The Gullible are Legit Believers.

In the articles titled Chinese Cultural Studies: The Mandate of Heaven, and King James I: On the Divine Right of Kings, that we read for Tuesday, we learned about what it meant to have legitimacy. No, it did not mean you never lied or your actions were somehow related to the definition to the word legitimate as it is used most commonly nowadays it meant the amount of belief others had on whatever it was you claimed to be the reason why you should be in charge. Through the reading, and through the explanation and discussion in class, we learned what it means for someone to be legitimate. In the context of what we are learning, in government- related terms, to have legitimacy means you have a reason upon which your claimed ''right'' to govern, or to have power, is based upon. The reason used does not have to be a good reason, but as long as people believe in what you say, you are considered to be a legit ruler.

I think that if this legitimacy were the only thing that dictated the ability and strength of a 'leader' to lead, then just about any good storyteller with imagination and even the smallest ability to persuade could potentially become leader. If this were true, would it not be more of the people's fault if their leader were a fake? The legitimacy, at least in the past, was mostly based on the gullibility of the people. But as always, people learn from their mistakes. That’s what our civilizations have been doing generation after generation, learning from previous mistakes and making new mistakes when deciding on who should be their leaders.

We went from looking for leaders who were based off the ideals like that of the Mandate of Heaven, to Foreign and Domestic Political Knowledge. I think the drastic change in what we look for in leaders is often changing and being modified because as time goes by, no one thing stays the exact same forever, meaning our needs are constantly changing, causing for us to realize/ discover new things and believe in others.

As is seems, most times when we have decided to change our type of leaders it is because their legitimacy is no longer to legit since our ever changing opinions come to judge and question that which had once been considered unquestionable just because it was. We seem to change what we look for because the governments set up no longer cover our needs and in most cases, have become selfish overtime, forgetting about those who it was made to protect. So legitimacy is very tightly connected with the gullibility of others. But the gullibility could also be just need to believe in something until the next best thing comes along.

Fear vs. Love

Is it better to be loved or to be feared?

According to Machiavelli, when in a position of power, it is better to be feared than loved. I wonder how true this really is. I think that in any true relationship, it is better to be loved than it is to be feared because there is a very faint line between hatred and fear. After long time of fear, people tend to always realize that they should not fear, and that if backed by others, can stand up to you. That is when fear changes to hatred. I think tat for most, fear starts as hatred and slowly becomes something more intense, and as intense as hate it self.

In a perfect world, people would never turn on you, love would exist forever, and those who loved you would always remain at your side. That is usually true, that is of course, if they actually loved you, and were not pretending to. If that is truly the case, than you are lucky. Actually being loved is being liked for exactly who you are. You can’t call genuine love something 'similar' to it because no such thing exists. I mean, actual love, is in my mind, almost impossible to achieve. Usually those who claim to genuine love you can easily turn on you if you do something that reaches their limit, or something related to you cause them to reach their limit. I think that in most relationships, say in positions of high power, for example, in a royal family, sure. Many of your family members love you, but say you are next in line to be prince, there always tends to be someone who thinks themselves better deserving of it, may it be the throne or any other important position in regular life. There is always jealousy, resentment, lack of belief, and all those sentiments/ emotions related to the relationship between someone in a slightly more successful position, than the other. So being loved is almost quite impossible since jealousy is a big factor. But if truly loved, the people with such emotions towards you would decide to not act upon their feelings. So is being feared really that much better than being loved?

I mean, hatred could just as easily be masked with fear. In most cases, fear is cause by the need to dislike, to be constantly scared, being intimidated, and all those emotions related to fearing someone tend to be somewhat linked to hate. There is no person, or if so, a very small amount, of people who enjoy feeling bad. Fear is not an emotion often enjoyed and when people don’t like things, they begin of ways to change it so that they like how things are.  I disagree with what was said in class, fear is not forever, fear is temporarily and dangerously close to hate. If power is to be maintained, hate is not something that helps keep it. Fear has the same problem as love, people can fear you and be jealous of, making up plans of ways to get rid of you, but never really thinking they ever could because they are scared of you. But in tough times, it leads people against you, even if they fear you, people do crazy things in brave moments, things that would in other circumstances not be done due to their fear of it.

So in conclusion, I think that neither is actually very good. But I think that if one had to be chosen, it would have to be love since a drastic change must be made by those claiming to love you, in order for them to turn on you, while with fear, its relatively close.

Liberality

Machiavelli's The Prince,

While not necessarily a difficult reading, what it contained where definitely touchy subjects to think about. I'm not saying the reading was easy but because when we re-read it in class, I understood a few things way better than I did when I first read it alone. As the text was explained in class, I realized a few things I hadn’t realized on my own. For example, the true meaning of liberality within the context of the reading, sure I though oh, liberal, a bit more open minded, more giving, more concerned, but not necessarily money wise.

I don’t necessarily agree with what Machiavelli is advising people to do if they want to keep and maintain the level of power.  I've always been taught generosity is a good thing and that it is important for people to always be generous towards others, not only with money but also with various things, in general, generosity was a thing to be shared with those around you. Of course though, the ability to be generous, or liberal, as Machiavelli says, slowly decreases as time goes by, especially if it involves money.

But this is not always the case because liberality has to do with the ability to be free and loose with the generosity you provide to others, but if you are constantly being generous with your money, you will most likely loose it. So I think that in any case, Machiavelli should have just said that instead of faking to be liberal and generous, one should just be generous and liberal, every once in a while. I think that this is more impacting because if you are constantly investing money and giving it away, people wont necessarily say that you are liberal and generous but I figure that they'd say something about a rich person flaunting their money to society and just saying, "oh, look how rich I am! I have enough to waste in even terrible, unworthy causes." and that isn't very great. Instead, if you gave money out every once in a while to various different groups, I think that would work better because the people would say sure, he has tons of money, but he doesn’t waste it, he is consciously generous and liberal when he is generous. Which is better, because if you seek attention and power, they will be like little bursts of energy, so everything you are liberal and generous, other will say, oh, that person is sooo generous! And they will admire you, while also recognizing your financial power. But if you followed what I understood to be Machiavelli's advise, of always being liberal until you become broke, or just pretend and always be liberal, but in reality turning into a fake greedy person in charge, with monetary power, sure you'll have money, but eventually people will stop paying attention to every time you 'act' generously and liberal with your 'money,' because it would just become an aspect of who you are. Something you always do, which is less impressive. You would have to 'give more' in order to maintain the attention, and the power provided by that attention.

Contrasting Confucism and Han Fei-tsu, along with the Greeks.

I think Confucius thinks that in a good government the people are
pretty much one with the government, but still are somewhat scared of the government. Actually, not so much scared but more as in reflective, as in things would be done on how well the government itself did things. Since there is trust in the government and the government’s decisions, any rules that are set, according to what I understood from Confucius, will be rules that are followed since it’s thought that things are done in the best interest of the people, not of the leader. I also got that the Confucius ideals on government believe that all people deserve the same rights and the same opportunities to get ahead. Meaning, that everybody earns the amount that is needed by him or her, so everybody can afford to get what is needed. In other words, a level of opportunity and need is provided so that equality can exist, therefore simultaneously getting rid of injustice. I think that his ideology could have been somewhat of the basis of what the communist ideals represent and aim towards.

Confucius-ism strongly believed that in a government, the military was one of the least important things out of three main things. In Han Fei-tsu’s and the Greek’s case, the military though of as something very important as it provided safety. To the Greeks, it was particularly important because and safety provided with the ability to think freely and express oneself, which is usually a positive thing. While on the other hand, Han Fei-tsu agreed with it being important not only because it created safety, but because it could also produce fear and fear was believed to be the most successful method on keeping people from making ‘mistakes.’ On top of that, Han Fei-tsu believed that the citizens should be highly controlled, not giving option of free opinion. In other words, he did not believe that the people should have a say about what the government is doing, since ‘government knows best’. The Greeks thought that military was the very important, but also believed that the people governed should have a say on how their lives are to be lived.

The Philosopher King... real, skills, fake?

The ideal leader needs to be a lot of things.  He or she needs to be humble, caring, and thoughtful as well as being persuasive, intelligent, and confident enough to successfully perform their duties.  I think the skill that usually makes a leader gain followers is the ability to be confidant and convincing when giving out speeches.  To use Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, an ideal leader would be able to convince the population living on the lowest floor that what is real to them is not necessarily the real reality, that the reality is another and so on, until you reach the full reality outside of the cave.  A leader also has to have the best interest for his/her people and avoid corruption.

According to Plato, this leader would be the 'Philosophers King' because Plato, being a philosopher himself, thought that the perfect leader should be a philosopher as well since options are best analyzed and decisions better made by philosophers.  Plato must have been slightly (or not so slightly) conceited because the King that he described sounded a bit like him.  Plato thought that this ideal leader had not been found and I believe that that is true, we have not found the perfect leader.  I believe that we have found leaders with lots of these qualities, but never perfect. 

Some of these leaders that have had some of the qualities of the “Philosophers King” are not always the ones that reach their full potential. From what I have come to gather, most leaders seem to be very promising, having much potential and often being successful at reaching the goals that they promise, but never do they make it all the way. Jobs always seem somewhat left undone, as if a blank was left for someone else to fill, or later in time, they fail completely and collapse. I think that in our time, such a person as a 'Philosopher King' could most definitely exist but our society would not accept him as such. When will we know that we have a Philosopher King among us? When will he show up? Will he come in a time of great need kind of like a prophet or savior, or show up randomly?

The Wisdom of The People

The article that explained the Legalist Views on Good Government disturbed me a bit. For one, the way it talked about the importance of social level difference and the ‘significant intellectual difference’ between the 'people' and the 'ruler/leader/person in charge of governing, made it seem as if the 'people' knew nothing, as if they were useless, incapable of making good decisions, and lacked the ability to have a properly formed opinion. I think that while laws are important in any government, but there comes a time when the voice of the common people must be heard because they are the ones who usually get the worst bit, the hardest lifestyle, the lowest quality of attendance, of course though, not only are the poor people the ones who should voice their opinions and be able to have make an impact in the government’s decisions but also the middle class people and those who are upper class. I think that as a leader of a country, it is important to have and encourage participation from those who you govern because they have a perspective different to yours and could help improve the way you run your government. While when you set laws controlling everything, and as I understood from the Legalist views on good government, laws are set to keep people from making anything but the good choices. But this is what made me confused, errors are necessary if progress is to be made, so how successful could this actually be? And even with laws, many are broken, so what should be the moral of the people? Do not break laws or do what is honest and correct, therefore avoiding having a serious law system? I think that everything in moderation might be the best option since in every place, there is someone who is defiant, but not all should be limited because of the few.

Leaders in us.

Are leaders made or do average people develop into leaders? I think that it really just depends on what is going on at the time. The way that I see it, if at the time, things are going well overall, then leaders develop, not necessarily because there is a need for them but because they might be needed later. I think that it is during these kinds of times when leaders seem to not be needed that leaders develop on their own, although not all of them as strong as others or each other. I think that during tough times, many potential leaders develop but only a few actually have the strength, knowledge, and ability to be leaders. It is much more difficult to be a leader when things are bad, that is why we are forced to pick, to create our leaders in such times. Some times we have been wrong when picking which then caused many problems that involve our rights not being respected.
When leaders are chosen in chaos, people tend to think the immediate, not long term, this has Worked for the most part, but has also caused devastation issues in between governments and their people. I believe that many things can go wrong when we pick our leaders because power is addiction, some know how to control themselves but others don't, that is how dictatorships happen. Are there specific ways to know when a potential leader can turn into a potential dictator? Is it possible that this change between leader to oppressed is unpredictable and/ or  impossible?

I'm not sure what my opinion is, I can't decide on whether or not the change is possible, since I've never really had the opportunity to try and decide. But taking into consideration what was said about there being an ideal leader, the "Philosopher King," I think that yes, it does exists, not just one of them, but many.

Socialism, Communism, Democracy

What is Socialism? Socialism according to the dictionary is: 1. (In Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles, Or 2. A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. In my words, Socialism is a system of social organization that to Karl Marx was the first step to true communism, it supposedly consists on communist ideals of equal distribution except that its all controlled by a central power that owns it.

Communism according to the dictionary is: 1. A theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state. 2.  A system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party. My definition is a system of social organization developed by Marx, Engels, and Stalin, whose goal is to eliminate social levels, inequality, and monetary systems. "To each depending on necessities, and each depending on his dedication" is the definition of equality.

Democracy according to the dictionary is: 1. A form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. In my words a democracy is a type of government/ system of social organization where decisions are on popular vote.

So which is better? Is anyone of these the ideal government or could it be something else? Pros? Cons? If the whole world where to become one of these, which one would improve overall lifestyles the most? Which one would eliminate issues such as hunger, homelessness, pollution, over population, poverty, sustainable resources, etc.?

Angles and Sides

For the most part of the history of humanity, we as evolving beings who lived in communities have had some type of system to govern us and help control the populations. So with this, along with the creation of governments, various different ideologies developed. Such ideologies were that of capitalism, democracy, autocracy, socialism, imperialism, communism, etc. It was through this that later, new emerging governments began to take up, adopt, and merge some of these ideas to create governing systems, parties, and such.

In the movie, The Lives of Others, that we watched in class, we were able to learned a bit about East Germany's government, the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The movie revolved around the lives of a playwritter, an actress, and the Stasi. While the movie was not so much informative in my point of view, it was certainly a touching storyline. I just wonder, why was the East German government put as something terrible, and the Stasi as something even worse? Sure that the Stasi really did ruin some innocent peoples lives because of false tip-offs, and suspicion, but among those there were also many who were attempting against the German Democratic Republic.

In the movie, the extremes were very well shown; as they served their purpose, exaggerate somewhat the negatives. One can't really say "oh, the stasi were horrible people, how could they live spying on others, and interrogate, etc." But I think that in order for us to really be able to form an opinion on something, we must be shown, or learn about both the pros and cons of it. Although I don't know all that much about how things really were in East Germany, I refuse to believe it was all that bad because the ideals that the East German Communist Party was based on, were really good, even though in the application of those ideals, the country took a more socialist form and up to some point deprived it's citizens of their rights to privacy. But of course I think the invadance of Dreyman's home and life was a bit tooo invading. I understand that governments have to keep track of what it's citizens are doing, just about every government that wants to maintain their reputation and their political views intact, are forced to try and control to a certain extent, it's citizens freedom of speech. Not even here in the United States do we have total freedom of speech, even with all the rights that are made to protect us.

While I watched the movie, I made a connection between what the Stasi did and what the CIA and FBI do. Their jobs are to protect the country, and remove threats. Sure it isn't very common to hear about the CIA or FBI going around bugging homes and assigning special trackers/ spies to know about all you do, but that's because it isn't all that public either, because possible threats must first be proved threats, right? But, it is still done. From what I've heard, there are files kept on each and everyone of us, sure not extremely detailed but that's because most of us are very happy with our government so why would we talk bad about it or try to make a change in the way it works? For one, I think that there is a thin line between thinking of ways to improve the way in which a government works and in the way it is run, and dis liking the government to the point of bashing it and criticizing it in a non-productive way. I think that these two can be easily confused with one another, which is why many times, injustice is committed in many places around the world, no one wants to be talked bad about.