Three Immoral Deeds of the Tyrant
How a Tyrant Feeds, Bribes, and Silences
First Evil: Hunger
He starved his people—
Skeletons piled high as hills.
Ghosts of famine linger still,
Haunting the survivors’ dreams.
Second Evil: False Generosity
Then, he coated lips with honey,
Stuffed pockets full of gold.
With memory of hunger fresh,
None dared refuse his hold.
Third Evil: Stolen Harmony
Lastly, he stole the word ‘harmony’,
Twisted truth, called darkness light.
Those who spoke his crimes aloud
Were accused of disturbing peace.
Yet heaven sees through every lie,
Justice holds its silent thread.
Will the people still stay quiet?
Can they bear to live this dread?
And here’s the poem’s original Chinese text:
暴君三惡（古體詩）
一惡使民饑，
白骨堆如山。
餓鬼哀未息，
生人夢亦寒。
二惡施甜蜜，
滿袋裝金錢。
餘怖猶未散，
欲拒口無言。
三惡盜「和」字，
顛倒黑白顏。
直言指其罪，
反誣亂人間。
天道自明鑒，
是非終有天。
蒼生寧默默？
豈甘活此間！
Philosophical Commentary: Silence, Power, and the Theft of Harmony
In both its Chinese and English versions, Three Immoral Deeds of the Tyrant renders a poetic anatomy of authoritarian rule in three acts: the manufacturing of trauma, the orchestration of dependency, and the appropriation of moral language. While the poem emerges from a sinophone philosophical sensibility, its resonance is unmistakably global—reflected in modern populist-authoritarian figures worldwide, from Eastern regimes to Western democracies in decay.
1. Manufactured Trauma and the Weaponisation of Need
The first stanza indicts the deliberate infliction of suffering—engineered hunger not merely as failure of governance, but as a technique of control. This echoes Agamben’s concept of bare life—where the sovereign does not merely neglect life, but strips it of political value in order to dominate it {Agamben 1998, pp 83–85}. In Confucian terms, such governance is a total violation of ren (仁, humaneness), the central moral virtue. As Confucius stated: ‘If a ruler is not benevolent, how can he govern the people?’ {Analects, 12.17}.
But this is not new. Famine, whether natural or induced, has historically functioned as a precondition for ideological obedience. The poem suggests that suffering creates not only bodily weakness but moral muteness—a trauma so deep it disables dissent.
2. Bribery as Moral Corruption: Sweetening the Mouth
The second ‘immoral deed’—coercive bribery under the guise of benevolence—embodies what Peter Kahl has described as epistemic fiduciary breach, where powerholders simultaneously disable critique and simulate care {Kahl, Directors’ Epistemic Duties and Fiduciary Openness}. Laozi warned of such deceptive strategies: ‘The more laws and commands there are, the more thieves and robbers there will be’ {Daodejing, ch. 57}. Appeasement through wealth or speech—whether via state subsidies or populist rhetoric—is not reconciliation; it is ensnarement.
This theme is not limited to Eastern regimes. In the United States, Donald Trump’s populism operated on similar dual logics of fear and favour. His supporters, many disenfranchised by the neoliberal economy, became paradoxically devoted to a figure who both exacerbated and rhetorically soothed their anxieties. The mechanism, as Judith Shklar might suggest, is moral inversion: making the unjust appear as justice, the exploiter as saviour {Shklar 1989, pp 27–30}.
3. The Theft of Harmony: Language as Surveillance
Perhaps the poem’s most jarring accusation lies in the final act—the theft of the word harmony (和). When rulers weaponise moral vocabulary, they replace genuine dao (道) with a counterfeit semblance. As Zhuangzi warns, ‘When the Way is lost, morality appears; when morality is lost, ritual appears’ {Zhuangzi, ch. 2; cf. Laozi, ch. 18}. Harmony without dissent is not he (和), it is tong (同)—uniformity, not concord.
This strategic appropriation of virtue terms has been analysed in legal-philosophical literature. Joseph Raz warned that political authority becomes illegitimate when it forecloses the moral agency of those subject to it {Raz 1986, pp 3–6}. When people are silenced in the name of harmony, the state commits an epistemic trespass: it dictates not only law, but meaning.
As I argue elsewhere, such discursive control constitutes epistemic injustice by design {Kahl, Epistemic Gatekeepers and Epistemic Injustice by Design}. It is no longer merely that dissent is punished, but that it is categorised as a moral failure. The critique of power becomes, absurdly, the proof of one’s lack of virtue.
4. Moral Responsibility and Collective Complicity
The final lines of the poem refuse the comforting displacement of blame. Tyranny, it argues, is not sustained by a single hand but by a multitude of silent ones. Zhuangzi’s warning that ‘he who steals a state is made a lord’ {Zhuangzi, Quqie} is not merely ironic—it is diagnostic. The system persists not despite the people, but through their retreat from responsibility.
In this way, the poem insists on moral agency. Silence is not neutrality; it is co-authorship. In modern democracies and post-totalitarian regimes alike, the complicity of the governed is rarely absolute, but it is seldom negligible. As I’ve written, we must interrogate not only institutional design but our role in maintaining or disrupting epistemic illegitimacy {Kahl, Epistemic Justice and Institutional Responsibility in Academia}.
Conclusion
Three Immoral Deeds of the Tyrant is more than poetic indictment—it is a philosophical argument, rendered in classical and modern idioms alike. It speaks not just of one nation, but of a global pattern. Where trauma is engineered, dependency curated, and language manipulated, tyranny has already taken root. It is for those who speak—before they are silenced—to make injustice visible, and thus, reversible.
Bibliography
Agamben G, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Daniel Heller-Roazen tr, Stanford University Press 1998)
Kahl P, ‘Directors’ Epistemic Duties and Fiduciary Openness’ (2025) available at <https://pkahl.substack.com/p/directors-epistemic-duties-and-fiduciary> accessed 15 July 2025
Kahl P, ‘Epistemic Gatekeepers and Epistemic Injustice by Design’ (2025) available at <https://pkahl.substack.com/p/epistemic-gatekeepers-and-epistemic-injustice> accessed 15 July 2025
Kahl P, ‘Epistemic Justice and Institutional Responsibility in Academia’ (2025) available at <https://pkahl.substack.com/p/epistemic-justice-and-institutional> accessed 15 July 2025
Laozi, Daodejing (tr DC Lau, Penguin 1963)
Raz J, The Morality of Freedom (Clarendon Press 1986)
Shklar J, The Faces of Injustice (Yale University Press 1989)
Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (tr Burton Watson, Columbia University Press 1968)
Cite this work:
Peter Kahl, ‘Three Immoral Deeds of the Tyrant: How a Tyrant Feeds, Bribes, and Silences’ (2025) available at <https://pkahl.substack.com/p/three-immoral-deeds-of-the-tyrant-hunger-bribery-harmony>