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Sun 24 Jan, 2016 08:26 am
Does "happily preside over the starvation of their own people" mean "happily lead their own people to the starvation"?
Context:
The problem with such tyrants is not that they reject the dogma of religion, but that they embrace other life-destroying myths. Most become the center of a quasi-religious personality cult, requiring the continual use of propaganda for its maintenance. There is a difference between propaganda and the honest dissemination of information that we (generally) expect from a liberal democracy. Tyrants who orchestrate genocides, or who happily preside over the starvation of their own people, also tend to be profoundly idiosyncratic men, not champions of reason. Kim Il Sung, for instance, demanded that his beds at his various dwellings be situated precisely five hundred meters above sea level. His duvets had to be filled with the softest down imaginable. What is the softest down imaginable? It apparently comes from the chin of a sparrow. Seven hundred thousand sparrows were required to fill a single duvet. Given the profundity of his esoteric concerns, we might wonder how reasonable a man Kim Il Sung actually was.
-Sam Harris
@oristarA,
I think it means less like they initiate conditions of starvation, but rather just don't give a damn. I didn't see the word megalomania in the text, but it would apply, as would sociopathic.
@neologist,
neologist wrote:
I think it means less like they initiate conditions of starvation, but rather just don't give a damn. I didn't see the word megalomania in the text, but it would apply, as would sociopathic.
Thanks.
Failed to get the grammatical structure of "as would sociopathic." Does it refer to "as would (the word) sociopathic (apply)"?
@oristarA,
Generally, the words 'sociopath' and 'psychopath' refer to individuals who relate to other humans as objects.
@oristarA,
Happily be the leader of the people while those people starve.
@neologist,
neologist wrote:
Generally, the words 'sociopath' and 'psychopath' refer to individuals who relate to other humans as objects.
Yes, that is understandable. But you used an adjective, not a noun: "as would
sociopathic."
@oristarA,
Just a reflex. The writer used the word 'idiosyncratic".
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