Nothing is more dangerous than a well-read dictator | Hacker News Reader

Nothing is more dangerous than a well-read dictator

unherd.com

30 pointsoska29 comments

And here I was thinking that this was about the Evil Overlord List[1]

1 https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList

"Stalin, then, presents a challenge to anyone who claims a specific link between deep reading and the pursuit of ethical or social virtue."

I think that only people who lived very sheltered lives would make such a claim.

Somehow, I am reminded of this from "Apocalypse Now":

"We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying ... We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile ... a pile of little arms. And I remember I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. ... And I thought my God, the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realised they were stronger than we. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love, but they had the strength to do that."

I doubt that biographical details about Stalin's erudition and connection to his political actions generalize. It's entirely possible for a well-read dictator to perform quite admirably. Take, for example, Pedro II of Brazil. He was the closest I've ever encountered to the Platonic ideal of the philosopher-king.

World leaders are highly idiosyncratic people, I think. Taking empirical psychological results that apply to general populations (more likely Western college students in practice) and expecting prominent historical figures to conform to them is a mistaken approach.

Some of the comments on that page are as interesting as the article itself, if not more so.

Edit: Sadly you need to be registered to see them all. I noticed a comment I wanted to point out just got bumped off the page. Oh well.

I think the article invites us to think of how strongly we couple the concepts of empathy and ethics. I think the article makes a reasonable argument that really empathy and ethical behavior are only related, and that one does not lead to the other (or that one is required for the other really). And that's even before we consider that ethics is essentially an axiomatic system - you create an ethical framework by setting up axioms about what is good and bad (or what is better or worse), and then extrapolate.

In fact when we look a bit closer, we can easily see the divide. Empathy is about your ability to relate, understand, feel the circumstances of another individual. Ethics is about determining what are better and worse courses of actions. They are nothing at all alike.

Another point that the article brings up that I think it very much worth re-iterating is that boxing away Stalin (and related figures...) away as being psychopaths is a cop-out to ourselves. It's a way for us to cut off our own empathy.

Machiavellian would not equate dictators as being empathetic.

As he often cited in “The Prince”.

Free from Gutenberg Project: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1232

Stalin is probably an extreme example, but nothing is more dangerous than attributing a society with a totally different worldview to the personality of an individual.

There is an entire thriving culture where many of our strongest held beliefs about government and the power of individuals are just not shared, and other contrary views such as related to the strength of community are emphasized.

And in fact I think if one objectively looks at the mess we have in the western system now, we can see that there are many severe problems. The horrors of the eastern system are well known here. But both sides are extreme worldviews, and we won't have a really functional global system until people are able to integrate ideas. Or maybe we will just wipe each other off the face of the earth, never having understood each other, propagandized by our own (strategically motivated) nation states to exterminate each other.

tl;dr version - Joseph Stalin, who most successful or self-satisfied western bibliophiles probably see as a monster, was an extremely well-read, successful (and likely self-satisfied) bibliophile. This fact should not lie comfortably with the "I'm more virtuous because I'm well-read..." self-images of such folks.

@dang I think the title should be edited. The title of the article, "The empathy of Joseph Stalin", matches the content better than the subtitle, "Nothing is more dangerous than a well-read dictator".

Please don’t post unherd here - it’s a bunch of U.K. journalists who want to write for the telegraph but can’t because they’re not rich enough, and the majority is tedious far right talking points you could hear anyone in a crappy pub spout off about after a few drinks.

The substance of an idea is more important than the identity of its author.

Plenty of poor people in pubs have come up with ideas that could've done well on HN.

No, ideas should always be stated with the context they were produced in, including the people who made it. You can’t publish a physics paper without context (why are we checking this equation, what is the theory behind it, who are the authors behind previous papers and what have they said), let alone a boring online news article. Ideas do not create themselves spontaneously, they need a mind behind them. Don’t be tedious!

I believe in Pythagoras' Theorem despite the considerable uncertainty about the context in which that idea was produced

Sure, but why do you have to know it? Who taught you it? Why is it important? Do you just absorb things without context?

Is it okay if I ask New York Times to not be posted here? It has done far more damage to the world that unherd ever can.

Go wild, the NYT has platformed some inherently questionable people and that should be questioned (let’s start with all the alt-right people they platformed over 2014-2017 making them out to be these friendly talking heads and go from there!) However, the U.K. has an ecosystem of right wing funded papers and being ignorant of that while talking about what’s in the article is cringe.

It is like saying: don't post from internet here--it is full of garbage/trolls (it is true but irrelevant unless your point that all articles are garbage or all users are trolls).

The cancel culture is cancerous.

I’m just hearing Charlie Brown teacher muah muah muah noises here, what did you say?

Let’s just have no moderation at all then - HN for people who believe in the market of ideas (that’s what you lot like calling it, right? Some nerd shit like that)

I don't see how the mere presence of the moderator makes him woke. Avoiding identity politics doesn't mean that garbage content shouldn't be taken out.

Have you got substantial comments about the content of the article, the relationship between literary erudition, empathy, dictatorship and violence? Interestingly Mussolini was a writer too (he published a novel), and Mao worked (like me) as a librarian.

Aside, the author of the text was the literary editor of The Independent. I imagine that could be compatible with being too poor to write for the Telegraph, who knows ...

I don't know if this article is any good (I haven't read it) but in general we go by article quality here, not site quality. Past explanations:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

People overexagerate the perils of dictators forgetting that everyone's dad and mom were dictators in their lives, the authories dictate things all the time, and every manager, president, and prime minister is a dictator of sorts. I guess, what people mostly worry about is having the wrong dictator they do not like, but truly, everybody is being dictated in one way or another, whether they admit it or not.

Dictators are not bad. I know many people who complain about dictators and yet listen to a lot of dictators in their lives, whether it's scientists, politicians, TV broadcasters, or even a work boss that they admire.

People are full of BS regarding dictators. It's time for people to admit the lies that dictators are bad, and admit that they all want to be dictators deep down and just hate the "wrong" kind of dictators that they don't like to be in charge.

Funny, I encounter people complaining about dictators and then dictating to me that "I am not welcome", "I am rejected from their midst", etc...

There are other people who claim they are not judgmental, and then they judge me for saying some words, or judge my judgmentality.

The world is full of BS and hypocrites. The only way to fix it is to actually get the "right" kind of dictator in charge. We need more dictators who can take charage and kick the wrong kind of people into prison.

What do you think? (of course, some might dictate to me that my ideas are wrong or outright dictate that I be silenced by revoking my rights to free speech, while claiming they hate dictators, go figure!)

The best dictator is the one nobody listens to.

The problem is with scale. All the other dictators you mentioned know you personally , and probably care about you or care enough as long as it benefits them. The dictators everyone is talking about don’t know you or your family, friends, school and probably town if you are from a small one. Now, when they make decisions do you think they think about you or ilk? You will be treated as if you don’t exist and your cries are just as heard as much as that crushed ant beneath your feet. Representative government matters because it gives everyone a voice and power to change things if stuff doesn’t work out.

The whole culture is just another form of Dictatorship.

My definition of dictatorship is when the majority have a view and its forbidden to even dissection the idea to further understand it - let alone question it. Humanity progresses when we evolve in our views & thoughts for a valid logical reasoning and not just for the "heck of it" or "its the progressive thing to do".

A really devious Dictator will make the subjects feel that its their own decision. A polite dictatorship is a cult.

What kind of power do the the 'dictators' you mentioned have?

What you mentioned are positions of power with people that can be replaced and are subject to outside forces.

Actual dictators are people like Putin/Kim/Xi, they can and will send you to labor camps/have you tortured and killed for any or no reason at all.

If you use "dictator" so loosely that everyone's parents, boss, etc. qualify - then you're just making a confusing mess with language. There are other, far better, words to describe such authority figures and leaders. Or, folks may start guessing that you bitterly resent authority figures.

You seem fairly negative and judgemental, and quick to label many people with what is (in most contexts) a pejorative term. That might be why most people (who don't share your worldview) do not find your company pleasant.

When I'm sufficiently frustrated, the notion of a dictator taking power, and throwing all the "wrong" sorts of people in prison...it does have emotional appeal. Out in the real world...from what I know of history, actual dictatorships have a poor track record. Especially on the "given a decent choice, would many of the population leave?" front.

I have absolutely no interest in being a dictator at all. What an utterly insane statement.

Some people are actually really secure in themselves believe it not.

You start your argument by watering down the definition of dictator. Parents aren't dictators, they're people with authority above their offspring. This authority comes with enormous heart-felt responsibility. Being rejected by somebody doesn't make that person a dictator. Everybody is free to reject you and vice versa. If you're looking for no rejections at all, you might not be psychologically fit. Yes, the world is full of BS, this isn't a bug it's a feature - humans are creative.

> We need more dictators who can take charage and kick the wrong kind of people into prison.

Are you trolling?

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