Henry Hilt

Honors 230: Final Paper

The Origin of the Differences in Persuasion, Structure and Education in Despotic and
Democratic Regimes
Introduction
Leadership is essential to the functioning of both despotic and civic societies,
because leadership must exist for any structure or order to exist, such as
government. Roger Soders very first chapter of The Language of Leadership is
titled Persuasion: A Critical Function of Leadership. He notes that for leadership to
exist in any capacity, there must be a group that is persuaded that the leader has
the right idea about what to do. While leadership exists in many capacities, it is
especially important in government, because of the amount of people being led and
the magnitude of the consequences of the leaders choices.
While there are many different forms of government, their fundamental
political structures can mostly be grouped into one of two broad categories.
Democracies, where the leaders of government are chosen by the general populace,
place an emphasis on human freedom. Along with a democratic government,
democracy is often accompanied by a civic culture and a politically engaged body
of citizens. Authoritarian regimes, on the other hand, are not elected or chosen by
the general populace. The emphasis on preserving order and stability contributes to
what I will define as a despotic culture, where freedom is restricted by the
government.
Because of the differences between democratic and despotic cultures and
governments, persuasion employed by leadership differs as well. Differences in
persuasion are linked to the form of government chosen. Not only the worldviews
that the public is persuaded of differ, but also the methods of persuasion
themselves used to appeal to the public. The difference in structure of government
causes differences in how the government gathers support for itself.
How persuasion is different is invariably connected to why it is different. The
distinguishing characteristics between despotic and civic cultures in structure and
techniques of persuasion didnt result at random. Fundamental assumptions about
human nature are made in the establishment of despotic and civic cultures and
governments. Based on different assumptions of what human nature is, democratic
and despotic governments have different beliefs about what sort of persuasion is
ethical and what type of persuasion is effective.
If the government is authoritarian, are there obstacles to the possibility that a
very persuasive, brave and lucky group of citizens with a different view of human
nature could suddenly transform the government into a thriving democracy? What
prevents the opposite from happening? Education in both civic and despotic
societies leads to publics that understand the political system and why that system
is in place, and produce a culture focused on sustaining it.
These previously discussed issues are all interconnected. Societal structure
and leadership style choose influence the persuasion used on the audience. The
assumptions about human nature influence the formation of the type of government
and the techniques of persuasion for the audience. The techniques of persuasion

between government and audience affect smaller scale interactions in society by

contributing to an ecology of rhetoric. And the government decides on an education
system for the public, affecting the future publics views on human nature and
government itself. This paper addresses these connections in both democratic and
authoritarian societies.
Differences in Authoritarian Societies and Democracies
This discussion starts easiest with considering the differences in despotic and
civil societies. Like Roger Soder in Chapter 4 of The Language of Leadership, I will
simplify by grouping societies as either free or not free. One of the biggest
differences in the two types of societies is the level of critical thought of the public.
In a largely unfree society, the only allowed opinion is the governments opinion.
Because the government does not want to encourage opposition against itself or its
opinion, authoritarian governments naturally tend to suppress dissenting
viewpoints. In an authoritarian society, dissent is a threat.
In democratic societies, by contrast, a stable public supportive of the
government is encouraged to have a high level of critical thought. Democracies
have every citizen play a role in government, so a passive public would actually be
a weakness. Citizens who are more informed about their responsibilities and
engaged in the functioning of government will be able to make more informed
decisions and elect the wisest officials. In civic societies, tolerating and considering
dissent is an important value.
This ideal public is discussed by Roger Soder in Chapter 4 of The Language of
Leadership, who discusses the need for forming a more thoughtful public in order
to sustain civic societies. Just as a more thoughtful public needs a democracy in
which to express its opinions freely and without fear of reprecussions from the
government, a democracy needs a more thoughtful public in order to sustain itself.
A democracy cant be sustained by a passive public, because although the formality
of free choice is preserved, the thought behind the choice has been removed. The
choices made by the public dont reflect the rational will of the people, either due to
a lack of political participation or disengagement and low critical thought when
engaging in the political process.
This problem of the corrupting of a more thoughtful public is what Alexis De
Tocqueville referred to in What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.
Tocqueville argues that democratic nations could lose their more thoughtful publics,
slowly transforming into despotic societies. An individualistic public slowly loses
interest in political participation, entrusting the government with more and more
responsibility as long as their needs are cared for. Instead of being made by the
public, the most important decisions of society are essentially made by a select few
who choose to be politically engaged rather than by the public at large who are
more concerned with their private lives than with public well-being.
If Tocquevilles soft despotism is truly a form of despotism, the transition
between a democratic society and a softly despotic society crosses the line dividing
a largely free society and a largely unfree society. In this case, the line between a
free society and an unfree society is the level of political engagement and critical
thought of the public. Despotic societies dont have a high level of critical thought in
their public, but democratic societies need a more thoughtful public.

Although a more thoughtful public is a characteristic that despotic and

democratic societies do not share, there are other facets of democratic societies
that separate it from despotic societies. Roger Soder outlines conditions for a
democratic and free society to exist, and lists a separate set of seven conditions
given by Robert Dahl. Soders conditions include ones that are not neccesarily
implied simply by the existence of a more thoughtful public.
Some of Soders conditions speak to patterns of thought in democratic
society, which speak to motivations for people in general within civic cultures. A
good example of one of these conditions is trust. When people in a society trust
each other, there must be a good deal of consideration regarding what they are
trusting in. Trust in other people means that citizens assume that whenever
possible, people are going to try to be helpful, or broadly good, to other members of
society. This trust does not mean blind trust in the government, as this would lead
to a softly despotism. Trust as a societal element not only requires people that are
willing to do good for other citizens, but that people expect good things of other
people. Even if you dont like someone, being able to assume that youre not going
to be attacked is important for having a civil society. Having people who make this
positive assumption about human nature makes forming exchange relationships and
associations easier than in despotic societies, for reasons that will be examined
later.
Despotic societies, in contrast, cant allow citizens to share the same type of
mutual trust in one another. For despotic societies, loyalty to other citizens must
come second to loyalty to the leader. Promoting ease of association and exchange
of information is dangerous the autocratic government. Dependence on the
despotic government must be total, so trust in other entities or people is a form of
independence. Despotic regimes, through policies and actions, must fight any
general development of public trust. The government must persuade its citizens
that only the government can be trusted, and that other citizens do not know better
than the government.
Even though trust is only one of eleven of Soders conditions, my discussion
of trust links in many of the other conditions. The concepts of information exchange
relationships, free and open inquiry, social capital and respect for civil discourse all
help define this democratic trust, shared between citizens. Trust as social bond also
helps for the constitution of a more thoughtful public. Trust that citizens also want
the best for the democray allows respect for civil discourse and wide range of
opinions allows opinions to be heard and debated publicly, contributing to the
critical thought of a more thoughtful public. Even though trust by itself is an isolated
condition, any discussion of trust in a society brings in other conditions necessary
for democracy. Because of this, truth as a condition will be used in discussing
persuasion and assumptions of a democratic society in depth, rather than trying for
a cursory explanation of how every possible condition could relate to how
democracies and despotisms differ.
One other important difference between democratic and despotic regimes is
the degree and type of loyalty shown by their citizens. Despotic regimes demand
absolute loyalty, support is not questioned. Outward obedience is a necessity in any
despotic regime. Producing absolute obedience by everyone all the time goes back
to the lack of trust that citizens have in each other, allowing the government to be
chosen over other temptations to disobey. Lack of trust is one reason, but a fear of

the government is also present. Few people at most, will agree with what the
government is doing a majority of the time, this is readily seen in a civic society. The
fear of government artificially creates agreement in the entire population, at least
outwardly. There is compliance in virtually the entire population when an autocratic
regime is running smoothly, but this doesnt equal true support from the population.
Civic societies, on the other hand, cant and dont require artificial loyalty.
Whatever sense of loyalty is felt within each citizen can be truly expressed because
of free speech, related to the condition of respect for civil discourse. Motivations for
supporting the government or its programs can be broad, but they shouldnt include
fear of the government if no support is given, and this is rarely the case.
Differences in Persuasion Strategies in Authoritarian Societies and
Democracies
Discussion of motivations for supporting government in despotic and civic
cultures brings up the issue of how persuasion strategies differ in despotic cultures
rather than civic cultures. The distinction of compliance versus consent is made by
Roger Soder in Chapter 4 of The Language of Leadership. In despotic societies,
compliance can be produced most easily by force. Force, however, doesnt produce
enthusiastic support when used on a population, instead it just fosters resentment.
Soder notes that there is no need to cultivate enthusiastic support because no real
opposition can be mounted. Despotic societies only need compliance from the
general population, so attempt to persuade on the inside is necessary as long as
opposition can be stunted.
Another effective persuasion strategy for autocratic governments can be
drawn from George Orwells essay Shooting an Elephant. Although Orwell doesnt
want to shoot the elephant that hes been searching for, one of the main reasons
that he doesnt end up shooting the elephant was because of the expectations of
the people around him. In despotic societies, where the behavior of other people
can be directed by the government, the government can count on unconscious
social pressure to influence the behavior of others who might not otherwise go
along with the regimes plans. The unconscious desire to conform to the behavior of
the people around you is present in all societies, not just in despotic regimes. But in
democratic societies it cant be directed by the government to the same degree
that it is in despotic regimes. And because of the lack of true trust in most other
citizens, there isnt discussion on a societal level of whether people actually believe
what theyre doing. Even if people are aware of what the broad opinion of
government policy is, the effects of peer pressure can still remain in place because
there is no societal movement to oppose the authoritarian government.
This lack of information among the general public in despotic societies leads
to differences in persuasion strategies compared to democracies, where the
audience is an informed and more thoughtful public. In despotic societies, leaders
dont have to convince people that the proposed course of action is the best one
given the current state of affairs. Governments of despotic societies, because they
control how much information the public has, can deliberately withhold, selectively
release, or even misinform the public so that they will be more supportive of the
plan of action of the regime. In Chapter 5 of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor
Dostoevsky, the Grand Inquistors Catholic Church exemplifies this. This fictional
Catholic Church, in essence an authoritarian government, has in actuality

committed itself to following the teachings of the devil. The Grand Inquisitor hides
this fact from the public following him, still publicly maintaining that the Church
follows the teachings of Jesus. The Grand Inquisitors Church is an extreme case, a
despotic government actually believing in the antithesis of what it espouses to its
people.
These tactics to aid persuasion and compliance in despotic governments may
be effective at getting the results that are wanted, but there is little ethical concern
for treating citizens with respect. In Chapter 3 of The Language of Leadership, Soder
argues that persuasion should be ethical as well as effective. Any ethical
justification of this authoritarian persuasion assumes that not all citizens are
equal. The Grand Inquisitor, for example, views the members of the Church as the
weak who cant handle freedom, while the leaders of the Church are strong.
Democracies, on the other hand, value equality among everyone. This means that
everyone merits ethical consideration, especially in persuasion.
Persuasion in democracies must consider that a more thoughtful public is a
well-informed audience. In contrast to authoritarian regimes, democracies must
persuade assuming that the audience is well-informed and critically thinking. The
choice to respect the audience and their opinions and viewpoints can make
persuasion effective, but it can also allow democratic leaders to make ethical
arguments in order to persuade the public of their views. A democratic leader who
personified this approach was Abraham Lincoln, widely regarded as one of the most
successful presidents in American history. In Ralph Lerners chapter titled Lincolns
Revolution, Lerner tells us that Lincoln treated the public as equals. Lincolns
arguments were ethical in nature. He argued that slavery was un-American and
immoral because it went against the principles laid out in the Declaration of
Independence, and encouraged people to make a choice about whether slavery was
ethical or unethical.
In Chapter 3 of The Language of Leadersip, Soder explains that persuasion
has at least three choices involved in it that make choosing how to persuade an
ethical choice. Democratic governments and authoritarian governments approach
each of these choices differently, which affects the content of the arguments that
they use to persuade others. First, the leaders must choose an ordering of goods,
where they must decide what they are going to be arguing for. In democratic
societies, the ordering of goods is very important because there will always be
opposition to against whatever viewpoint is expressed. If the democratic
government or a leader is going to put forth a plan of action, they should choose to
focus on issues that the public will give them a large measure of support for.
Despotic governments dont need to choose to enact plans that have a very popular
ordering of goods. There will be no pushback against their proposals from
opposition, and therefore no need for compromise. The plan that they think will be
most beneficial for society should be the plan they enact.
The second choice Soder describes that is made in persuasion is what type of
argument to use to argue for the ordering of goods that has been decided on. Soder
points out that the type of argument employed when persuading has a larger
impact on the culture of rhetoric and persuasion. He uses an example of a child
asking why he should like his grandmother, and hearing one of two different
responses. Choosing to respond that the grandmother is rich and could leave the
child money when she dies teaches the child that love has to do with getting things

in return, or expecting to gain from giving love. If on the other hand, the child learns
that we love grandma because shes a grandmother and we love family, that
teaches the child to love family. When applying this logic to government arguments,
authoritarian governments can argue using most of the same appeals to logos,
ethos and pathos that are used for persuasion in generally free societies. But the
answer to the fundamental question of why should citizens obey an authoritarian
government has a predetermined answer: because citizens have to obey the
government. Obedience is driven into the culture of a despotic society because
people are taught and socialized to respond to persuasion from an authoritarian
government with obedience. Democratic societies, by contrast, can expect that
people who support leadership to do it because they think its the right thing to do.
That makes the choice of argument specifically more important, ethically and
effectively, than it does for an authoritarian society.
Soders final choice in persuasion is one of practical implementation, at the
level where specific decisions like what the terminology of the argument will be.
Both democracies and autocracies put a lot of effort into determining and using the
most effective language to persuade the public. One of the big differences is that in
a democracy, propaganda must be limited to what a more thoughtful public thinks
is trustworthy, otherwise the rhetoric of the argument will undermine its merits by
making the argument seem untrustworthy. In despotic regimes, where no
alternative sources of information exist with which to bind the government to what
the public believes is ethically acceptable, effective phrasing takes a priority. The
truth can be whatever it needs to be in order to make it persuadable, like what
Grand Inquisitor does with the Catholic Church. Even this practical consideration is
one of implementation of persuasion, the state of the condition of trust due to the
type of society has considerable influence on persuasion.
While there are important distinctions between how leaders persuade the
public in despotic and democratic societies, persuasion does not always occur in a
top-down fashion. While in a despotic regime, the attempts at persuasion always
come from the government and the public cant persuade the government of
anything, things are different in a democratic regime. For democracies, public
feedback is a critical element of a more thoughtful public keeping a democracy
stable. Persuasion from the public in a democracy aims towards influencing leaders.
People can talk or write to elected representatives, this feedback is important to
politicians information seeking about the mood of the public in order to stay in
power. In despotic regimes, the system is designed so that even if the opinion of the
public is firmly contrary to that of the leaders, then the leaders view will still have
the most sway.
This difference can be examined in greater depth by considering this bottomup persuasion as a form of counsel. Unsolicited counsel such as this is only
permitted in free societies and even then is separate from counsel given from close
advisers, whose views may have much more sway in determining the leaders final
decision. In Machiavellis The Prince, Machiavelli says taking counsel is beneficial to
leaders as long as it is wise counsel and the leader has control over who gives it.
This makes sense because Machiavellis personal experience was with counsel in
authoritarian societies, with a strong need to establish authority and order. The
counsel Machiavelli envisioned as being beneficial was that given by well-educated
and loyal select advisers, and even those advisers Machiavelli hoped would only

give counsel when asked for it by the leader. He would likely disapprove of
democratic counsel, where counsel is not limited to just a few select advisers, but
rather available to the public at large if they desire it.
While Machiavelli thought that it was important to only take advice from a
few, he also thought that a leader had to have good judgement when dealing with
counsel given, a view shared by Francis Bacon in Of Counsel. For counsel given from
the general public in a democratic society, where there are many more sources of
counsel to be considered before making a decision, the prudence of the leader
hearing the counsel becomes even more important. Bacon advises methods such as
taking extra time to make a decision, consulting books and taking counsel from
close advisers even in public in order to get information from more sources. Using
Bacons point of view, the counsel of the public could have a place as just another
source of information for leaders making an informed decision. In democratic
societies, leaders could benefit from the counsel of the public just as the public
benefits from another avenue with which to participate in a democracy.
What the Differences between Authoritarian Societies and Democracies
say about their assumptions about Human Nature
Democratic and authoritarian societies have different structures because
they make different assumptions about human nature. The different ways that
authoritarian societies and democratic societies govern, function and persuade
stem from the different assumptions that they make about human nature.
The discussion about how should give counsel to the leader and the
government brings up an issue of a right to representation. Do certain people not
have the right to speak or represent themselves to the government, and if so, how
does society determine who has these rights of representation and who doesnt? In
democracies, the answer to both of these questions is quite simple. Nobody is
excluded, and everybody is represented. Looking back at the structure of
democracies, we see that society is structured such that all elements of the more
thoughtful public have a right to represent themselves through speech and get
some sort of representation in government.
For autocracies, having a general public lacking the right to speak to the
government means that there is a question of who to exclude certain political rights
from and how. Unless there is a soft despotism, large elements of the public
wouldnt want to surrender their political rights willingly. Even in Tocquevilles vision
of a soft despotism, there are likely to still be elements of a society opposed to a
complete government takeover of their lives. In order to bring about a situation
where people surrender their rights, some form persuasion must be used. And for
situations where persuasion doesnt work, the use of some form of force determines
whos rights should be stripped. In autocratic societies, the use of force is a
necessary condition, just like trust is for democracy. Despotic societies believe that
the use of force as a tool of political coercion is justified and moral, and benefits
society as a whole.
An ethical justification for the use of force can be found in the Grand
Inquisitors view of human nature. The Grand Inquisitor argument against Jesus, at
its core, asserts that some people are stronger or better than others at handling
political responsibility. The weak, in this case, will be catered for by a paternalistic

government, but they should be protected from knowledge and political

responsibility because they dont know that having this responsibility will actually
just make them miserable in the long run. The Grand Inquisitor doesnt view political
responsibility as a right to be cherished, but rather a responsibility that must be
undertaken by those responsible enough to handle it. All people arent created
equal, and those that are stronger and want the responsibilty are actually doing the
disenfranchised a favor by repressing them and their misguided want for political
responsibility.
Democracies reject this argument at its core. One well-known democratic
society opens its constitution stating that we hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal. Believing in equality of citizens as well as giving
equal political opportunity to each citizen, not only creates a cultural respect for the
autonomy of citizens political views. Equality also encourages a heightening of
expectations of peoples political willingness to participate in a democracy in order
to constitute a more thoughtful public. The Grand Inquisitor embodies authoritarian
societies belief in human beings inherent weakness. Abraham Lincolns appeals to
the public to think and choose during the debate about slavery show his
commitment to a more thoughtful public. He believes that the public has the
capability to decide between moral values, and that rather than avoiding these
issues, the public will embrace them. Summed up, there is a difference between
optimism and pessimism about human nature. Democracies believe that people all
have the ability to rise to become members of a more thoughtful public, despotic
societies do not.
The estimation of what the public can do also has implications for how
societies view information, and its effect on human behavior when people seek
information. Authoritarian societies try to suppress information seeking by the
public, as we have observed earlier. For authoritarian societies, information is a
threat to the public themselves because the public would end up wishing they had
never gotten that information after they had it.
Democractic societies, in contrast, embrace the desire of the public to seek
out information, and treat information as a valuable commodity worthy of protection
by the law. While authoritarian societies believe that information is dangerous for
human beings because it will lead them to make the bad decisions that the
government attempts to make for them, democracies believe that more information
will actually improve the decision making capabilities of each citizen. More than
having faith in the willingness of citizens to embrace the responsibilities of
governance, democracies also have faith in the prudence of the choices made by
citizens, and thus provide them with more information.
Truth is one of the conditions Roger Soder lays out in Chapter 4 of The
Language of Leadership. One other condition is a recognition of the tension between
freedom and order. Soder notes that being a democracy doesnt mean that the
society embraces complete personal freedom, just that people know that they are
choosing to balance personal freedom with order as much as possible. Compared to
despotic societies, however, democracies allow for much more personal freedom
than despotic governments do.
Democracies follow the lead of Tocqueville, who in rejecting soft despotism
found something dignifying in human freedom that made it worth preserving.

Tocqueville fears soft despotism and believes that it is necessary that we stick with
democracy because humans are better off making decisions and living with the
consequences of those decisions rather than chasing just pure happiness. With a
benevolent tutelary power making decisions for humanity in a soft despotism
instead of people making decisions for themselves in a democracy, humans would
likely be a little bit happier. But to Tocqueville, this happiness is meaningless and
even almost degrading. He believes that the choice in peoples lives makes us
better than animals, and that by removing that and following just simple desires to
eat, sleep and procreate, we lose what separates us from animals. Tocqueville, and
many of the democracies he describes, have citizens who value dignity alongside
happiness.
This isnt to say that the people living in authoritarian societies with an
amount of philosophical choice similar to the level that livestock have are always
happy. But a lot of the happiness they do have stems from the order of their
societies, which provides for them and gives them the security of survival. The
ethical assumption made in authoritarian societies is that the philosophical choices
made by the leaders are correct, so that it would be extraneous for citizens to
debate how to live their lives to find fulfillment. The leader already has everyone on
the path to personal fulfillment, so all thats left is to take care of what people need
to stay alive. Even the general philosophy of the Grand Inquisitor seems to reject
the pursuit of future knowledge, by rejecting the return of Jesus. Despotic societies
reject the tension with freedom and order, making democratic societies appear so
free because authoritarian societies embrace order as completely as possible.
The Differences in Education of the Public in Democracies versus
Authoritarian Societies
The contrasting views about what human nature naturally lead to different
views in how people should be educated. One of the biggest factors influencing
education is the prevailing view on what seeking effects seeking information has on
society. If information seeking by the public is feared, as it is in despotic societies,
then there will be little focus on critical thought and seeking information. In fact,
authoritarian societies will discourage both critical thought and seeking information
that is contrary to government beliefs. You would expect to see only one source of
information given, and passive acceptance taught to students.
In a democracy, teaching critical thought and information seeking is
necessary to the constitution of a more thoughtful public. But more than that,
people will be encouraged to develop their own views and synthesize their own
information, so that they value alternate sources of information. A more thoughtful
public will be taught, unlike in authoritarian societies, that multiple viewpoints exist
and that each of these viewpoints deserves respect. Active seeking of information
would be encouraged for students in democratic societies, to teach their students to
all be potential leaders.
Students in democratic schools have to all be trained to be participants in a
democracy, because they all have political responsibilities. Equality means that
everybody has to be trained to be potential future leaders. In an autocratic society,
not everybody needs to be trained to be future leaders, but there needs to be some
method for differentiating the valued from the unvalued, or those who are
considered strong and fit for leadership from those who are not. For the Grand

Inquisitor, he was selected for leadership for his participation in the clergy. But in
autocratic societies, the function of public education is not so much to educate, but
to determine who is worthy of education.
Education also serves the purpose of teaching the balance between freedom
and order, or lack thereof that was discussed earlier. This balance, or lack thereof, is
crucial to how people approach their lives in each society. Learning this balance is
also not something gleamed through the curriculum of schools, but rather their
structure. In despotic regimes, the bias towards order is very obvious even
implicitly, because people are taught allegiance and always to trust in the
government.
In democratic societies, the balance and tension between freedom and order
can sometimes be observed just from watching the functioning of the schools. When
Dr. Bill Mester spoke to us about his experiences as superintendent of the
Snohomish School District, the tension between freedom and order stood out
because of his passion on the issue of standardized testing. The federal government
had been trying to make a move towards order by attempting to require the district
to follow national standards increasing dependence on standardized testing. Dr.
Mester, after consulting with the citizens of the district, decided to refuse adopting
the standards that the federal government had attempted to impose and that most
of the rest of the country had consented to in order to keep their funding. In this
case, Dr. Mester had wanted more freedom to run his district the way he and the
people in the district wanted to run it. On the other hand, the federal government
had wanted to create more order in the schools by trying to bring schools towards a
specific standard. Dr. Mesters district was only one of many school districts across
the nation, and not all of these districts responded with acts of defiance.
But, invariably, the students would gleam the tension between freedom and
order in their schools from other aspects of schooling, such as the discipline system.
Students in democratic societies learn that there are rules that have to followed,
and that in breaking these rules they will be punished, just as in authoritarian
societies. But in democratic societies, a focus on correction of future behavior is
found. Because democratic societies believe that humans are capable of change
and surpassing their nature, the punishments for rules wouldnt be draconian like in
authoritarian societies. In authoritarian societies, being lenient about certain
mistakes like questioning the legitimacy of the regimes information wouldnt
provide the strong incentive that this behavior is unacceptable. Punishments would
be swift and punitive, focused on producing compliance and providing a deterrent
example. The well-being of the individual being punished is less important than the
message the punishment delivers.
Students also learn about their political abilities and roles from the discipline
system. In democratic societies, rules do not cover every aspect of behavior. There
are behaviors that are frowned upon but not disciplined, students can push some
limits and not be severely disciplined. And if the students are unified in protesting a
rule or practice that they see as unfair, that right is protected and the school system
will consider making a change. In authoritarian societies, the rules are set in stone,
nothing can be done to change them. Any sort of student government that marks
students selected for leadership would actually teach the importance of and
justification of harsh punishments for the well-being of people.

Conclusion
Ive discussed the many differences in authoritarian and democratic societies,
but it is important to consider at what point differences occur. The biggest shared
starting assumption that influences how democratic societies and despotic societies
form is that there is a fundamental need for society and government. Both types of
societies assume that human beings need rules and a higher power to submit to in
order to produce the best type of existence for them.
What exactly this higher power of government should be depends on the
assumptions that one makes about human nature. Beliefs in happiness or in
personal fulfillment as the most important goal of human existence, whether
humans inherently want to shun or embrace personal freedom as well as whether
the majority of the public is inherently equal or unequal all pull a society towards
constituting a democracy or an authoritarian society. With the forming and initiating
of a government, persuasion and education have to be changed as well.
This paper has dealt with authoritarian societies and democracies in largely
ideal terms. Its easier to discuss and identify differences when considering the most
extreme cases, and in actuality most societies are largely free or largely unfree. But
as Roger Soder says, its a fact of existence that things change and fall apart. Even
if such a regime as a pure autocracy or a pure democracy existed, they would
eventually fall apart with the passage of time. When trying to label societies as free
or unfree, we must recognize that societies are neither completely authoritarian or
completely democratic. Because a regime and a society has a characteristic
identified in this paper as either authoritarian or democratic doesnt mean that that
regime must have all of the democratic or authoritarian characteristics in full
degree. They just make it more probable to see other features of a particular type of
society and government accompanying it.
Nor is there simply a linear scale between despotism and democracy along
which all societies can be placed. The differences between real governments and
societies are too complex to be placed on a simple scale. Democracy vs. despotism
is just one dimension which can be used to compare two societies.
In the introduction, I mentioned that this paper at its core was about
connections between the different characteristics and underlying structure of
authoritarian societies and democracies. Connections between beliefs about human
nature, education, persuasion and government structure are some of the most
prominent connections that can be drawn, but they arent the only ones. If a private
sector exists, for example, leadership in the private sector and how it differs from
government leadership has many possible connections which could be drawn. But
that doesnt change the fact that by considering the connections within
authoritarian societies and democracies, we can learn important information about
how that society functions.