The Soul of Man Under Socialism

A despot is a ruler who has absolute authority. The term usually has negative connotations, and Wilde uses it as a shorthand for The Danger of Authority. He first uses the term early in the essay while listing various types of governments that fail to foster individualism; despotism, here used in the sense of “autocracy,” is one example. Later, he broadens the term to include “the Pope,” “the Prince,” and “the People”—figureheads for religious authority, governmental authority, and popular authority, respectively. The application of a term associated with cruelty and injustice to all forms of authority reflects Wilde’s contention that power necessarily degrades not only those over whom it is exercised but also those who wield it.

Wilde uses this term, which traditionally refers to the inner workings of the Christian church or clergy, to denote organized religion in general; Wilde applies it to Judaism in the second-to-last paragraph to evoke the kind of power the religious authorities of Jesus’s day wielded. In the context of Wilde’s claims about authority, the term is pejorative and contrasts with any authentic inward impulse toward Christianity, or spirituality in general.