want to do so. This is the theme of the story by Kurt Vonnegut ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"xNgJoz3S","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(\\uc0\\u8220{}All The King\\uc0\\u8217{}s Horses,\\uc0\\u8221{} n.d.)","plainCitation":"(“All The King’s Horses,” n.d.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":13,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZD9MNZ2P/items/Z4FXFRVQ"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/ZD9MNZ2P/items/Z4FXFRVQ"],"itemData":{"id":13,"type":"webpage","title":"All The King's Horses","abstract":"First published in Collier's (1951-02-10) The story takes place in the early years of the Cold War and centers on U.S. Army Colonel Bryan...","URL":"https://www.goodreads.com/work/best_book/42454258-all-the-king-s-horses","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",5,17]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (“All The King’s Horses,” n.d.). It a story that also dwells on the absolutism and its hazards. It describes when governments are caught in a war, they do not care much about the expertise of the people and force them to adopt such ways that are never meant for them. This fictional story pictures a scenario that Us government was much focused on winning the cold war rather than any other objectives. People were not in control of their own lives and they had to fulfil the official edicts. Billions of dollars were poured in and resultantly it hindered the social service. The absolute government prevailed in every sphere of life and dominated its supremacy in every life affair. Hence this elaborated the dark side of the absolute government.

In a nutshell, it may be suggested that the absolute tendencies in a government is a flaw and this outreach runs counter to its original essence which is looking after the well-being of people. The story Harrison Bergeson depicts the loss of individuality and forceful creation of equality at the hands of absolute government. Also “All the kings’ horses” shares that in wars governments exploit their legitimate power and neglects their prime purpose- to manage peoples affair. This tendency of absolutism in government becomes a serious concern when government became habitual to this practice and block all ways to individual initiative and his liberty in this world.

References

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY All The King’s Horses. (n.d.). Retrieved May 17, 2019

Vonnegut, K. (1962). Harrison Bergeron. Mercury Press.