la_marquise (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
la_marquise) wrote2025-02-21 11:44 am
la_marquise) wrote2025-02-21 11:44 am
On dictators
Dictators are frightening.
They persecute, they harm, they plunder and they treat the vast majority of us with utter contempt. We are relevant only as resources to be exploited, for labour, for money, as props in their lives. They're the ultimate narcissists, and they glory in that. And it's terrifying to be subject to their whims. They kill people: all of them are mass murderers. They distort lives and use their power to inflict their bigotries on everyone else. They are the worst of humanity.
It's okay to be frightened and overwhelmed: that's a natural response. It's okay to be confused. It's okay not to be fighting all day everyday. We take turns with that, and we support each other. Some of us are in far safer, far more privileged situations than others and it's reasonable to ask those who are comparatively safe to do more of the heavy lifting.
But here's the thing: they aren't invincible.
And at heart, they're afraid. That's one of the reasons they are so desperate to control and divide us. Because we always outnumber them. They try and try to get into our minds, to make us compliant and dependent. There's a reason Elooong wants to install chips into people's brains. There's a reason governments create networks of quislings and informers and secret police. There's a reason they want to control the media and education. They don't want us to discover each other's humanity, to combine against them, to learn that other ways of thinking and acting and being exist. We frighten them.
Easy for me to say, perhaps. Right now, the world is scary for an awful lot of people.
But, looking at this in historian mode, these people fall. These systems fail, and in general this has been happening faster from the beginning of the 20th century. There is light at the end of this tunnel.
They persecute, they harm, they plunder and they treat the vast majority of us with utter contempt. We are relevant only as resources to be exploited, for labour, for money, as props in their lives. They're the ultimate narcissists, and they glory in that. And it's terrifying to be subject to their whims. They kill people: all of them are mass murderers. They distort lives and use their power to inflict their bigotries on everyone else. They are the worst of humanity.
It's okay to be frightened and overwhelmed: that's a natural response. It's okay to be confused. It's okay not to be fighting all day everyday. We take turns with that, and we support each other. Some of us are in far safer, far more privileged situations than others and it's reasonable to ask those who are comparatively safe to do more of the heavy lifting.
But here's the thing: they aren't invincible.
And at heart, they're afraid. That's one of the reasons they are so desperate to control and divide us. Because we always outnumber them. They try and try to get into our minds, to make us compliant and dependent. There's a reason Elooong wants to install chips into people's brains. There's a reason governments create networks of quislings and informers and secret police. There's a reason they want to control the media and education. They don't want us to discover each other's humanity, to combine against them, to learn that other ways of thinking and acting and being exist. We frighten them.
Easy for me to say, perhaps. Right now, the world is scary for an awful lot of people.
But, looking at this in historian mode, these people fall. These systems fail, and in general this has been happening faster from the beginning of the 20th century. There is light at the end of this tunnel.