Post No. 2,940 - An off-the-cuff comment about tyrants, politics, and people

I was going to put this in my weekly reflection post, but it probably merits a standalone post now. 

In response to a friend’s comment “I’m listening to a podcast about narcissist leaders of the past and why they always fail. The creator is discussing Nero. Tr_ mp seems to have similar traits of needing his ego stroked constantly. He says that absolute power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals who the person was all along.” , I made an off-the-cuff, unresearched, unedited, unthought about, unreferenced response, which is:   

What an interesting insight!  

I’m going to have to think about that one. My first reaction is that people have choices, and some rise to the occasion while others don’t, so it - and the wording of this is clumsy - reveals who the person most probably is ... but they have the possibility of being someone else.   

And we are forever begging of leaders, but that is partly because we fail to take account of things like the momentum of events and systems: the time to start lobbying leaders is when they are being educated (hence the outsized influence of churches and the focus I made sure [a lobby group I was part of in the 90s/00s - and now] had on education as the best way to capitalise on the law reforms we got through in 2000) and when systems are being formed - but very few really understand how complex that it. 

I’ve known a few Marxists/old-fashioned Socialists and many feminists and they all think they have a good grasp on what power and systems are, but they tend to only have that through the lens of their special interest: to really understand it all, you have to combine the class focus of socialists (and their concept of class struggle is not quite right - the right’s/conservatives think such struggles are about greed aka self-interest but it is not quite that either: it is more about the human desire for security of survival, which generally manifests as an apparent desire for comfort which leads into a psychological focus) and the understanding of power imbalance of feminists and the understanding that we are more than just meat sacks of various religious types (and a combination of all religious foci is probably better than any one) and pragmatic-physical understanding of humanists/climate change people/Indigenous people - who also, with psychologists, understand the need for community/belonging that we all have. Narcissist leaders of the past tend to get thrown into their positions by the vagaries of circumstance combined with their characteristics, and then they fail to adapt.   

The inevitability of their failure is a combination of their inbuilt flaws, and the inevitability of circumstances changing - AND the fact that people have choices and potentialities. What I am seeing now is that so many people are being well informed by the lessons of the past - the work of Timothy Snyder is prominent, but others are addressing in other ways the lessons of past tyrannies ... especially 1930s Germany.   

If the people of 1930s Germany knew what we now know, the world would have gone down a different path.   

And that in turn goes back to so many earlier times when people could have chosen poorly but didn’t ([World War One] could have started in 1912 with similar tensions in the Balkans, but Rasputin - of all people - talked the Tsar down and out of fighting then - but Rasputin was in hospital in 1914 so couldn't do the same then ... but the Tsar could also have chosen to remember that in 1914 anyway), or could have chosen well but didn’t - the series of errors that led to World War (part) One is very long, but, from a military perspective, for example, Britain’s failures and lessons learned from the Boer War helped.   

The Empires of Europeans nations gave them resources to fight both World Wars, but also, if they hadn’t had Empires the war would not have spread out of Europe. And the struggles against Empire go back to people like Cato, who is recognised as being obsessively committed to his principles, but was - in my opinion - too flawed in his understanding of people to be an effective advocate - so the flaws and potentialities issue also applies to those of use trying to do good.   

All told, a communal approach is better in so many ways - including addressing the evils of tyrants and how best to remove them.  

And I need to go have another coffee now - I’ve only had a small cup when I wrote all that.   

And I am cringing at thoughts being jumbled and the wording being unpolished, but the sentiment that life is complex and nuanced and imperfect is one that we all need, in my opinion, to keep in mind as we decide what to do or not do. 

There are other links that will be in this week’s coming reflections post, and there is some possibly useful info at the following links: 

• https://gnwmythrsglossary.blogspot.com/2014/04/activism.html   
  

• https://gnwmythrsglossary.blogspot.com/2023/09/aspects-of-character-content-warning.html   
  

• https://gnwmythrsglossary.blogspot.com/2015/06/emotions.html  

• https://gnwmythrsglossary.blogspot.com/2023/05/ethics.html  

• https://gnwmythrsglossary.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-evil-that-is-known-as-fascism.html   
  
• https://gnwmythrsglossary.blogspot.com/2023/06/patriarchy.html    
• https://gnwmythrsglossary.blogspot.com/2024/10/resisting-tyranny-evil-nonbpm.html  
  
• https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2023/08/post-no-2535-trauma-content-warning.html  
  

 

PS - there is a point I have realised I should make clear:   empires / colonies are inherently wrong, and do massive damage to those whose are being oppressed - including my people   

Also, the following article just popped up in my inbox, and is of relevance:

• ““World War 3” is Not Inevitable: How Sequential Thinking Shapes Our Perception of Conflict”   https://www.joanwestenberg.com/world-war-3-is-not-inevitable-how-sequential-thinking-shapes-our-perception-of-conflict-2/     
  

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

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Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here. 

(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)  

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and   

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