Why do some people desire to be ruled?

I don't think any deep thought is required is there? It's easier. Les power, less responsibility, less hassle.

Some people? I think we all wish to follow sometimes - it’s a chore to carry the weight of the universe on your shoulders.

Hum, maybe I'm overthinking the question?

Autonomy seems deeply desired by almost everyone in some aspect or another, but less desired in different areas by different people for different reasons. Please pardon me, I'm an ol' dense Kentucky boy with very limited philosophical knowledge- but I'm trying to dig into the heart of why the King is valued initially and almost always outgrown.

Is a desire for personal autonomy the same as carrying the weight of the universe?

Quoting AnarchoRedneck

Hum, maybe I'm overthinking the question?

Maybe.

Sometimes in a society rules can be beneficial to everybody. Just think of driving around in a big city without absolutely no rules, no traffick lights, no common agreements on who should let whom pass at a crossroads or on which side of the road one would use.

I think we make a huge issue of being ruled by 'someone else' and being ruled by commonly agreed rules. In the end, the outcome is the same: we have to obey the rules.

I guess at the heart of my inquiry are maybe questions of people's sometimes innate clinging to rule, but is it really innate? Or is clinging to rule a societal, or family indoctrination?

We understand the naturalistic fallacy that just because something "IS" doesn't mean it's desirable, and we understand that the "OUGHT" can't be empirically measured against the "IS". If slavery 'IS' the rule we 'OUGHT' not obey that rule.

I almost just wrote "we have to survive" as contention against "we have to obey the rules", but in further thinking, we don't even have to do that. We don't have to do anything that is not personally desired. There may be societal consequences, but all of that goes without saying.

Maybe I'm digging into what and why do we desire? Ugh, I don't know. I was just hoping people much smarter than I have dealt with this lol

Quoting ssu

In the end, the outcome is the same: we have to obey the rules

Most of the time yes, we can't forget however that some rules are made to be broken and even the best leaders are human enough to make mistakes.

It might be good to bring in a quote of MLK Jr here.

[Quote]I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.[/quote] - MLK

There seems to be a conflation between the sense of the original post "to be ruled" and the sense of "having rules"? Maybe it would be helpful to clarify who the "some people" are? Japanese society, which has a very strong sense of social identity traditionally apotheosized in the Emperor? Or Germans, who are renowned for their uber-orderliness? Or some other?

Erich Fromm wrote extensively on the subject. Along with Le Bon, Trotter, Freud, Wilhelm Reich and many others. Mass or group psychology. Not sure about the philosophy side of it.

Crowds and Power is a more modern book. I think Marcuse gets into it too. Lots of interest in the subject, historically speaking, mostly psychologists, to my knowledge.

"Escape From Freedom" by Erich From is a good starting point. Freud is always a good staring point: "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego."

Thank you for the reading suggestions!

No prob, it's really a fascinating subject - it's important to self understanding to know something about the fascist in us all (the desire to be bound together and led by a charismatic leader or ideology.)

I think this Fromm book is exactly what I'm looking for. Great suggestion.

Reply to ZzzoneiroCosm

Yes and that's the question I'm dealing with, the innate fascist, or the innate sadomasochism inside of humanity.

Erich Fromm was an extremely influential German-American psychologist and wrote several books on the subject. I think you'd really find his stuff illuminating.

"Anti-Oedipus" is more opaque but also more fun.
Deleuze and Guattari.

Examination of fascist personality structures flows out of Freud's ideas of family dynamics and the neuroses that come with it. The fascism of the family....

Anyway, lots of writers to look at.