pro_sprond
9mo ago
So do you think things are that terrible in America? Because honestly things don't seem that bad to me, especially judging by historical standards. I'm not happy with everything in the US, but overall my life is pretty good and the parts of it that are bad would not be helped by the execution of tens of thousands of elites.
pro_sprond
9mo ago
Out of curiosity, do you have any examples of a country where a leader rapidly and publicly executed tens of thousands of elites and things went well afterwards (e.g. the country did not descend into civil war and standard of living did not decline substantially)? I ask because my inclination is to believe that such an action would have horrible consequences and typically only occurs in countries that are (or are about to become) basket cases—the French revolution or the USSR in the 1920s and 30s. However, I am not knowledgeable enough to be certain my impression is historically accurate.
pro_sprond
9mo ago
I think she's a genuinely terrible person, combining vacuousness and disinterest in personal conviction with a thirst for power. The only thing she truly believes is that she should be in charge.
I think this is true of many, perhaps even most, politicians. Some of them just do a better job at hiding it.
Relatedly, I think an underrated force in politics is that the job of being a major politician, along with the process required to get there, is genuinely very unpleasant. Not only is the pay low and the workload high relative to other options, but people are constantly criticizing you, mocking you, scrutinizing your every word for a way to use it against you and combing through your personal life for damaging stories. You also have to do a lot of personally awkward things like call all of your friends and ask them to give you as much money as they possibly can just so you can be elected. Without the motivation of either intense ideological commitment or extreme megalomania, it seems to me that it would be very difficult to remain in politics for long, especially on the national level.
pro_sprond
9mo ago
I think the default explanation is just that he's still pretty sick and not in good condition to give a speech.
pro_sprond
10mo ago
It's been pointed out before, but I think it's worth saying again: the default hypothesis for why there are so many influential Jewish people in the history of progressive thought is that there are disproportionate numbers of Jewish people in just about every intellectual movement of 20th century America and Europe. It's not as if there is a shortage of Jews on the right. E.g. Barry Goldwater and Milton Friedman to name just a couple. The fact that so many on the alt-right have Jewish heritage is just another manifestation of this phenomenon.
I guess I should distinguish between two senses of "working well": first, working well for the leader executing their opponents and second, working well for most people in the country. I think you're kind of addressing both senses here, but I'm mostly interested in the second.
For Ivan the Terrible, do you have any reference explaining your claim that his ascent was probably good for the average Russian? I don't necessarily disbelieve you, but it's not a claim I've heard before. Also, how many people were actually executed during Khrushchev's rise to power? I know he was responsible for a lot of deaths during Stalin's purges and I know (as you mentioned) that Beria was killed, but I know little about Khrushchev so I don't know how bloody his rule was more generally.
More options
Context Copy link