The Contrarian Hero

Written by Peter Thiel Friday, 15 May 2009 00:00

A commentary on the Oslo Freedom Forum

It is often expedient that one innocent man should die for the people. But it’s wrong. And we all know it.

Yet there are many things we all know are wrong that can easily become very difficult to say.

One of the heroes who participated in the Oslo Freedom Forum, Václav Havel, writes memorably of the Czech grocer who protects himself from state oppression by putting a pro-Communist sign in his shop—but a very bland one. The sign “helps the greengrocer conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power.”

The Oslo Freedom Forum celebrates courageous men and women who face the same kind of oppression, but tell the truth—often the unpopular truth—to themselves and the world, at great risk to their lives and liberty. They unveil the low foundations of power.

Such people are far too rare, for two reasons. The more obvious reason is that it’s hard to be fearless. The less obvious reason is that the urge to imitate our neighbors is so strong that it’s almost impossible to think—much less say or do—things that your neighbors don’t think. The great heroes of human rights combine the fearlessness of a martyr with the creativity of an explorer or inventor. They combine the virtues of Stephen, Magellan, and Edison.

Like explorers or inventors, the first one to stand up for the truth faces the biggest challenge, but creates a model for the second and third, who benefit from his example. The world needs more refuseniks, rejectionists, resisters, gadflies, doubters, critics, objectors, muckrakers, and prisoners of conscience.

The world needs more people like Mutabar Tadjibaeva, Armando Valladares, Elena Bonner, Palden Gyatso, Ramón Velásquez, Leyla Zana, Vladimir Bukovsky, and the many other contrarian heroes who spoke at the Oslo Freedom Forum. All of us associated with the Forum are so grateful to Thor Halvorssen for bringing these heroes together before the world.

Because we need more of these heroes, it’s worth some effort to figure out the answers to two questions. How can people make these conceptual breakthroughs? How do they stay centered in the face of both the threat of violence and the resistance of conventional thinking?

In human rights, a conceptual breakthrough generally involves no new knowledge, but rather the rigorous application of a principle we already knew. Libertarians talk of the nonaggression axiom, Christians of the golden rule, Hindus and Buddhists of ahimsa; and this commandment to love others is written on the heart.

Some societies suppress sympathy for the other more or less entirely. More advanced societies typically honor this principle loudly but narrowly. Contrarians who apply it have discovered and exposed the evil of slavery; conscription; persecution of speech, belief, and worship; collective guilt; war; and torture. And they’ve frequently been rewarded for their discoveries with a spot on the list of victims.

Contrarians have also discovered that these evils are driven by common temptations—tribalism or utilitarianism—and entail a common expedient, violence. René Girard, the greatest philosopher since Kant, has helped contrarian heroes to expose the nature of violence. As he says, “Violence is the enslavement of a pervasive lie; it imposes upon men a falsified vision not only of God but also of everything else.”

All authoritarian regimes—which by definition infringe upon human rights—are founded and sustained by violence or the threat of violence. They enforce obedience through official and unofficial acts of violence. Thus, to stand up against authoritarianism and spread freedom, one must oppose this violence—and frequently all violence.

An objection to state violence is an accusation of injustice. The state’s defenders reject the very concept of state injustice; instead they assert the legitimacy of their state and argue that whatever a legitimate state does is just, and whatever it permits is liberty. While our nature inclines us to think about right and wrong, they distract us with questions of who governs.

We tend to like a government very much when we believe we’re among its net winners. That makes it very hard to think clearly about whether any of its laws are just or unjust.

And because power corrupts, any state unchecked by vigorous public scrutiny and a free press will attempt to become the judge in its own cause and the intermediary of all human interaction. Vengeance is mine, saith the state.

Contrarians stay centered for the same reasons they see so clearly—because rigorous application of fundamental principles aligns thinking with feeling, creating a clear picture of the world that explains how it ought to work, how it does work, and our place in it. Once you achieve a clear and true picture, apparent contradictions fall away. The right road is still steep and treacherous, but at last it's clearly marked.

This is the predicament of the contrarian hero: his eyes are opened. Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, and every step reveals not only the futility of reaching the peak, but also the impossibility of turning aside. Calling violence by its proper name becomes—tragically and heroically—the only possible moral position.

When ordinary people think clearly, heroes are born.