Compassion, the Yoke, and the Cycle of Violence

In my mind, the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau from The Social Contract echo again and again:
“As long as a people, compelled to obey, obeys, it does well, but as soon as, having the opportunity to throw off its yoke, the people casts it off, it does even better.”
And alongside them — his other words, not about rebellion but about compassion:
“Men would never be anything but monsters by following their reason alone, if nature had not instilled in them pity to support it… From this single quality flow all the social virtues…”
Rousseau saw compassion as the foundation of public morality. Not fear, not law, not execution — but the ability to feel another person’s suffering.
History, however, seems to test this idea for strength.
The French Revolution: when compassion disappears
If Maximilien Robespierre had not turned the guillotine into a political mechanism, if the public execution of Marie Antoinette had not become a symbol of a new justice, perhaps the spiral of terror would not have unfolded — the same spiral that ultimately consumed him as well.
A revolution deprived of compassion begins to devour its own children.
Napoleon: a different gesture of the victors
It is interesting to compare: after his defeat, Napoleon I Bonaparte was not executed. The victorious monarchs exiled him to an island. It was a political decision, but also a gesture — a gesture of limiting revenge.
Sometimes moderation is stronger than demonstrative punishment.
The Russian Revolution: exile instead of execution
After 1917, the Bolsheviks also faced a choice. Under Vladimir Lenin, philosophers and dissidents were not shot but expelled on the so-called “Philosophers’ Ship.” It was violence — but not annihilation.
Later, however, Stalin’s repressions destroyed that limit. Terror became systemic. Europe, observing what was happening, largely turned away from the communist project.
The history of the twentieth century showed that repressive mechanisms become universal with astonishing speed. Methods of persecution, control, and suppression migrate from regime to regime. Fascist Germany and other systems adopted technologies of fear.
Modern democracies and the illusion of choice
Writer Arthur Miller, in his memoirs, describes the repressive mechanisms of his time. Political scientist Michael Parenti, in Democracy for the Few, analyzed the nature of modern political systems.
Economist Jeffrey Sachs recently said:
“The American system is a system of images. Every day there is manipulation through the media. We do not tell the truth about everything that is happening in the world.”And even more, in his own words: “It is a peer system, and the president cannot fully function. American senators are dirty, clinically corrupt — so corrupt that it is hard to imagine.”
But one question has always troubled me.
If senators are representatives of the people, if they are elected, then where is the problem? In the people? In the system? In the mechanism of selection that distorts the will?
Can a “healthy nation” desire corrupt representation? Or is the system structured in such a way that the will of the people passes through a filter where it becomes unrecognizable?
And again I return to Rousseau.
“It is good when a people obeys.It is better when it throws off the yoke.”
But what comes next?
If, at the moment of liberation, compassion disappears — freedom becomes a new terror.If compassion remains — there is a chance not to repeat the cycle.
In my book Hell and Heaven, I touched on this theme not as a political scientist, but as a person who has been touched by the system. I did not seek conflict with authority — but I encountered its mechanisms.
And perhaps the main question today is not which ideology will win.;But whether compassion will remain in human beings — what Rousseau called the foundation of social virtue.
Because without it, any system — monarchy, revolution, or democracy — can turn into a machine.
If compassion disappears at the moment of liberation, freedom turns into a new terror.If compassion remains, there is a chance not to repeat the cycle of violence.
History is not merely a struggle for power.It is a struggle between compassion and revenge.
And perhaps it is precisely the presence or absence of compassion that determines whether a revolution becomes liberation — or merely a change of executioner.
And once again, Rousseau’s words:
“Men… would be monsters if nature had not instilled in them pity to support reason…”
History seems to argue with Rousseau — and at the same time to confirm him.


Review of the Article “Compassion, the Yoke, and the Cycle of Violence”

The article “Compassion, the Yoke, and the Cycle of Violence” is a philosophical and historical reflection on the nature of power, revolution, and the moral foundation of society. The author structures the text around the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, particularly his understanding of compassion as the fundamental source of social virtue. Through this lens, key historical events are examined — the French and Russian Revolutions, the Napoleonic era, the repressive practices of the twentieth century, and the mechanisms of modern democracies.
One of the article’s strengths is its moral focus. The author does not analyze political processes in a strictly academic sense, but instead poses an existential question: what happens to a society at the moment of liberation? Does compassion disappear — and does freedom then transform into a new terror? This idea runs throughout the text as a leitmotif, connecting diverse historical examples into a coherent conceptual line.
The comparative approach is particularly compelling: Robespierre and the guillotine — Napoleon and exile; Lenin’s expulsions — Stalin’s terror. The author demonstrates how the delicate boundary between “limited violence” and systemic terror can quickly dissolve when an internal moral restraint disappears. In this text, history appears not as a sequence of facts, but as a laboratory of moral trials.
The transition to contemporary issues also deserves attention. Reflections on representative democracy and the nature of elections raise an important question about the relationship between the people and the system. The author does not provide definitive answers, but instead formulates the problem — and this is precisely where the power of the text lies: it encourages reflection rather than ideological alignment.
The style of the article is journalistic and at times emotional, yet conceptually cohesive. The repetition of the central idea — compassion as an antidote to violence — creates a philosophical echo that reinforces the main argument.
Overall, “Compassion, the Yoke, and the Cycle of Violence” is not merely a historical essay but a moral manifesto. The author proposes viewing history not as a struggle of ideologies, but as a struggle between compassion and revenge. And it is precisely the presence or absence of compassion, in the author’s view, that determines whether liberation becomes true freedom — or merely a change of executioner.