In the latter half of Elias Canetti's Crowds and Power— the 1960 classic discussed in somewhat more depth in the previous post—the author quotes at length an autobiographical passage from the ancient historian Josephus. The reason the section would have stood out to Canetti is readily apparent—it is astonishingly self-revealing; even self-incriminating. Josephus describes how he managed to evade capture and execution at the hands of the Romans, despite his role as a military commander in the Jewish revolt against their power, and it does not redound to his credit.
The future historian tells us (in Canetti's citation) that he first managed to survive by taking shelter with a group of his soldiers in a cave. Then, when offered a chance to live by the Romans, he was inclined to trust them and deliver himself into their hands. His soldiers, however—whom he used to command—regard this as rank treason and cowardice. They urge him to stay in the cave so that they might all perish together. Josephus dissimulates, pretending to agree with them and suggesting they draw straws, with the loser in each case being killed by one of his comrades.
It is strongly implied—even in this account written in Josephus's own hand—that the future historian arranged the drawing in such a way that it was always another man who picked the short end. Slowly, therefore, the number of his comrades dwindled, as the soldiers gradually killed each other in order to avoid falling into captivity. Eventually, only Josephus and one other man were left. Neither of them wished to perish, so they fled the cave, delivering themselves into Roman hands. There, Josephus's life was spared, in accordance with his captors' promise.
In this striking episode, Canetti tells us, he sees a metaphor for the relationship between every despotic ruler and the crowd of his supporters. The despot, Canetti writes, always tells the crowd that he will labor for them, that he works only for their benefit, and ultimately that he will lay down his life for them. And every time, in the end, it is the crowd that lays down its life for the despot, rather than the other way around. The soldiers believe that Josephus is following them to the grave in order to preserve their honor; in reality, he has found a way to dispatch them all and save his own neck.
In this regard, Josephus is the prototype of what Canetti calls "the survivor." And every despotic ruler, says Canetti, is a survivor at heart. Above all else, the despot is driven by a terror of death, and a need to perpetuate himself. And there is no better way in which he can prove to himself his own longevity than to outlast others. Thus, Canetti believes, the despotic ruler develops a psychological need to surround himself with corpses—whether the corpses of his enemies or his own people scarcely matters. He needs to feel himself to be the last man standing.
And so he tells the crowd, as it enters the battle, that he will be with them the whole way. While in reality, he is retiring to a position of safety some yards away, to watch the bodies pile up. "It is the deception of all leaders," writes Canetti (Carol Stewart trans.). "They pretend that they will be the first to die, but, in reality, they send their people to death, so that they themselves may stay alive longer. The trick is always the same. The leader wants to survive, for with each survival he grows stronger. If he has enemies, so much the better; he survives them. If not, he has his own people."
Reading this passage in this particular week of January 2021, I cannot help but be reminded of what Donald Trump told his own crowd of supporters, in the short time before they violently stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, January 6. He told the crowd—whom he had summoned to that spot—that their next step was going to be toward Congress, which was then in the act of certifying the election results. More than this, however, he told them he would be at their side. "[W]e’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you," he said. "We are going to the Capitol[.]"
In reality, of course, he was not there with them. As the New York Times reported, "In fact, as several of his followers and police officers were being injured or dying in the ensuing chaos, the president was watching the violence play out on television from the safety of the White House[.]" He was no more willing to lead them into danger, in the end, than Josephus was prepared to sacrifice himself alongside his soldiers (though Trump was more than happy to incite his followers into violence and then reap whatever rewards might come his way therefrom).
Here, once again, we find the prototype of the survivor, surrounding himself with the corpses of his own citizens. And, as Canetti warned us in 1960, few more dangerous types of people can be imagined—particularly when they are at the helm of a modern industrial state that possesses nuclear weapons. "The survivor is mankind's worst evil," Canetti writes, "its curse and perhaps its doom." The first and most important thing to be done when faced with such an individual, he concludes, is to see him for what he is.
We hope, we pray, that some at least who failed to see the reality of Trump's character during his four years in office—no matter how obvious he made it—have now finally perceived the survivor within—a man for whom the lives and safety of others are held in complete indifference and contempt; someone, at last, who is all too happy to sacrifice others—including his own followers and associates—for the sake of his bottomless will to outlast.
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