The cradle of wisdom

Today, I'd like to talk a bit about the king from "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In case you're curious, the king is featured in chapter 10.

Without going too much into detail, as it is quite a curious read if you're interested, our main character is a space exploring child. Through his adventures, he meets various characters. Some are described at length and others barely get an introduction.

The subject of today's blog will be a king the prince visits.

The king lives on an tiny asteroid, and he takes up most of it's space. This is glossed over, but to me it's an important detail which I'll give my take on later. Through the brief introduction, the king is revealed to be an absolute monarch. He rules over everything, and tolerates no disobedience. However, he is also a good man, and thus always makes his orders reasonable. An explanation as to why he does this, he says, among other things, that "If I ordered a general to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not obey me, that would not be the fault of the general. It would be my fault".

In order to give orders, then, he always asks what is reasonable from his subjects, and the way he does this is to wait until "conditions are favorable".

He also says "I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable". In the very first conversation with the prince, the king immediately calls him a subject, because to the king, everyone is a subject. When asked what he is a king of, he says "Everything".

The prince can't help but yawn, as he was tired from traveling, and the king forbids him to do so. When the prince says he can't help it, the king changes his mind and orders him to yawn. When the prince says he can't yawn on command, the king decides to order him to "sometimes yawn and sometimes not".

Now the prince got a bit homesick, as he is still a child and far from home. On his, very tiny, home planet, he was able to see the sunset several times a day, simply by moving his chair. When he asks the king for a sunset, since he is king of everything, and everything obeys his commands, as he requires total obedience, the king agrees. But as he never asks for anything unreasonable, he tells the prince they must wait until the conditions are favorable, and when asked when that is, he counts the time for when the sun sets.

"Hum! Hum! That will be about- about- that will be this evening about twenty minutes to eight. And you will see how well I am obeyed".

The prince growing bored of waiting decides to leave the king and his asteroid. The king, afraid of losing his only subject, starts trying to entice the prince. "Do not go. I will make you a Minister!". The prince and king have a back and forth where the king tries harder and harder to make him stay.

When the prince is finally ready to depart, he lets the king know he will be going on his way. The king simply answers "No", and the prince then says: "If your majesty wishes to be promptly obeyed, he should be able to give me a reasonable order. he should be able, for example, to order me to be gone by the end of one minute. It seems to me that conditions are favorable..."

The king, with his own logic used against him, has no answer. And the prince sighs, leaves the asteroid, and hears the king yelling how he'll make him his ambassador.

--------------

Now the whole encounter is meant to display a folly. The king is essentially the king of nothing. He "orders" you to do things that you were already going to do, and never gives an unreasonable order. The fact is, things would continue as they were, precisely as they were, with or without the king.

As I said earlier, he lives by himself and takes up most of the space of his asteroid. He has no subjects to speak of, and therefore is overjoyed when the prince shows up. He is all by himself, floating through empty space, believing himself to be the sole ruling monarch of the entire cosmos.

If we had to analyze this, and look at where he goes wrong, then let's start with his "reasonable" orders. The king is indeed correct when he says that he can't order someone to do something that they can't, but he is mistaken about the difference of ordering someone to do something impossible and something nigh impossible. As such, the king's logic is flawed when he makes his perfectly reasonable orders, because they aren't orders at all, if he just tells people to act like they want to act. 

"reasonable" to him means he has justification ordering people around. He tolerates no disobedience, of course, and the only way he can achieve this, is by telling people to do exactly as they want to. When faced with an unfavorable choice, like when the prince wants to leave, he has no answer. He obviously doesn't want the prince to leave, and tells him "No". He literally comes face to face with the fact, that although he is the king of everything, he doesn't have the power to be the king.

He can force no-one to do anything, and thus holds no power. His orders are only backed up with words or empty promises. There are no guards and no army. This king would be the perfect example of the saying "go with the flow", as he does everything when it is most natural to do so.

If we assume the king had absolute power along with his grand claims of being the king of everything, it still wouldn't change anything, because he would still follow his rule of "reasonable" orders. He would never force anyone to do something they didn't want to do, even with omnipotence. Which means that there are at least two major issues with the king as a monarch. He cannot enforce his orders, and he will never make an actual order.

Now, the reason this is on here, is because, if you look at the king as a dominant we can start to presume a few things.

In order to have "pull" or "weight", you need to dominate from a position of power. Physical or mental, there needs to be some sort of whip to make the stubborn mule move, so to speak. The dominant's will must be enforced with power, if he is at all going to be obeyed.

Secondly, he has to operate out from an "unreasonable" perspective. His orders need not be fair, or considerate, of his sub. As long as it is not impossible, he should be able to order a sub to do it. Again, the reason for this is, that if he only ordered what the sub wanted to do, it wouldn't be HIS will he imposed on another, it would be the sub's own will, and that is not domination.

Now remember, we haven't talked about the nature of what is ordered. It could be good, it could be bad. We only know it has to deviate from the example of the king.

Anyways, that is my little philosophy for today. Hope you enjoyed.