Structured servility: the anatomy of a humiliated society

The phenomenon of structured servility is not a feature limited only to monarchical societies. It often constitutes one of the essential characteristics of the functioning of fragile liberal democracies. Such a case also appears in the democracies of the two Albanian states: Kosovo and Albania. What determines the power of servility to function as a structured mechanism within Albanian institutional and social life?

False servility and faith

In the comedy “Tartufe,” Molière addresses the theme of hypocrisy, false servility, and people’s blindness to appearances. Orgon, a wealthy Parisian man, falls completely under the influence of Tartuffe, a man who pretends to be extremely pious and moral. The relationship between Tartuffe’s false servility and Orgon’s self-deception is not simply a relationship between deceiver and victim, but the embodiment of a power dynamic, where each produces and strengthens the other. The structure of power in “Tartufe” is the condition that makes the interaction between servility and self-deception possible. Tartuffe’s servility gains effectiveness because it relies on Orgon’s unquestionable authority, while Orgon’s self-deception is strengthened by a hierarchical order that isolates it from criticism. Orgon's blind faith in Tartuffe constitutes a failure of his moral judgment on the reality in which he finds himself, because he easily relinquishes the responsibility to assess the character and intentions of Tartuffe's actions.

The relationship between Tartuffe’s false servility and Orgon’s faith is not a relationship between self-sufficiency and lack of self-sufficiency of consciousness – master and slave – which, according to Hegelian dialectics, can lead to emancipation, to the development of consciousness towards freedom through the work and self-formation of the “slave” (GWF Hegel, “The Phenomenology of Spirit”, translated by Terry Pinkard, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 113–116.). On the contrary, it is a relationship that hinders emancipation. Tartuffe is not the Hegelian “slave”, but a manipulator who exploits Orgon’s psychological dependence. Tartuffe’s humility has nothing in common with harmony, as a principle of inner strength that guarantees respect for others, without losing integrity and a sense of self-respect. While, in the philosophical traditions of the Far East, the ego is conceived as an obstacle to the cultivation of the moral virtue of humility, as a capacity for self-control, dignity, and wisdom, Tartuffe's humility is driven by selfish needs, which constitute the center of the meaning of his existence.

Servilism as a structured social phenomenon

The relations of dominance and submission in Molière’s comedy “Tartuffe” are not the product of the direct use of force, but of symbolic power, which Pierre Bourdieu conceives as “invisible power, which is exercised only with the cooperation (or interaction) of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it, or even who are not themselves those who exercise it” (Pierre Bourdieu, “Language and Symbolic Power”, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1991, p. 164). Because it is invisible, symbolic power, through institutions (of education, culture, media, etc.), norms and values, creates the conviction that the existing social order is natural and legitimate. In this way, it acts and influences the social habitus, as a system of tendencies, attitudes and ways of acting, which the individual acquires through his social position, education, life experience, etc. In the context where symbolic power shapes habitus, while habitus reproduces symbolic power, servility appears not as an isolated moral or psychological trait of the individual, but as a structured social phenomenon.

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The phenomenon of structured servility is not a feature limited only to monarchical societies. It often constitutes one of the essential characteristics of the functioning of fragile liberal democracies. Such a case also appears in the democracies of the two Albanian states: Kosovo and Albania.

What determines the power of servility to function as a structured mechanism within Albanian institutional and social life?

Servilism, as a structured phenomenon within Albanian social and institutional practice, is a form of reproduction of relations of domination, in which individuals internalize obedience to authority as a normal strategy of existence through patrimonial habitus. The patrimonial habitus, as a mediating mechanism between structure and action, is the internalized matrix of patrimonial political culture, which, shaped by symbolic power and reproduced through socialization, orients individuals to perceive authority as a personal source of power, loyalty as a political virtue and submission as a normal strategy of existence. In this way, it constitutes the main mechanism of reproduction of structured servility.

The phenomenon of structured servility in the fragile Albanian democracy is a product of the structural contradiction that exists between political institutions and Albanian political culture. In both Albanian states, on the surface, democratic institutions function on the basis of democratic rules and legal norms: the separation of powers, free elections and the Constitution; but they are not based on a democratic political culture, where criticism should be seen as a necessary part of democratic life and where loyalty would be directed to institutions, not to political subjects or individuals.

Albanian practices of social and institutional organization recognize two dominant models of governance: the monarchical and the communist model. These models have profoundly influenced the shaping of habitus, as the substance of political culture, which continues to manifest itself in various forms within the practice of fragile Albanian democracy. The patrimonial habitus, derived from the Albanian patriarchal collectivist culture, is a historically structured form of habitus, which – once shaped by the symbolic power of the Albanian monarchy and communism, while today by the symbolic power of formal democracy – orients the citizen towards personal loyalty, clientelism and dependence on authority, causing patrimonial relations to be perceived as the normal order of political and institutional life. In this way, dominance, from an external obligation, is transformed into an internal tendency to act according to existing rules and hierarchies. The patrimonial habitus has acted and continues to influence the Albanian citizen to conceive of power as the personal property of leaders (chieftains, political leaders and institutional leaders); to value loyalty to the individual over respect for institutions and, instead of meritocracy, to rely on networks of personal and group connections to secure resources.

The contradiction between democratic institutions and patrimonial political culture

In the context of the contradiction between political institutions and patrimonial political culture, rational-legal authority is subordinated to traditional authority, that is, the power of an individual or a ruling elite (economic, political, media, cultural, scientific, etc.). In Albanian institutional and social life, patrimonial habitus constitutes the basis of common consensus on the categories of perception and understanding of the individual's relationship with the state. 

“Through the frameworks it imposes on social practices, the state – says Bourdieu – establishes and instills common forms and categories of perception and evaluation, social frameworks of perception, understanding and memory... It creates the conditions for a kind of immediate orchestration of the habitus, which constitutes the very basis of a consensus on this set of shared evidence that constitutes the national common sense” (Pierre Bourdieu, Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1998, p. 54.). Through the patrimonial habitus, servility in fragile Albanian democracies is exercised not only out of fear, but mainly through the internalization of relations of doxical submission to the expectations of authority. Due to the "orchestration of the patrimonial habitus", in Albanian institutional and social life it has become completely natural that the state and public institutions are perceived and evaluated not as autonomous structures, based on general norms and impersonal principles, but as extensions of the will of the leader or the ruling elite. 

In Albanian institutional and social life, the logic of the rule of the individual's authority over the authority of the institution has legitimized and normalized servility as a completely "natural" behavior. In the Albanian patrimonial political culture, public positions and functions are not perceived as institutional responsibilities, but as instruments for building networks of support and dependence. Citizens, due to their position in the social structure, which is maintained by the patrimonial habitus, consequently cultivate internalized tendencies to easily adapt to the expectations of authority. They, whether as individuals or as a group, without any direct obligation, through an immediate and tacit agreement, voluntarily offer their submission, convinced that such behavior is normal and beneficial. On the other hand, the patrimonial authority uses public power as a source for securing and rewarding loyalty to it. He offers privileges and opportunities to his "loyalists" in exchange for support, while "clients" offer obedience, loyalty, and support to the public patrimonial authority.

In the patrimonial political culture, nepotism is not perceived as a foreign practice, because it is integrated into its very logic of control and subordination. On the contrary, it is legitimized as a normal way of organizing relationships of loyalty and dependence. On the other hand, due to the deep degree of adaptation to the expectations of the dominant authority, criticism, as a capacity for autonomous judgment, is considered dangerous for the instrumental reason of the citizen. Thus, for example, employees of Albanian public, educational, cultural and scientific institutions, even when they identify the injustices of their leaders, in most cases do not oppose them. They do not act in this way only out of fear of punishment or loss of privileges, but also because the organizational culture, oriented by the patrimonial habitus, has taught them that obedience to authority is the “right” behavior. This proves, at the same time, the extent to which symbolic power, derived from the patrimonial habitus, has exerted its influence on the shaping and proper functioning of the "integration and social solidarity" of the servile within the relationships of dependence and dominance in Albanian institutional and social life.

The normalization of servility in Albanian institutional life

The practices inherited and created by the authority of patrimonial power, within the formal framework of Albanian liberal democracy, have created and cultivated modern relations of the “ruler-subordinate” type. The problem of the lack of perception of dependence in formal Albanian democracy lies in the fact that dependence is not produced and maintained through direct physical coercion, but through control over the resources, opportunities, networks of knowledge and symbolic capital of those who possess power. In this way, social, economic and symbolic dependence makes power sustainable and reproducible.

The state maintains and reproduces the centralization of resources and existential opportunities through the bureaucratic mechanism, in which case the citizen, in order to receive what is due to him, is forced to humble himself and submit to the authority of power. Through bureaucracy, the authority of power is depersonalized. He is no longer a concrete subject, but an abstract subject; without an address, not because the address physically does not exist, but because it is multiplied and, at the same time, multiplying. This multiplication is the mechanism that mystifies the institutional humiliation of the citizen. In order to receive what is due to him, the citizen is forced to “earn” it as a “favor” from a concrete subject within the bureaucratic state mechanism. To achieve this, consciously or unconsciously, the citizen, as a moral being, is forced to violate the moral duty towards himself: to flatter, humble himself, submit and servilely. The humiliated citizen, to avoid further humiliation, paradoxically uses various forms of servility, which plunge him even deeper into the vortex of humiliation.

This paradox of servility in the fragile Albanian democracy is the product of the structured interaction between power structures, political culture and socio-economic conditions, which cause autonomous moral judgment, guided by ethical principles, to be replaced by unworthy submission to authority, driven by the needs of personal gain. A decent society is not measured only by the existence of institutions of justice, but also by the fact that its institutions avoid humiliating people, by not forcing them to become servile. “A decent society – says Avishai Margalit – is one whose institutions do not humiliate people. I distinguish between a decent society and a civilized society. A civilized society is one whose members do not humiliate each other, while a decent society is one in which institutions do not humiliate people.” (Avishai Margalit, “The Decent Society”, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1996, p. 1). In the context of the structured servility in Albanian institutional and social life, humiliation is vertical and horizontal. In the vertical coordinate of the organization of Albanian institutional life, humiliation is institutional, while in the coordinate of the organization of social life, society becomes the prey of insult. While insult is about violating the social honor of the individual, institutional humiliation has the human dignity of the individual as its target. (For the difference between insult and institutional humiliation, see: Avishai Margalit, ibid., pp. 41–48). Institutional humiliation systematically and continuously places the citizen in an inferior position, conveying the message that he, as a human being, is worthless or less worthy of respect. Such a message is internalized by those who, in order to gain undeserved favors, give up their moral autonomy, but not by those who, in defense of their inner freedom, refuse any kind of favor or external approval.

The free and the clientelist

Based on the role that social groups play in controlling material resources and distributing overall wealth, societies have been analyzed sociologically through various class divisions, particularly through the distinction between the privileged and the economically marginalized classes: the poor and the rich.

However, it can be said that the dominance of the patrimonial habitus in the relationship between political culture and formal Albanian democracy has created a social division based on moral orientations: a) those who preserve moral autonomy, dignity and a sense of self-respect – free people; and b) those who, for selfish benefits and favors, give up moral autonomy and self-respect – clientelists. In Albanian social practice, these two moral orientations have produced two fundamental modes of social action: the creative orientation and the clientelistic orientation. While the group of creative individuals, oriented by the principle of moral autonomy and self-respect, is guided by work ethics, responsibility towards oneself and others, as well as by the desire to create values, the group of clientelistic individuals is oriented towards material gain and social prestige, without relying on merit, work or moral responsibility. Clientelists, by separating gain from the ethical principles of action, do not accept the existence of a moral obligation beyond their personal interest. For them, the distinction between good and evil loses its significance whenever it conflicts with the interests of profit and favor. On the contrary, creators, guided by ethical reason, link the value of human action to integrity, responsibility, and the creation of the common good. For individuals with creative inclinations, well-being and social recognition are direct consequences of their creative abilities, work, and dignity. Whereas individuals with a clientelist orientation easily fall prey to the desire for well-being and prestige without a meritorious basis, seeking results that do not stem from creative ability, but from the exploitation of opportunities, relationships, and positions of power.

This distinction also includes the difference between the ways of constructing self-esteem. Free individuals, with a creative orientation, build self-esteem on moral autonomy, the ability to act and fulfillment through creation. While individuals with a clientelistic orientation build self-esteem mainly on the recognition and appreciation they receive from others, as well as on the prestige and privileges that are provided to them through their social position. In this sense, clientelists seek the immediate fulfillment of ego needs through externally provided resources, while the existence of creators is based on the will to create life, on the development of human capabilities and on the strengthening of the sustainability of life on the values ​​of freedom, dignity and humanity.

In Albanian society, where the patrimonial habitus and clientelistic relations are extremely strong, class differences do not really disappear, but are often covered up through the creation of a new form of solidarity, not on the basis of civic values ​​or common social interests, but on the basis of clientelistic characterological tendencies. In this way, traditional class solidarity is increasingly replaced by the solidarity of networks of benefit, dependence and exchange of privileges. In this reality, the traditional motto “Proletarians of all countries, unite!” takes on an inverted meaning: it is symbolically replaced by a call for the unification of individuals around the logic of benefit: “Albanians of all social classes, of all regions, political parties, religious and cultural affiliations, unite in the formation of clientelism!”

Clientelists, as social agents, are the shock absorbers of the contradiction that exists between political culture and formal Albanian democracy. They are the guarantors of the stability and sustainability of the ruler-subordinate relationship, which reproduces humiliation. Creators, that is, free individuals, in the context of the dominance of clientelistic logic, are perceived as dangerous because they promote and support progressive and liberating change, which conflicts with the “normalized” ruler-subordinate order.

cONcluSiON

The weakening of moral relations creates opportunities for the emergence and spread of various forms of humiliation. The voluntary aspiration to acquire the characterological status of servility, as an organizing principle of social relations, does not constitute only an individual moral deformation. It is a symptom of a deeper moral crisis of Albanian society and state institutions, in which success is separated from merit, privilege replaces responsibility, and relations of dependence are valued more than the moral autonomy of the individual.

A democratic society is not measured only by the formal existence of institutions, but also by their ability to guarantee human dignity and to avoid the production of relations of humiliation and subjugation. The fight against structured servility, as a generating force of various forms of humiliation, is closely linked to the process of transforming the political and moral culture of society. This transformation must begin with the recovery of the damaged relationship between political morality and the democratic consciousness of power, as a condition for rebuilding the relationship between social morality and the public sphere. This moral struggle constitutes an attempt to detach political culture from the patrimonial habitus, through the strengthening of independent institutions, meritocracy, critical education, transparency and a new conception of the citizen as an active, autonomous and equal subject, and not as a subordinate of authority.