Etienne de La Boetie and Voluntary Servitude

Today, i'll take the liberty to give some more advice. not that i could do much more since there doesn't seem to be much of a discussion here... hehe

The book, or more properly, the pamphlet, is Etienne de La Boetie's "Discourse on voluntary servitude".
La Boetie was born on the first of november 1530 in Sarlat, a small french town. He graduated in law at the university of Orleans, and was active in the Bordeaux parliament, where he met, Michel de Montaigne, with whom he would later create a very close friendship.
Very criticaltowards the the catholic repressions of the huguenots, his spoke out loud against them, gaining attention and consideration, but just when he was reaching the climax of his career, at the age of 33, he got seriously ill and died shortly after, in the arms of his friend Montaigne, that was given the duty to publish La Boetie's works.

this is, a very short and incomplete biography, but it's purpouse is just to give an idea of who i'm talking about.

The book i'm advising is, as a matter of fact, the "Discourse", an analysis of why, according to the author, the majority of people is usually eagerly willing to give up freedom in exchange for a generic sense of safety.

I won't go into any details, because this is advice not a review, and because the pleasure of discovering new thoughts page after page should be left to the reader, but what makes this work very interesting, is the fact that La Boetie consideres those who let themselves be oppressed greatly responsible for the state of oppression they live in, for all it takes to be free is the will to be, through actions like civil disobedience. He is not a justifier of violence.

Although this booklet (it's very short...), never really got to be noticed by mainstream political and social literature, it had a great deal of influence on political thoughts and actions throughout european history, from the French Revolution, to opposition to the Restauration, to Anarchism...

"...I should like merely to understand how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him...."