[Reflection] #30: Democracy, Autocracy, and the “Three Principles”

Here’s a translation of a text written on January 1, 2026, by my favorite contemporary Vietnamese philosopher, Dang Than. This text echoes what I wrote about the novel Brave new world. You’ll find the text original in Vietnamese & the English text here.

[Best wishes for 2026] Democracy, Autocracy, and the “Three Principles”

Democracy, in theory, grants rights to everyone. In practice, it’s often hijacked by a small elite that deceives subtly oppresses the masses through the art of “soft governance.”

Autocracy is “hard governance.” A handful of rulers need only a few managerial tricks and an iron fist. The people may suffer more, but they see the brutal reality of power more clearly. The harshest trials often sharpen cunning.

Democracy and autocracy like to present themselves as enemies, yet they share the same “cohabitation ailment”: a thirst for power coupled with the fear that the people might awaken. One lulls with false choices, the other oppresses with rigid order. Both are easy to govern when you get people used to either dreaming or fearing – when the state plays the father, the market plays the king, and the people become a herd.

Democracy is an all-you-can-eat buffet where everyone is invited to help themselves. But the cutlery is counted, cameras watch from the ceiling, and the real chef operates in an invisible room. You’re told: you have a choice. That’s true. You can choose among identical dishes, all seasoned with the same spice of “social consensus,” lightly dusted with “freedom of expression under implied censorship.” Democracy teaches a new skill: speaking confidently on behalf of others, invoking “the majority” without knowing where it actually is.

Autocracy doesn’t invite you to dinner. It sets up a huge pot of numbing porridge, cooked in the open air – with wood, batons, and loudspeakers – and bluntly tells you: eat, or die. The virtue of autocracy is its brutal honesty. It promises little, demands only order. It doesn’t sell dreams; it draws boundaries. It doesn’t try to convince. No “referendums.”

But humans are strange creatures. Where illusion reigns, dreams are born. Where the whip falls, memory takes root (anyone who lived under colonial rule remembers, and understands why the Vietnamese people once rose as one against the French). Democracy feeds infinite dreams that exhaust with hope. Autocracy carves memories, deep and indelible. Thus democracy produces citizens worn out by debates, while autocracy forges survivors with instincts as sharp as blades.

Soft governance is the art of making victims applaud the invisible yoke around their necks. It’s being strangled while believing you’re receiving a spiritual massage. No need to shout. It speaks through charts, polls, and experts. It makes us doubt our own suffering: Am I just too sensitive? A society doesn’t need vast prisons – only a linguistic system clever enough for everyone to imprison themselves.

Hard governance wastes no words. It doesn’t ask if you’re suffering. It tells you the pain is just. That pain makes you human. That pain teaches obedience. In pain, you learn fast: reading micro-expressions, sensing which way the wind blows, distinguishing which silence is safe and which is deadly. Pain is an accelerated education program. No diploma, but a very real graduation (ask revolutionary fighters if you doubt it).

Hence the paradox: democracy infantilizes through freedom, autocracy sharpens through fear. One produces citizens who talk a lot but understand little. The other produces people who talk little but understand much. And both can breed monsters, if the climate allows.

Let’s talk about phạc-nhiên (note: a philosophy invented by the author, very close to the Taoist “Wu Wei.” However, it’s a play on words: phạc sounds like f*ck): no model saves the HUMAN BEING from himself.
Democracy does not automatically produce wisdom. Autocracy does not automatically generate resistance. Low civic awareness turns democracy into a carnival of slogans; under autocracy, it turns the people into a herd to be sheared. High civic awareness can, even in democracy, elect its own gravedigger (we’ve seen it many times); under autocracy, it can bide its time like an ancestral predator.

The problem isn’t the regime, but ideological immunity. Without immunity, democracy becomes a pandemic (who would deny it?). Without immunity, autocracy becomes geo-destiny – a fatality rooted in the land. The phạc medicine is a singular remedy: it doesn’t fully trust granted freedom, nor does it fully submit to imposed order. You must stand sideways – half a step outside the system, half a step within yourself. Laugh when needed. Stay silent when needed. Refuse complicity with sweet lies, refuse to bend the knee to raw violence.

After all, democracy or autocracy are just theatrical backdrops. The protagonist remains the human being : awake or asleep, foolish but believing themselves wise, or wise but playing the fool. When the people awaken enough, any regime must adjust. When the people sleep, any regime is just a change of sign.

That’s why, after observing all paths, some have discerned the path of the Great Way. One might call it the TAM NGUYÊN PHÁP (the “Doctrine of the Three Principles”) – where State, Society, and Market are all imbued with the quality phạc. It neither collapses into an omnipotent state nor drifts toward a self-regulating market but aligns the three forces in their legitimate roles. It can be framed as “3 pillars – 6 locks – 9 indicators.” Details will come later. In eight years, those who still have eyes will see.