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Jan. 21st, 2024 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly“Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot one, and there’ll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland? In fifty years’, thirty years’, ten years’ time the world will be very nearly back on its old course. History always has a great weight of inertia.”
This quote has seemed increasingly relevant every year since I first read it. I wish Pratchett was still here and some other people weren't.
This quote has seemed increasingly relevant every year since I first read it. I wish Pratchett was still here and some other people weren't.
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Date: 2024-01-21 08:12 pm (UTC)Pratchett was right, and utterly wrong as well.
To borrow a quote from a much earlier age. "Does not the garden require gardeners to endlessly tend to it? For the garden to flourish do they not need to remove the weed that would otherwise choke the flowers that we wish to thrive?"
Killing one would be dictator does little to change the course of society, but then neither does snipping off one branch create a perfect bonsai. It needs to a constant vigil, to divert society from that downwards spiral that if left unchecked ends in disaster. If caught early enough, it need not call for the ultimate sanction. A man who would be a terrible dictator in a position of authority, if recognised early enough, can be put to good use elsewhere, or at least their path checked before they end up as ruler.
At the very least, if there enough prior examples of what happens to those with ambitions to rule with an iron fist, then perhaps wannabes can be warned off that dark path for the good of their health.
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Date: 2024-01-21 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-21 08:39 pm (UTC)Perhaps, but their vision of what's 'right' involves them being in charge, and everyone else doing what they are told without question, because if allowed, very few would agree with them. It's the way of the bully or tyrant, who doesn't persuade but forces.
The true gardener weeds lightly, and only those that threaten to destroy or stifle the rest. Allowing all to achieve their fullest potential.