I am struggling to find a quote. The gist of it is, it is often the small things that provoke people’s resistance and rebellion, that people might put up with great injustice more easily than small oppressions. Can anybody help?
I’m thinking Machiavelli, but haven’t found anything.
Thanks in advance!
The closest Machiavelli I can think of isn’t quite the same:
People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.
I can’t think of a source, but that description immediately made me think of Rosa Parks. Maybe MLK?
It made me think of the bit in 1984 where “a great formidable cry of anger and despair,” deep and loud, sparks a hope: “His heart had leapt. It’s started! he had thought. A riot! The proles are breaking loose at last!”
…only it was them “accusing the stall-keeper of favouritism and of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve.” And so “Winston watched them disgustedly. And yet, just for a moment, what almost frightening power had sounded in that cry from only a few hundred throats! Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered?”
(He then goes on to muse: “And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.”)
Sort of related, if not quite what the OP had in mind:
The sense I have in mind is more, “sometimes it’s the little stuff that really gets up your nose,” or even, sometimes the small insults bring the big picture into sharp relief and push people to take action. Straw that broke the camel’s back isn’t very eloquent, and I have some sense of someone expressing this with more vigour and elegance. Anyone?
“Take a man’s land, make him work it but keep a preponderance of the profits, and then tax him on the portion he does retain, and you can live happily for many decades without fear of reprisal. But increase the price of his tankard of ale by a single penny, and within days you will find your estate being stormed at the gates by angry hordes.”
Is that the sort of thing you had in mind?
Not an answer to the OP, but I just want to say that I don’t think it’s merely a matter of people being irrational, and/or having misplaced priorities.
The way I would see it, is that if an authoritarian leader tries to control every little thing, then their ability to repress is tested in thousands of transaction every day. If you just police the bigger things, and control assets that most ordinary people never see anyway (e.g. diamond mines), that’s a much easier prospect.
Yes, that’s the sense I’m after. And I agree with Mijin’s take on it; I don’t see it as a point about people being irrational or being easily bought off but rather how something small can act as a catalyst. I’m now thinking Orwell may have said something along theses lines, though not in 1984, perhaps an essay or his journalism? It is almost the opposite sense of the quote from 1984 offered by The_Other_Waldo_Pepper
I know Popeye said, “That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!” But that lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.
Dead_Cat, I can’t find the source of your quote; can you help me out?
I’m glad about that, as I made it up on the spot! Sorry it doesn’t carry any gravitas - and more importantly, apologies for sending you on a wild goose chase, that wasn’t my intention, just a bit of fun.
Genius plus whoosh (sort of)! I love it.
Who shall we attribute it to? Maybe it will become ‘true’ in our lifetimes (a bit like all the sayings attributed to Einstein that he never actually said). How about the Duke of Wellington?
Sounds like something out of that one chapter of Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court where the yokels don’t understand inflation.
Or Oliver Cromwell.
Is it, “Let the fools have their tartar sauce.”?
Not exactly this, but related is James Davies’ J-Curve of Rising Expectations.
“Revolutions are most likely to occur when a prolonged period of objective economic and social development is followed by a short period of sharp reversal. People then subjectively fear that ground gained with great effort will be quite lost; their mood becomes revolutionary.”
A picture of the curve is seen on this site.
Later authors have expressed doubts about how universally this can be applied, but it does work for several historic examples.