The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [419]
This constitutes what has been the central political fault line in almost every society throughout history. Every society is made up of rulers and ruled, those who govern and those who are governed, and obviously an immense part of human history has been written in the tension and potential conflict between the two. Above the line have been those who wished to hold onto and extend their power: if they were dictators or absolute rulers, through fear and force. From below the line has come a constant pressure to restrain that power and to make the rulers accountable, which has given rise not just to constitutional government, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law but also to all the revolutions and wars of independence in history.
The first thinker who discerned what amounted to an unconscious archetype shaping political behaviour was Plato in Book VIII of his Republic. He analysed the tendency of societies to evolve through a cycle which begins with Monarchy, the rule of one leader and father-figure to all his people, the king. But this eventually leads to pressure from those immediately below him to restrain his power, and this emergence of a ruling class made up of a few rich and powerful individuals leads on to the second stage of the cycle, Oligarchy, This in turn leads to pressure from below them for a much wider dispersal of power, where in the name of liberty the people demand the right to participate in framing their laws and calling their government to account. This third stage is Democracy. But the cycle, as Plato described it, does not stop there. The belief in liberty becomes increasingly obsessive, particularly affecting all those who can still be viewed as `below the line' and oppressed. Women rebel against their roles as wives and mothers; slaves against their masters; children against parents and teachers. People are even expected to respect the `rights' of animals. The growing disorder of a society in which every kind of rule from above has fallen into disrepute eventually creates pressure for the final phase of the cycle, Tyranny: where again one man imposes his power, to restore order to a society in danger of disintegrating.
In psychological terms it is this same perennial fault line which helps explain that fundamental opposition in politics between `right' and `left: The right wing view rests chiefly on the masculine values, centred on the exercise of power and the maintenance of order; what maybe called the values of `Father. This is innately conservative because it believes in upholding the established structures and institutions of society. It supports those values which it sees as holding society together: the symbols of the nation state, tradition, patriotism, conventional morality, the family, discipline, the need for strength to defend the existing order against its external and internal enemies. The left wing rests essentially on the feminine values of feeling and understanding, what may be called the values of `Mother, in which it perceives the ruling order and the right-wing view in general to be so heartlessly deficient. It talks about liberty, compassion and equality. It protests against oppression and the injustices of the system. It proclaims the need to raise up all those whom society places `below the line, the workers, anyone who can be seen as exploited or as underdogs. It does not wish to preserve a hierarchical order which it sees as corrupt and unjust. It believes in change and the vision of a future society which is fairer and more caring; in which everyone can have an equal chance; which is not bound by