Dictators and Double Standards
The same sort of frustration that stimulates tyrant envy in democratic leaders also provokes it in many intellectuals. Political leaders hate having to run for office all the time, submitting themselves to the vagaries of an electorate that the politicians often despise. Intellectuals likewise hate having to compete in a marketplace to sell books, articles, and speeches to audiences the intellectuals often despise. How much better it would be to sit at the right hand of the prince than to compete with the hundreds of writers who submit op-eds for two or three slots in the Wall Street Journal every day! And if you get that job as consigliere to the capo, you get to see your ideas put into effect quickly, and without that messy process of having to convince all those unwashed people to appreciate your brilliance. You only need one appreciative fan.
No surprise, then, that intellectuals find it so easy to appreciate the qualities of the tyrants. Watching the convulsions of Syria today reminds us that not so long ago an intellectual as thoughtful and brilliant as Henry Kissinger could pronounce Hafez Assad “the most interesting man in the Middle East.” At a lower level of intellectual prowess, Thomas Friedman more recently permitted himself the observation that the Chinese government often seems to work a lot better than our own messy democracy. One heard similar remarks about the presumed superiority of the tightly organized Japanese industrial/political system back in the 80s, when it was widely believed that Japan was the next Big Thing. After all, they bought Pebble Beach, didn’t they?
Machiavelli, despite his reputation, knew better. His own political success was not the result of the favors of tyrants, but rather of his work for the Florentine Republic. When the Medicis conquered the city, he was jailed and tortured, then exiled. It was then that he wrote The Prince, and he dedicated it to the Medici of the moment.
But then, he needed a job, and the government controlled the sort of job for which he was qualified.
Sound familiar?
A more recent Medici was Mussolini. He was adored by much of the scintelligentsia of the day. And not for promise of employment.
You forgot the greatest Medici of all – the one venerated by Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and just about every President since Roosevelt (save Reagan, I think).
The guy they all quote, who was the prime mover not only behind the League of Nations and Prohibition, but who created the Sedition Act during WWI AND originated the AMERICAN LEGION as the precursor to the Gestapo tasked with rounding up over 100,000 Americans for exercising their 1st Amendment rights to Free Speech AND their 4th Amendment right to avoid unlawful seizure by the government in refusing to buy Savings Bonds.
The great Fascist was Woodrow Wilson.
Don’t forget Wilson’s other “contributions”: the Federal Reserve to control the currency, the income tax to deprive us of our right to our own livelihood, conscription to deprive us of our right to our own life, Prohibition which gave us organized crime, and – against his promise to the contrary – involvement in the first world war, which instead of “making the world safe for democacy” gave us communist Russia, fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany. The Fed’s manipulation of the money supply plus both Hoover’s and FDR’s policies gave us the Great Depression. Andonandonandon…. But Wilson was “smart”; an intellectual; former president of Princeton. He knew better than we. Just look at the results. Sickening.
The “wonders” of Wilson are as Legion … to bad we can’t dispossess our country from them before they succeed in destroying us.
Woodrow Wilson was many bad things, but he was certainly no fascist. i wrote many critical things about WW in my book “The First Duce,” (which is about an Italian named d’Annunzio), and he was instrumental in putting many pieces on the board that led to fascism, and to national socialism, but he wasn’t a fascist.
All the while, Barry is watching Morsi and feverishly taking notes.
Quick comment passing through… to the author: are you trying to be funny? How many decades, not years, decades, did Gadaffi and Hussein last in power? Your case is that tyrants fall at a much faster rate than democratic leaders? Surely you jest. I shudder to think you meant that seriously.
As to why they didn’t get themselves elected in a multi-party democracy… one would have had to have existed.
I am confused. Are you saying that the prerequisite for a democracy is an already established democracy?
Or at least something resembling it.
The British Empire was a constitutional monarchy in fact if not in name well before the American Revolution; remember “No taxation without representation”?
The U.S. Constitution was designed not just to avoid a monarchy, or a single tyrannical ruler of any sort, but also rule by a legislature or “populist” leader who ruled by fiat’. The Founding Fathers may have had a disagreement over taxes and the quartering of troops with George III, but they were good enough historians to be wary of Long Parliaments and Cromwells, too.
The French Revolution, by comparison, took place in what was at best a faux “democracy”, ruled by a weak king and with a parliament (the States General) consisting largely of hereditary nobles (the “enlightened elite’” of their day) who were answerable to no one but themselves, and certainly not to the peasants. They were backed up by a powerful bureaucracy, also consisting mainly of those with de facto hereditary sinecures’, who also held themselves to be answerable only to their own ambitions.
The result was a “revolution” which traded in a weak ruler and a cynical, grasping ruling class for a reckless, violent set of new rulers who quickly degenerated to massacres disguised as judicial proceedings. The main motive being to both placate the mob they had themselves roused, and to “purge” the society of anyone they even suspected of disloyalty to them personally. The entertainment value, for them, was also a consideration, albeit a secondary one.
(Tyrants of any sort love to kill, because it reassures them of their power. Some of the crazier ones also just flat-out get a kick out of it, too- and like the old song says, “You know that kicks just keep gettin’ harder to find”.)
And oh yes, they were finally overthrown, not by a “popular” uprising, but by one of their own, who saw a chance for a throne and took it. Chap named Napoleon’….
Does any of this sound familiar? Consider every revolution in the Islamic world. They all end up as radical Islamist states, no matter who starts them. Because the culture is one in which democracy has never existed, being contrary to the Qu’ran.
Communist-inspired revolutions? Unless usurped by even more violent revolutionaries (see “Iran, 1978-79″), they invariably turn dictatorial. (Compare and contrast; Fulgencio’ Batista, Fidel Castro.)
Red China was an example of going from a monarchial ruling class (the Manchus) with a powerful bureaucracy, no interest in the opinions of the peasantry, and lousy fashion sense, through a quarter-century of repeated revolutions (1925 to 1949) to a Communist ruling class with a powerful bureaucracy, a tendency to address peasants’ complaints with mass executions, and even worse fashion sense. (The Mao jacket being one of the all-time fashion disasters for both genders in human history, probably exceeded only by the Disco look.)
And let’s not even mention European continental experiments with revolution outside of France. They tend to all end in dictatorship, Germany 1918-45 and Russia 1917-91 being the most obvious examples. The difference being that such states, being industrial rather than agrarian, tend to be more effective at attempts to export their revolutions in empire-building mode.
As a certain Austrian watercolor artist once said at a meeting in Finland, “If in ’40 somebody had told me that anyone in the world had 30,000 tanks, I’d have told him he was crazy”. The supposedly “non-industrial” USSR had that many, and then some, when Operation Barbarossa kicked off. Fortunately for the Wehrmacht at the time, having 30,000 tanks does not necessarily mean knowing how to use them correctly- especially when the enemy’s “maximum leader” isn’t the brightest button on the waistcoat, so to speak. However, what Stalin & Co. lacked in acumen then, they made up for through experience later- the result being the Warsaw Pact.
(Someone once said of Frederick the Great’s Prussia that while “most nations have an army, Prussia is an army that has its own country”. The WARPAC could accurately be described as less “an alliance with an army of tanks” as “an army of tanks that owns an alliance”. With more than half of them being Russian-owned-and-operated.)
This is why the American Revolution is something of a “black swan” event in world history. It happened in a culture which had painstakingly evolved actual democracy over time, going back to the tradition of the “stout English yeoman” who was answerable to his liege-lord, and in turn could demand, and get, his lord’s attention when things were going badly. In turn, the king relied on the lords to provide him with an army when needed.
That army consisting of that “stout English yeoman”, his brothers, cousins, friends & etc.- with a longbow and two dozen arrows apiece. Those being his personal property.
It could be argued that to ensure actual democracy, an armed populace with a tradition of self-defense is also necessary. As opposed to one in which the only time the average citizen has a weapon in his hands is when, as W.H.B. Smith once said, “… it is handed to him along with a uniform and a demand for obedience”.
Just food for thought.
cheers
eon
Wow. Brilliant encapsulation.
Thank you.
Good summary. If you look carefully, you can trace Western civilization and democracy through the Romans and Greeks to Babylon. While Babylon was an monarchy, it was also the origin of the bicameral house system, with an upper house (the older folks over 40) and a lower house (the young whippersnappers).
I’ll also note that the troubles of the ancient Israelites began when they abandoned the more-or-less democratically chosen judges and demanded that God give them a king (Saul).
IOW … a republic, if you can keep it.
The American Revolution was not a revolution in the sense of taking over the seat of government (which at that time was in London). Instead, it was a war of secession.
Agreed, and it appears, will have to happen again in some form or fashion.
And that’s a wrap…
No, he was not saying that democratically elected leaders last longer than tyrants. He was saying that republics last longer and are more stable than tyranies. Compare how long the U.S. existed compared to the USSR, though Stalin was the leader of the latter longer than any one man held the Presidency. See also the lifespan of the German Democratic Republic against that of the Federal Republic of Germany. Also compare which is more likely to be toppled.
What we have now in the US is a tyranny that still maintains the outward form of a republic.
30-50 years is short. Most fall in less than that. It also depends on the depths of despair-and the goegraphical isolation-and the brutality of the totalitarian-and the wealth of any particular nation.
If Brezchnev was willing to continue Lenin, and Stalin’s slaughter (or at least the credible threat thereof), the USSR might still be around or, have lasted longer.
Our form of government seems to have been refined over time by “western” civilized man independent of totalitarians and monarchs.
For the most part,so called intellectuals live within their own inner, impenetrable bubbles, insulated from the delusions they help foster. And many hail from within the incestuous confines of academia, and this is a recipe for disaster. And the media are a lock-step variety of their worldview, as they hail from the same illiberal confines.
Dictators, thoroughly totalitarian (like misnamed intellectuals, aka, the thought police) understand all too well what it means to lose their grip on power. Therefore, TOTAL control is the only way for them to survive, but as is their wont, they often go too far. As such, angry mobs set upon them (not necessarily ‘democrats’ either) in order to gain a bigger piece of the pie.After all, few want others to totally control their lives, at least in the economic realm.
That being said, it is the nexus between so called intellectuals, and strong-arm dictators, which allows for many of these explosions. Radical revolutionaries often give the ‘kosher’ seal of approval to the dictators to continue as is.
And it is also the case, many intellectuals(mis)schooled in western academia are the twin cousins of their dictatorial counterparts. BOTH brook no dissent and gorge off of each other’s hegemony – vampire-like.
And if not for the failure of liberal democracies – under the tutelage of a gang of leftist radicals – this discussion would be moot -http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/08/21/the-paradox-pitfalls-of-liberal-democracies-in-a-time-of-immoral-relativism-the-havoc-wrought-by-leftist-academia-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
Birds of a radical feather.
“Watching the convulsions of Syria today reminds us that not so long ago an intellectual as thoughtful and brilliant as Henry Kissinger could pronounce Hafez Assad “the most interesting man in the Middle East.”
Perhaps Heinz K. had good reasons to consider Halfass DeSade the region’s most interesting guy back then. Now that he’s just another dead tyrant, he’s not so fascinating.
Perhaps we should expect more of intellectuals than we do of business leaders. Too many of both prefer the competitive advantages of which you speak to the rough-and-tumble of a truly open marketplace. It is certainly disheartening to see it working as well as it does here in the USA.
I think that intellectuals love tyrants for the same reason that some women love inmates on Death Row. It provides excitement and a whiff of transgressive danger without any actual peril. Notice that Oliver Stone adores Latin American strongmen, but he still lives in his Hollywood coccoon. It is like Leonard Bernstein and the Black Panthers–”Oooh, look at the big, scary black men in my living room! Now go home and let the maid tidy up.”
Is the love affair of intellectuals with dictators and homicidal monsters an example of “takes one to know one”? AND to love one?
Distinctly possible. Intellectuals as a rule love to see themselves as the heirs of Plato, who was foursquare in favor of rule by an elite class of “philosopher-kings”, who would decide based on their own supposedly superior insights and morals. If the peasantry didn’t like it, the penalty was death.
Not long before Plato’s demise, the ruler of Rhodes decided to run his kingdom along the lines laid out in the Republic. After the sixth or seventh time he dealt with petitioners by having them, their families, and their relatives rounded up and put to the sword, the peasantry showed him that they could not be ignored in no uncertain terms. Those being, they dragged him from his palace and stoned him to death. (There are no reports on Plato’s reaction to this.)
Athens tried to impose “Platonic” rule on all of Greece, by force of arms. The result was called the Peloponnesian War. Fought, according to the Athenians, in the name of “true democracy”- which they defined as “everyone else ruled by the true philosophical thought leaders of Greece- namely, us”. The Athenians viewed themselves as the “enlightened intellectuals” of Greece. And they had a very big army. Sparta and Corinth had a different opinion- and between them, a bigger and more experienced army. It took over three decades to sort everything out, with a lot of blood spilled along the way- a slow-motion American Civil War with spears instead of rifled muskets.
Modern-day “intellectuals” tend to view dictators as “one of our own”, because they have proven their “superiority” by seizing and holding power- and of course by punishing any of the hoi polloi foolish enough to not go along with the gag.
They are completely unaware that they are using a circular argument. “Dictators are superior, because they have absolute power. Why do they have absolute power? Because they are superior.”
And since intellectuals consider themselves to be “superior”, ipso facto, they deserve absolute power as well. Q.E.D.
Or as George Orwell once said, “Some ideas are so stupid that only a highly intelligent person can believe in them”.
cheers
eon
You should definitely be authoring articles here.
But it seems that as much as intellectuals may crave the yielding of dictatorial powers to a class of elites it is only through the acquiescence of the non-intellectuals that allows for such to come into being. I could care less if some stuffy snob in the ivory towers of academia admires the rule of a Hugo Chavez but I am concerned as hell about the fact of my non-intellectual neighbor who would vote for a Hugo Chavez. For example, I know what Obama and the intellectual elite really think about the second amendment but that concerns me much less than my non-thinking eager-to-submit neighbor who would gladly vote to facilitate the destruction of my rights. It is a joke that a jerk like Obama thinks that he is superior but it is no joke that millions of nitwits believe that he is superior.
This patch here from Yooper perfectly sums up our current dangerously alarming political situation…..
“It is a joke that a jerk like Obama thinks that he is superior but it is no joke that millions of nitwits believe that he is superior.”
They’ve managed to elect that chameleon…..twice.
Every article and every comment here leads you eventually to the conclusion that demanding our constitutional right to have limited government is the only answer. We will never be rid of nitwits or intellectuals or wannabe tyrants. All we can hope for is when the former enable the latter to take office, they have limited ability to do harm to the rest of us.
amen, geeze
Perhaps it is time to enact the WF Buckley method of government. Lets take 300 random names from the phone book and let them run things for 4 years. After that, they all get replaced with another 300 random names.
Indeed, the most frustrating thing for an intellectual is dealing with the indifference and intransigence of those who are not only too ignorant but too “foolish” to understand what is “good-for-them.”
And thus, we get people who are so certain that what they know is right, that they decide that the ends actually do justify the means.
That is what the road to Hell is paved with.
Gorky,..”they know the right thing to do.” Just as Pres 0bama changed immigration law and welfare law by executive orders. Because he, unilaterally, knew what was “right.” Providing a stellar example of Dictator Envy. dangerous presedent was established by those two EO. In the second term we will see how Pres 0bama uses that presedent.
Just wanted to point out that Aristotle said that tyrannies are the least stable form of government in the firth Book of the Politics, long before Machiavelli. That claim was based on his experience of the Greek city states of his own times. Some things never change.
NB: of course Aristotle distinguished between tyrannies and monarchies: the latter are more stable, he said, though I can’t remember how they compare to other forms of government.
Intellectuals love dictators. A baseless generalisation. A platitude, in other words.
Lets see: the Frankfurt School intellectuals (to mention a few lefties since the target seems to be, as always, leftist intellectuals) cozied up to Stalin or any of his successors??????
NO!
Did they fight that insidious and sexually repressed midget called Adolph??
YES!
The great American intellectuals (pragmatists: Dewey, James etc) loved dictators???
NO.
Arendt paid homage to any dictator??
NO.
Hans Jonas??
NO.
Agnes Heller???
NO!
Heidegger certainly supported the initial phase of nazism. He was a proper nazi, to be sure.
Sartre certainly had a fling with leftism but later denounced Stalinism and communism tout court (as practised) in the USSR.
So, which intellectuals are you referring to gentlemen???
Please be specific. Otherwise you run the risk of being considered….well, you can fill in the blank.
Greetings
Liberal
“Liberal” does not have the same meaning anywhere else in the civilized world that it has in American politics. In General Semantic lexicon it is an over/under defined term, which is to say that it carries so much contradictory baggage that it means everything and nothing.
You have the gall to put the Frankfurt school as a class of men who were anti-tyranny? Yes they were anti-Nazi but that was only because they were not accepted because they were Jews. In Road to Serfdom Hayek laid out the argument that the only socialists who left Germany were Jewish socialists. Socialists were quite happy with the socialist German program. The Frankfurt school laid out the program by which America could be overcome from within. Minority and women’s studies are simply stalking horses for the Left. The reason they attack any woman or minority outside their set of socialist ideas as inauthentic is because being socialist true believers they understand their roles. Not exactly democratic are they.
When the danger passed and America liberated the concentration camps, the Frankfurt school types declared America as bad as the Nazis and ran back to their beloved Germany now de-Nazified and safe for their petty little lives. This says all anyone needs to know about where you are coming from.
“Lets see: the Frankfurt School intellectuals (to mention a few lefties since the target seems to be, as always, leftist intellectuals) cozied up to Stalin or any of his successors??????
NO!”
Um, “YES!”
“So, which intellectuals are you referring to gentlemen???”
Let’s start with Chomsky…
The first modern intellectual to have a Man-Crush on a tyrant was Friedrich Hegel. After witnessing the drubbing the French gave the Prussians at Jena he wrote of Napoleon,
” I saw the Emperor -this soul of the world- go out from the city to survey his reign; it is a truly wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrating on one point while seated on a horse, stretches over the world and dominates it. ”
The famous Philosopher of History thought he was viewing the most significant World Historical figure since Jesus Christ. Hegel didn’t once consider the turmoil, death, and oppression that followed in the Little Corsican’s wake.
With the house on the run and resembling a wet dog waiting for a pet on the head,still santa-bama waits.The game is what is important,not the move.With his next Supreme Court appointment, then THAT’S CHECKMATE.
For the same reason “progressives” support socialist economic policies despite decades of data proving they are a disaster.
See “The Fatal Flaw” to find out why liberals are always wrong! at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
Liberals suck up to dictators for the same reason they favour socialism, which decades of data has comprehensively proved to be disastrous.
There is an essential basis of “progressive” thought that means they are almost always wrong on everything (even if they still manage to win elections!)
See “The Fatal Flaw” at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
Reading this article and Eon’s comments above is actually rather depressing. History also seems to show that the only way to get rid of a dictator is through bloodshed. We seem to be heading right into a dictatorship, whether of Obama himself (going for a “third term” via some national emergency as some have suggested) or his bosses. I recommend that everyone go and read “Black List” by Brad Thor. While fictional, as Brad says: all of the technology used in the story is real (it involves the government’s ability to record and monitor all telephone and internet communications in the U.S.).
I worry less about The One than his successor. Statistically, those who start revolutions or “reorganizations”* are rarely the ones who rule over the resulting New State. Because they tend to be usurped by other true believers, or else converts who are even more fanatical than the original lot.
(* “Three reorganizations equal one revolution, but aren’t nearly as much fun”- old PoliSci joke.)
Hitler didn’t created the Nazi Party, he just took the idea and ran with it, designing its logo along the way. And for an example of how the “new boys” supersede the “O.G.s” in such a setup, look up “The Night of the Long Knives”. Ditto Stalin’s “show trials”, which mainly got rid of people he felt had been a bit too close to Lenin; never mind that the latter died in 1922.
Another possibility is a serious backlash against the excesses of the “reformers” or whatever they call themselves, resulting in a “national emergency” and rule by, not the “revolutionaries”, but by those they hate most- their opposite numbers in the ranks of their “reactionary” enemies. This pattern repeats over and over again in South America, with revolutionary governments of the left being overthrown (or just collapsing due to their own thundering incompetence) and replaced by ones of the right, and vice versa.
(See Revolt in 2100 by Heinlein for an SF explication of this; Nehemiah Scudder’s theocracy was made possible by the backlash against a previous “progressive” regime’ much like Obama’s “ideal state”.)
Batista started out as a revolutionary, just like Castro. He just was on the far right rather than the far left. After the Falklands War, the nearly-openly-fascist Galtieri regime’ in Argentina was replaced by radical leftists who managed to ruin the nation’s agriculture by insisting farmers attend endless “political awareness” classes, instead of actually farming.
When Chavez goes down, if he’s not replaced by a homicidally-insane leftist clique, he’ll probably be replaced by a rightist one.
Such successors, of whatever stripe, tend to make their predecessors look rational by comparison.
cheers
eon
Ditto Stalin’s “show trials”, which mainly got rid of people he felt had been a bit too close to Lenin; never mind that the latter died in 1922.
Actually, Lenin died in January 1924, not 1922. However, you are right in spirit in that Lenin had his first stroke in 1922 and was relieved of his previous duties pending his hoped-for recovery. Lenin was largely out of the picture starting with that first stroke, although his so-called Final Testament gave rise to anxiety among his would-be successors.
In the Testament, Lenin evaluated the various men who were thought to be his potential successors and judged that none of them was good enough to in charge alone; Lenin proposed a triumvirate to replace him. As it turned out though, Stalin’s wife, who was employed as one of Lenin’s personal secretaries, managed to grab the Final Testament and keep it from falling into the hands of Stalin’s enemies. This enabled Stalin to gradually elevate his position from one of several top Bolsheviks to the “first among equals”.
“(See Revolt in 2100 by Heinlein for an SF explication of this; Nehemiah Scudder’s theocracy was made possible by the backlash against a previous “progressive” regime’ much like Obama’s “ideal state”.) ”
Which is beginning to look more like prophecy; the US may very well end up that way because Christians are a majority who would probably be willing to fight if pushed too far… and the Left hates them more than enough to push that hard.
Correct. Much the same way Charles I of England and his supporters in the nobility (aka “Loyalists”, “Royalists”, or “Cavaliers”, take your pick), looked down their noses at, and genuinely despised the middle-income “country class” of landholders who were below noble rank (“Parliamentarians”, “Roundheads”, etc.).
Unfortunately for Charles I, his best military commander was his kinsman, Prince Rupert. Who was no match for the Parliamentary “New Model Army”‘s commander, one Oliver Cromwell. Who, before everything went south, was one of those non-ennobled “landed gentry” that Charles and his courtiers despised.
In the end, Charles lost his head. Literally.
Angelo Codevila’s essay on the dichotomy between the self-anointed “enlightened ruling class” and the “country class” in the United States today;
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print
Shows some very interesting parallels with Cromwell’s England.
I do not think it is too much of a stretch to postulate that similar conditions could engender similar results. All it would really take now, as it did then, would be for the “ruling elite’” to overreach just that one bit too much.
Rather like the proverbial “straw which broke the camel’s back”.
A camel is an animal you really don’t want to anger. (They’re hard enough to deal with when they’re in a good mood.)
cheers
eon
If you really want to get depressed, try “Flashback” by Dan Simmons….post Obama 2030′s American dystopia
I think Thomas Sowell nailed it when he said that intellectuals have no sense of how little their type of knowledge is relevant to what makes for successful day to day living. And thus they crave planned societies which they are always quite sure they will create and steer far better than a bunch of the noncredentialed masses ever could.
And of course there is a sinecured job or at least a series of well-funded grants to support taking the planners know best attitude. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/tearing-up-the-fabric-of-a-free-society-the-new-college-career-and-civic-life-c3-framework/ is a prepping the young impressionable American minds for a future of central planning framework put out quietly Thanksgiving week to move it in place to be part of the Common Core classroom implementation.
Luckily I was still reading that Tuesday and caught its clear implications.
Our overlords clearly have plans for us and are using education to sell the necessity for a different type of American society. To be coupled with a different kind of global society.
Me, I think we are still dealing with a reality of greed and a global Nomenklatura seeking a rationale to live at out expense. And tyrants are easier to placate than free markets that are unpredictable.
A. Owing to the profound solipsism of progressives, the rise of a foreign thug is seen as the natural consequence of our behavior, i.e. we made them that way. It is a form of delusional thinking that gives one a sense of control over an otherwise chaotic world, the belief that we need only reform ourselves to make it all right.
B. A vicarious taste for violence. Liberals are like the toadies who suck up to schoolyard bullies, through whom their own ineffectiveness is vicariously assuaged.
C. A taste for rough trade: a phenomenon of both schoolgirls and the same-sex attracted, with perhaps a masochistic undertone, which finds ‘bad boys’ the ultimate turn-on. That is why such an obvious sociopath as Che Guevara is an icon. If he hadn’t been good-looking, he never would have found his way onto a t-shirt.
Actually the relationship between tyrants and intellectuals may be simpler than stated. The intelligentsia, that herd of independent minds as George Well described them, hates being ignored as they are in the US. Tyrants take intellectuals seriously, so they prefer tyrannies. They get negative attention but at least they get attention. In the US the intellectual is just someone who can’t find a real job or start a business. They are held in contempt, hence they hate the US.
They like it because they think they will be getting a tasty part of the pie. Obviously the tyrant — who must be superior by virtue of he made it to tyrant — will recognize that he and I are birds of a feather, me being superior and all… It’s fun to rub elbows with power.
Muslim Brotherhood inherits U.S. war gear By Rowan Scarborough-The Washington Times Thursday, December 6, 2012
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/6/muslim-brotherhood-inherits-us-war-gear/
Authoritarianism has great appeal for both left and right as an effective means of getting their way. No need for those pesky citizens!
However, as to why intellectuals have a particular affinity for dictators, that might be due to a charismatic element of the dictator in question, or perhaps, that intellectuals exist in a world of thought and have a disproportionate fascination with power and its application in the real world.
Many so-called intellectuals believe that they know how to run people’s lives better than the people do. Their problem is that the little people usually ignore their ideas and go about their own business. In order to get them to modify their behavior they must be forced to do so, and who can wield force better than a dictator?
If we catch you in possession of trans fats or 32 oz. sodas you will go to jail and if you’re caught selling them we shoot you. Its for the good of society.
Its a dangerous mindset. The core of it seems to be a belief that there is no activity, personal or otherwise, that cannot be improved by having the wise people micro-manage it.
Intellectuals admire dictators because they admire the power the dictator has.
Intellectuals are full of brilliant ideas that they are certain will make the world better. Ideas so brilliant, that if other people oppose them, well, it must be because they are stupid, or evil. Ideas so brilliant that they cannot be risked to discussion and compromise- they must be forced.
The intellectual presents his ideas to a democracy, and sees all the short sighted, stupid, ignorant evil people reject his ideas.
And the intellectual sees the dictator’s marching soldiers, with their polished helmets, and the easy condescension with which the last parliament was dismissed, and thinks… if only…
Intellectuals live in ivory towers. That’s the cliché.
Let’s see.
Not to be too politically un-correct, but we all know it was Western Civilization that brought us out of the Dark Ages, and they were—white men.
So, “Ivory towers”?
Hmm?
Why did my white middle finger just shoot up?
That’s it!
Abiders in ivory towers are simply flipping off everybody.
They are, in their own mind, legends in THAT mind, and are merely extreme expressions of Narcissus.
Indeed, it seems to me that intellectuals as a class are animated by tyrannical tendencies. The urge to stand out from OTHER intellectuals and kill them off, idea wise, that is, and emerge as The One, the next new Hegel, or Kant, or you name it—aspiring dictators.
Dictator—say it like it IS. Tell people WHAT is so.
Obey, or else!
“And why do so many intellectuals cozy up to the dictators?”
Because of their disdain for the uncouth masses.
They are intellectual snobs, they believe they deserve much more than they are getting, more recognitions, more wealth. The only way they can get more is to kiss up to the would be dictators. By the time the would be dictators become real dictators, they are too scare to back down either for fear of losing their jobs, their lives, or spending the rest of their lives in jail.
Pic of the Day: To Obama, From Egypt…With Love
http://predicthistunpredictpast.blogspot.com/2012/12/pic-of-day-to-obama-from-egyptwith-love.html
AN. ABSOLUTE. MUST. SEE.
“I truly believe that the day I’m inaugurated, not only the country looks at itself differently, but the world looks at America differently…If I’m reaching out to the Muslim world they understand that I’ve lived in a Muslim country and I may be a Christian, but I also understand their point of view…My sister is half-Indonesian. I traveled there all the way through my college years. And so I’m intimately concerned with what happens in these countries and the cultures and perspective these folks have. And those are powerful tools for us to be able to reach out to the world…then I think the world will have confidence that I am listening to them and that our future and our security is tied up with our ability to work with other countries in the world that will ultimately makes us safer…”
- Barack Obama, 21 November 2007
NOT!!!
I’m going to assume that the question “why do so many intellectuals cozy up to the dictators” is posed to strike a profile of why Western foreign relations “experts” groom back channel relationships with tyrants around the world.
The short answer is that they do it because they’ve been baptised into the religion of nation building.
Theres two things a tyrant likes to possess. The image of power and wealth. Ooops! Wealth? Why our nation building evangelists just found a vulnerability to exploit. Our untellectual foreign relations evangelists have been exploiting tyrants around the world one against the other in the name of nation building for many decades now — a contiuum of global warfare to benefit a perceived strategy of global dominance of Western social and econoic values.
After all these decades of such costly nonsense, the only thing that changes are the faces of the tyrants around the world.
Doesn’t say much for the intellectuals who cozy up to and exploit tryants around the world – does it?
My wife is a Filipina who lived for many years under the Marcos dictatorship. As she described it, the entire society was corrupt from the cop on the beat or local government official all the way up to Marcos himself. Like almost all dictators, Marcos held on to power by favoring some people at the expense of others. The Philippines consists of several thousand islands. As a result, it’s quite provincial. Marcos favored his home province so naturally, they supported him. Likewise, he put people into positions of power. They in turn supported him to maintain their power. You can see the same things happening in just about any dictatorship.
Intellectuals live in an artificial world. In the real world, they have little power. It could be that they support dictators who in turn give them the positions of influence and power they crave.
The answer is simple : They are in fear of being killed. History shows tyrants and dictators tend to exterminate the intellectuals, the educated first. The ignorant masses then are easier controlled. What I know is being an ‘intellectual’ and a ‘hypocrite’ are not mutually exclusive (or is it ‘is not mutually exclusive’ ?)..
This is a little outdated, but our government and the bureaucrats are insane!
U.S. Veterans: By the Numbers By LUIS MARTINEZ (@LMartinezABC) and AMY BINGHAM (@Amy_Bingham) Nov. 11, 2011
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-veterans-numbers/story?id=14928136#1
The North Korean dictatorship is in its third generation, its appalling record notwithstanding.
#30 Washington76, Take a look. Foreign heads of state? What’s this about? Rounding up our vets, medical detainment orders in hand, ahead of the communist shock troops sent by the UN from Chinese and Russian Peacekeeper brigades through our union-secured ports? Crazy? Then why that little phrase, almost comedically bizarre in the context (why not add, “to prevent the patient from stealing a bowling ball in Bogota” -?).
Seriously, what gives?
===
#31 gs, also note, Castro in power since the 1950s, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Franco, all died peacefully a-bed, their life’s work fully protected against ‘the people’.
Sorry, bad link, W76 –here’s better:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/51564
i wouldn’t be so cheery about the survival of the “life’s work” of that crowd. Deng Xiaoping gutted Mao’s system, the Soviet Union is gone, and Franco’s state was gone in a couple of years. In fact, he knew that would happen and cooperated in the process.
Do you have factual proof that plans by Putin to create a so-called ‘Eurasian Union’ of former Soviet nations are bogus?
Has not Putin lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century?
All to many like to forget that “history” is recorded moments of the past. Evolution often changes those moments in time and a claimed victory can be reversed in yet another moment of time in the future.
I know you like to claim a lot of victories around the world in accordance to your lifes strategic philosophy but as I’ve seen you more recently disclose, you cannot see into the future with any warranty.
Yes, but the regimes they headed were never overthrown during their lifetimes. What happened afterward could be seen as much as natural evolution as the effect of the people having found any key to reverse-out these totalized systems once they have taken control of the state’s legitimate sovereignty (Nuremburg Trials had to first develop a new international legal concept, the ‘crime against humanity’, before the Nazi command could be tried in any sense other than ‘spoils of war’ and ‘victor’s justice’.
That the defeat of the Nazi and Bushido was such a great achievement is testimony to the power of a despotic secret police –it cost practically the whole world nearly a decade and all the blood, treasure, and energy it could muster –to smash two medium-sized nations a half-world away from each other totaling a low-single-digit percent of the population (at one point a year or three after the October Revolution, the Lenin/Kerensky coalition in power had voted itself down to 19 Bolsheviks, in a directorate five or more times that number).
Had the Axis won or forced a draw, the rest of the world soon enough would have to beg permission to build a BB gun, and the Gestapo & Kempeitai could’ve lasted as long as the Sun.
Since we’ve never seen it otherwise, we think we can arm-up in a surge crisis. But history is the story of powerful nations whose secondary allies took orders, because the big guy had said ”nyet” to their alarmed arm-up. Ask the American south, during Reconstruction. Well, DC didn’t say ”nyet” exactly, but, hell, give it a wee bit more time, maybe just Obama II can swing it.
Intellectuals and dictators want “order”, their version, their way, in their time.
Mass murder to achieve their goals is not out of the question, tidying up the planet.
In the case of playwright GB Shaw, his recommendation for getting rid of those he and his intellectual buddies deemed the unworthy, the unwanted, was to concoct some very humane, user friendly poison.
Something that went down easily. Nice guy.
“I do not approve of intellectuals.”
~Hercule Poirot
Some intellectuals love dictators because dictators have the power to FORCE the world to conform to the intellectuals’ ideals. They see dictatorship as a shortcut to Utopia. And I think that, like an abused spouse, they believe they can reform the powerful, brutal one – make him use his strength for good rather than evil.
Simple. Intellectuals are hero-worshippers; or, in patoir, they’re star-f**kers.
Oops, patois.
Tell me, Mr. Ledeen, will Machiavelli, or his writings save your soul?
I’m talking about yours Mr. Ledeen, Who saves your soul?
Saving the world from tyrants is a lofty goal. You may save the flesh for a period but who saves their soul? You? Well now that is interesting. By all means Mr. Ledeen save their souls. Want to play God? How many should die? Got a round figure on death? What do you suppose it should be?
Are the democrats blood=thirsty tyrants who love power more than anything? Yes.
No more than you. Bow down to your love of the state and all its power, to that no nothing dumpy black/white/arab whatever black man that you all put there, thinking you were so smart that you would be putting in a Messiah! ahhahahhhahhhha God works in funny ways and that is no Messiah. Besides, Jesus would have never took that job.
Mr. Ledeen, going to Jesus did not mean leaving God, it only meant, listening to what he said, that’s all. No churches or alters or shrines or mary;s, moving from the first part of the bible to the second wasn’t about leaving your religion or love of God, but about a new path, a sustainable path to peace. But you refuse to listen.
thanks for caring about my soul Betsy, it’s very flattering.
There’s a joy in revenge that there’s not in Forgiveness.
Destroy your enemy without any doubt, because enemy will eliminate you without any hesitate. Your enemy will be your enemy forever, never be your friend. It’s a matter of who better and quicker draw its weapon, this is determinative, your life or your Death.
Tehran’s regime says:
“If we strike Israel with one nuke, Israel will wipe out of the earth, but if Israel strikes us with ten or twenty Trident missiles, we will survive”. “United States of America is Great Satan”, “Israel is smaller Satan”.
Even if Tehran, capitol of Iran struck with a strategic nuclear missile not tactical, Iranians will survive but if Iranians send one of their nuke warheads to Hamas Jihadist they can easily launch it toward Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel hasn’t ground, their nation is so small.
The next round of champ between Israelis and Hamas will be around this issue. Ceasefire is a temporary term, after some commercial show another round will start. Iranians are the coach of Hamas fighters, but there’s no guarantee that it would not be a nuclear clash fueled by Tehran’s regime or even worse than that chemical warheads send by Revolutionary Guards, as the same now is on the go, more than hundreds barrels of Nerve Gas has sent for Assad’s Army to use them against free Syria’s Army, Secretly sent by Iranian cargoes and who could stop that? Hah? Who could? American reconnaissance satellite networks? Or Counterintelligence Drones could find that or intercepted them?!!! Or maybe American Navies in Arabian Gulf could stop and arrested hellish cargo Gas?! *hit!
Interestingly as you see, Tehran’s regime busy in his occupation easily without any interception, and as I said before, the war is in progress approach, the war is imminent, the war is coming, just the time of its beginning is matter, soon or late, it’s the choice of that side who wants real victory. The first strike would be so significant, but after first hit, second and third and last strikes will be determinative. The War has so many prices, but its conclusion would be so tasteful and shining. Its’ gift would be far more beyond imagination, the land, the glory, eliminating the enemy, freedom, safeness for nation’s winner, honor of history…and so much more. Therefore try to sharp your weapons, your swords, your spears, and your shield, exercise in maneuvers to be experienced, Air force, Navy, Battalion ground forces Tanks to be like legendary history heroes, let those who are talented in epic knightly war affairs rhapsodize your heroic battle against Iranian evil.
As you wish or not, as you want or not, believe it or not, Iranians are producing poisonous insects, anopheles and vipers, you must dry them and destroy the source not the productions, resource is in Iran, pests are not important, their womb is in Iran.
Plague source exists in Iran.
the war is ON, and has been for at least 33 years.
The war is not ON. if this is so, why Tehran alive and produce poison? this is why that war is not ON, war is OFF. when Tehran, the head of Plague and Poison destroyed completely, then it’s true that war is ON and worked.
The War is OFF.
–magnificent piece of writing the terrible topic.
Allow me to recommend this book “Path to Tyranny”
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0037KM20G/ref=docs-os-doi_0
It uses case studies of republics and democracies through the ages as they descend into tyrannies. The common theme is the aspirant tyrant offers to redistribute the wealth in exchange for political power.
The author’s analysis of the rise of Julius Ceasar was the first cogent description I’ve read!
As to intellectuals, why do dictators appreciate them? For one, they create the arguments which the dictator uses to bamboozle the population. They serve a role in the political economy of tyranny!
In the USA, of the four voting catagories, White, Black, Hispanic and Asian, the latter three turned out in droves. Whites continued their decline (in contrast to their increases in ages).
Of Black, Hispanic and Asian voter catagoreis, a large swath of their voters are foreigners, younger, uneducated most likely on some form of 83 different government welfare programs.
Agreed! Most foreigners, new to USA have immigrated from a top/down, command economy type living experience. Yes, where they came from was a ‘democracy’ in name only, with a strong executive, politically, controlling their country.
To most foreigners, USA’s Judicial, Legislative and Executive system of governance carried on down to Counties, parrishes and even municipalities is incomprehensible and befuddling. Coupled to this is a “functioning” US Constitution. See, in their countries, an Executive Order is the normal way of conducting their former countries business…in other words, the Executive Branch of their former countries is both the begin all and end all to ruling everything. Of course, corruption is endemic in that type system of political organization, leading to personal deaths, intrigue and subterfuge.
As an example, 2012 elections:
Republican FACTS. A wake-up Call if ever there was one!
1.Republicans have now lost the popular vote for president in five of the past six presidential elections.
2.The last time the GOP won 300 electoral votes was in 1988; Democrats have won 300 or more in four of the past six contests.
3.Eighteen states plus the District of Columbia have voted Democratic in each of the past six presidential elections for a total 242 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
4.In two consecutive elections, the closest Senate races have fallen domino-like toward Democrats.
5.In 2010, Democrats won five of the seven races rated as toss-ups by The Cook Political Report; this year, Democrats prevailed in eight out of 10.
6.While Republicans, in 2012, held onto their House majority, eight seats were lost, or about one third of their 25-seat margin.
7.Democrats actually won the national popular vote for the House.
8.Republicans were saved by new district boundaries drawn by re-districting committees. Something Rahm Emmanuel’s 2010 Census gerrymandered to avoid.
In a foreigners former country, this type precedence doesn’t exist. In the USA, it does…and leaves foreigners just dangling. Therefore, they voted for Obama. Pray. Amen.
I appreciate the article but I believe it contains some wrong information.
I believe, the government operating out of Moscow is exactly the same now as before : “The commuless Moscow weapons company” (c me 1979); status quo ante: “promise communism but deliver slavery to a military industrial complex: the two eggs and a piece of bread were not equal sharing of resources, they were the minimum you could eat and show up for work”(c me 1979) in the “Commuless Moscow Weapons Company”; today the government operating out of Moscow is the same as before except the ex KGBers stole all the industry and divided it up and the economy is allowed to function somewhat independent of the (song remains the same) “Commuless Moscow Weapons Company”.
I of course delivered to congress in June 1986 the prediction (which I originally made in 1980 without the Philippines part) “the downfall by popular uprising of the government operating out of Moscow will occur, similar to the way it happened in the Philippines”.
Many in the USA did not allow Jews or blacks in “their” neighborhoods 50 years ago…neither do the Arabs allow non-Muslims or Jews in their country; and Muslims leadership invariably agrees. And the world believes the Jews should not live in Judea and Samaria today? How is that possible; Judenrein = peace? I think they left their brains ability to think on some politically incorrect alter…or they are so brainwashed and addicted to oil that up is down and down is up only please give us our daily fix of oil!
This is a brilliant article with even more brilliant comments. Thanks to one and (almost) all. As a certified intellectual (college professor with more degrees than sense) I have often pondered this question. Why do smart people almost always choose tyranny when history clearly shows freedom is more stable and almost always WAY more prosperous. Freedom always provides a MUCH better life.
Masterminds are attracted to Tyranny like moths to the flame because Eggheads RARELY have any political skills and their experience winning an argument consists of telling the class to shut up. Since they have absolutely no hope of implementing their grand schemes through the normal political process they prefer an audience of one and sit around dreaming of all the damage they could inflict if they had the ear of a dictator.
Masterminds don’t care how many times their ideas have failed- the problem is ALWAYS BECAUSE THE RIGHT PEOPLE- THE GOOD PEOPLE- HAVE NOT IMPLEMENTED THE SCHEME. Now you know why the one said: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”