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.