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| Thread: a good dictatorship |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT» |
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bixie
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posted July 12, 2009 10:53 AM |
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a good dictatorship
(I know that this will end up in the VW sooner or later)
I've been reading a lot of DC comics, recently the war between New Genesis and Apokolips. For those of you who don't know, New Genesis is a world of tranquility and glory, Apokolips is a world of war and suffering. Both of them are dictatorships, The highfather (benevolent, kind, wise) rules New Genesis and Darkseid (megalomaniac, cruel, violent) rules Apokolips. Apokolips has obvious bases in places like Nazi germany, the roman empire, slavery, blah blah blah, however where New Genesis originated from is interesting...as far as I can see, it has no origin
basically, my question is has there ever been, or can there ever be, a benevolent dictatorship out side of a work of fiction.
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Mytical
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posted July 12, 2009 11:04 AM |
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I am not sure. I think some may have started out good..but few stayed that way. Ancient Egypt had some good and some bad leaders, but they had a slavery issue.
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JollyJoker
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posted July 12, 2009 11:40 AM |
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Prussia, 18th century, especially under the reign of Frederick the Great. The so-called "Enlightened Absolutism".
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Elodin
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posted July 12, 2009 11:45 AM |
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In theory perhaps there could be a "benevolent dictatorship." But I don't think that in the real world there ever has been one.
Power corrupts. Take a look at long time politicians. They begin to develop attitudes and think of themselves as better than "the peons." Then they begin to take liberties with their power. They make themselves exempt from the laws that others have to follow. They begin to do whatever they want to do without regard to the will of the people or the good of the people.
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Mytical
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posted July 12, 2009 11:49 AM |
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And Absolute Power corrupts absolutely. That has been the downfall of most of the 'great' civilazations of their time. They became so powerful and so corrupt that they collapsed under their own weight.
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DagothGares
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posted July 12, 2009 01:30 PM |
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Quote:
I am not sure. I think some may have started out good..but few stayed that way. Ancient Egypt had some good and some bad leaders, but they had a slavery issue.
Not true, 90% of the people were just equal to slaves in everything but name.
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baklava
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posted July 12, 2009 01:40 PM |
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Whether you see a dictatorship as benevolent or not depends on whether you're lucky enough to have the same viewpoints as the dictator, and whether you're a certain type of person. A lot of Germans were happy with the way Nazi Germany was handled, for example. The idea is that a dictatorship generally does not allow those who don't share its view of things to exist.
So, in a way, almost any dictatorship can be regarded as benevolent to some and an apocalypse to others.
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is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
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del_diablo
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posted July 12, 2009 03:14 PM |
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The best thing about a dictator ship, is that it tends to be little political bickering. Decisions tend to be made. And lobbies barely got any power.
The bad things is course what happens when the wrong decisiosn are made, there are nobody to oppose or to change directions. Bad things will go on so long there is chances for it.
I would say it depends on the dictator, Stalin was a good example on what could go wrong. But atleast nobody tok him down, properly that is.
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blizzardboy
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posted July 12, 2009 04:47 PM |
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Agreed with Baklava 100%.
There are plenty of "benevolent" dictatorships in history, and there will be more of them. Most people suddenly think such power is a swell idea when it happens to coincide with their stances and feelings. But once you let the rapid wolf off the chain, it's hard to say where it will go. Ironically, it often even strikes the people that let it loose.
The only dictator which I would personally consider benevolent is one who would create a democratic republic and then forfeit their power and close the door to successors. That would take serious balls and principle.
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JollyJoker
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posted July 12, 2009 05:31 PM |
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No, wait.
No way is "benevolent" a question of whether you profit from it or not. A benevolent dictatorship means basically that the dictator is the benign patriarch of a family while the people are the children of that patriarch.
This would basically mean that the people have no control over the laws, the jurisdiction and the police and army power: the patriarch's word is law, BUT all "children" or people are equal under that patriarch. There is no way on this Earth to call the NS-dictatorship benevolent.
Of course this is only a theoretical concept. As I said, I think the closest we had this was Prussia onder Frederick the Great, 1740 to 178?. It was called Enlightened Absolutism.
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baklava
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posted July 12, 2009 05:54 PM |
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Quote:
all "children" or people are equal under that patriarch.
You just made that up on the spot. 
The word "benevolent" doesn't encompass equality. The dictator might divide the society into whatever classes, castes and social structures he likes.
Everyone is equally under the dictator, yes. But not everyone is equal under the dictator.
And "patriarch" is a wrong word. What if it's a matriarchy?
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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JollyJoker
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posted July 12, 2009 06:09 PM |
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Quote:
The word "benevolent" doesn't encompass equality. The dictator might divide the society into whatever classes, castes and social structures he likes.
"Benevolent" means for the whole society - if it's only for part of soiety, it's not benevolent anymore. So every caste and class division would somehow have to gain for the whole of society, right?
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baklava
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posted July 12, 2009 06:16 PM |
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Edited by baklava at 18:17, 12 Jul 2009.
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But someone living better than someone else doesn't mean that everyone is worse off. Take capitalism for example. It takes so much pride in functioning better and giving everyone (supposedly) a better life than any other system, yet it's divided in classes and it's quite far from equality.
Give the bourgeois a good life and make them happy, give the peasants a good life and make them happy, give everyone a good life according to what you see as their place and you're a benevolent dictator.
No one mentions equality. You can institute feudal nobility and be a benevolent dictator at the same time.
Theoretically.
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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JollyJoker
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posted July 12, 2009 07:00 PM |
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Yes, true, but only if society would work better after that. You couldn't put people into camps and kill them - that wouldn't be benevolent.
You might make laws against certain behaviour, but not because you had a personal grudge or something.
"Benevolent" means that you had a dictator playing father, treating the people like children. No benevolent father would treat his children differently, and he wouldn't do harm to them either.
In theory, that's what a benevolent dicatorship was.
Something like, make Albert Einstein or Mahatma Ghandi dictator for life, that's what benevolent dictatorship was, I'd say.
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baklava
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posted July 12, 2009 07:35 PM |
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It is in the psyche of dictators to think that, by harming a portion of the people, they are in fact helping the majority. They also believe that there is no other way but to do that, and that they're doing the right thing. And no ruler, dictatorial or not, will be liked by everyone; and they will all harm someone during their reign. All of that creates huge difficulties in determining what a benevolent dictator, in fact, is.
It can't be one that is liked by everyone, and that never harmed anyone - since that's impossible (dictators will always at least harm the opposition of their regime one way or another; that's why they keep the title of dictators. Also, everyone who thinks differently is harmed because he has no rights to express his opinion at the very least). And if it's the one that is liked by the majority, then Vlad Dracula was a benevolent dictator, as well as Napoleon, Hitler (Godwin's law) and other similar examples.
So what is a benevolent dictator? Just someone who is making lives better for everyone? But there is no freedom of speech, no right of opposition, no chance of expressing your opinion if it differs from the dictator's; some might wonder CAN life be better without those?
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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JollyJoker
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posted July 12, 2009 08:22 PM |
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Your first two paragraphs are practical points, and the third is asking whether something like a benevolent dictatorship is possible.
If we take the family example as a model, it means that a benevolent dictatorship could and must work only for a certain time: it should try and make sure that children become grown-ups and learn to decide for themselves, that is the dictatorship must end.
IN THEORY a benevolent dictator would, that's my take on it, resign only under force - it wouldn't be enough that people said, we have enough now and want to do things forf ourselves. Dictator would have to say no wand wait until a serious movement would develop and only THEN resign.
In theory.
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blizzardboy
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posted July 12, 2009 09:59 PM |
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Joker, I'm sure everybody knows the definition of benevolent. But I think the ultimate benevolence (or modesty) is to accept your fallibility as a human and leave it the whole body of government to run things. At least then the responsibility is shared, and the chances of radical actions being taken are reduced. A government that can get a lot of things done easily is a very very dangerous government. There are plenty of dictators that loved their countries and genuinely did what they felt was best, but I don't care, because intentions don't change things; actions do.
Going back to the original topic, yes, I acknowledge benevolent dictatorships, but for me, being benevolent isn't good enough by a long shot.
____________
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friendofgunnar
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posted July 13, 2009 01:12 AM |
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"benevolent dictatorship" is an oxymoron. The "dictate" part in dictatorship means that all ideas, structures, and people not conforming to the dictator's viewpoints gets eliminated. That's a fairly good antithesis to the word "benevolent". So no, there is no benevolent dictatorship outside of (bad) fiction.
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JollyJoker
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posted July 13, 2009 07:36 AM |
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No, that's not true. Dictator(ship) means simply that all the power a government controls is held by one person and that this person has come to power by whatever unspecified means.
In Germany you might say that the people voted to live under this dictatorship (you could argue about the freedom of that vote, but you always can argue about elections and the options you have) - so it is not necessarily violence a dictator comes to power with.
In their earlier times the Romans (as well as some Amerindian tribes) ELECTED a dictator for the time of war; he had complete control over everything that concerned the war (with free reign to get what was neeed).
Which means, a dictatorship is not necessarily established by force - it may be deemed necessary by everyone or at least by a majority because QUICK decisions may be necessary, and the more people share governmental power the more time and compromise it takes to find a decision. Moreover, a dictator is not forced to suppress things. If things run fine under a dictator people won't complain. In Germany you wouldn't have seen many complainers within the first two years of NS-dictatorship, and even later, when the screw got turned for the Jews most people accepted that as part of the deal. Even if there is protest against a dictatorship it's not necessary to suppress it. It's not like protesters in democracies get their will.
You may argie about whether a legal clause in a constitution that DICTATES democracy that way that things must not be changed is a dibtatorship as well since it doesn't allow people to switch.
For dictatorships in fiction, Philip K. Dick describes another kind of quasi-dictatorship in his book "Solar Lottery". Here every citizen doesn't have a vote but a lot. This lot can be sold (as well), so that rich people may have many thousands of lots. In any case all those lots are within a "bottle" that works completely random (or so it seems and so is law): after a random time span it will turn (again) and draw a lot - provided the current dictator hasn't been assassinated which is a game that's entertaining the world public. In any case the owner of that lot becomes dictator until the next turn of the bottle or until killed. As should be clear for everyone who's a bit familiar with Dick's books, there is a lot more it and than meets the eye, and nothing is ever what it seems...
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antipaladin
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posted July 14, 2009 02:58 AM |
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none. why? because of humane error. easy to corrupt. easy to destroy.
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