PRIVATE LEGITIMATION

Rulers legitimate themselves in the sight of their subjects. But though they do so in part to impress their subjects, they do so also in order to impress themselves. The self-legitimation of government, and of governing identity, is an activity which appears to have little regard to the views or approval of the larger part of the population. It is an activity which is more conducive to seeing the mass of people as subjects rather than as citizens. In that respect, endogenous self-legitimation is comparable to other aspects of rule, and to the ‘basic confidence to know that you're right when everyone else is saying that you're wrong’ which is essential to rulers. Rulers are not in the first instance concerned about what those whom they rule think, nor whether their own cultivated image of themselves is recognised and approved of by ordinary people. Indeed they may well deliberately act in a way which excludes their rituals and ceremonies of legitimating identity from public gaze, hearing, or knowledge. The relative indifference to their subjects on the part of rulers corresponds to a relative distribution between rulers and subjects, of the attention given to legitimation. Self-legitimation is a continuous concern of rulers. It is at best an intermittent concern of subjects. The distribution of attention to legitimation corresponds, too, to the distribution of attention to government. Governing is inherently and by definition an undemocratic activity. To rule is to command other people, not to be commanded by them.