Friday, April 1, 2016

Communist Aristocracy vs. Hypocrisy and Competition for Power

So. (Via.)
They strike me as natural aristocrats, and I think they would be excellent people in a better world. They are intelligent, energetic, industrious, and often even witty. I would be happy to hand absolute power over to any one of them.
This is untrue. The only question is how many levels of untrue it is.

Can't be a natural aristocrat while being lead around by the nose.

There's controversy about how much ideology in fact directs behaviour. Do Communists bother to know enough about communism to implement communism per se? Or do they simply do whatever is selfishly best in the most narrow sense, and we call the result communism? Humans are hypocritical enough that it's almost impossible to tell what beliefs, are based on professions.

It's less controversial to note that if a putative aristo is being lead, their enemies will be able to tell where they're going and outflank them, just as I, an almost total stranger, can predict their actions. They forfeit the game of thrones before they even sit down to play.

An aristocrat is a master. Cannot combine being a master with being mastered by the system.
There’s an old Prussian Army saying that I adore: “those who wish to command must first learn to obey.”
Generally a good idea, yes. But at some point one must stop following and lead. And someone does, but they don't have to post on Twitter to get noticed, and consequently you don't notice them if you rely on Twitter.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

“those who wish to command must first learn to obey.”

But keep in mind that officer training sets problems that require, for a successful solution, that an order be disobeyed: and failing to solve these problems stops promotion.