Crushing on Crushers. Why do intellectuals fall in love with dictators and totalitarians?

[rangerrebew]

Crushing on Crushers
Why do intellectuals fall in love with dictators and totalitarians?
Theodore Dalrymple
May 19, 2017 Arts and Culture

 

Imprisoned serial killers of women are often the object of marriage proposals from women who know nothing of them except their criminal record. This curious phenomenon indicates the depths to which self-deception can sink in determining human action. The women making such offers presumably believe that an essential core of goodness subsists in the killers and that they are uniquely the ones to bring it to the surface. They thereby also distinguish themselves from other women, whose attitude to serial killers is more conventional and unthinkingly condemnatory. They thus see further and deeper, and feel more strongly, than their conventional sisters. By contrast, they show no particular interest in petty, or pettier, criminals.

Something similar can be noted in the attitude of at least some intellectuals toward dictators, especially if those dictators claim to be in pursuit of a utopian vision. Paul Hollander, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has long had an interest in political deception and self-deception—not surprising in someone with first-hand experience of both the Nazis and the Communists in his native Hungary. In 1981, he published his classic study of Western intellectuals who traveled, mainly on severely guided tours, to Communist countries, principally Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, and Castro’s Cuba, and returned with glowing accounts of the new (and better) worlds under construction there. The contrast between their accounts and reality would have been funny had reality itself not been so terrible.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/crushing-crushers-15207.html

[r9etb]

First, there is the nature of the dictator to consider. Obviously not all dictators are equal, any more than are intellectuals. It was harder for non-German intellectuals to admire Hitler than Stalin because of the nature of Hitler’s ideas: claiming the inherent and ineradicable superiority of one’s own race and nation in everything from time immemorial is not the best way to attract foreign adherents.

This is an unfortunate statement because it leaves out something important.  The fact is that Hitler had many quite influential admirers and/or apologists in the West, including a fairly large swath of the British aristocracy and much of the leadership of the America First movement.

Perhaps the author's point is that Hitler's admirers were not mainly of the "intellectual" class; those worthies had already given their hearts and minds to defending Stalin and Stalinism.  But at the same time, those same intellectuals only turned on Hitler after June, 1941, when the Nazis invaded Russia.

[Free Vulcan]

There are too many people on this earth who are by nature idealistic and utopian, with a very rigid, narrow and often sociopathic vision of how things should be structured. Their solutions are strictly knocking down any obstacles rather than convincing people.

Academia is susceptible to that kind of thinking because of their ivory tower environment and elitism. Their desires for a more abstract and idealistic world plays right into the ideologue's hands.

[r9etb]

There are too many people on this earth who are by nature idealistic and utopian, with a very rigid, narrow and often sociopathic vision of how things should be structured. Their solutions are strictly knocking down any obstacles rather than convincing people.

Academia is susceptible to that kind of thinking because of their ivory tower environment and elitism. Their desires for a more abstract and idealistic world plays right into the ideologue's hands.

I think that's probably human nature -- not limited to intellectuals.  We're all susceptible to some extent.  More to the point, I think the tendency you mention is probably the defining feature of modern American politics, which led to the election of both Obama and Trump.  (And Bill Clinton, too, though perhaps to a lesser extent.)

[Old Warrior in Exile]

There are too many people on this earth who are by nature idealistic and utopian, with a very rigid, narrow and often sociopathic vision of how things should be structured. Their solutions are strictly knocking down any obstacles rather than convincing people.

Academia is susceptible to that kind of thinking because of their ivory tower environment and elitism. Their desires for a more abstract and idealistic world plays right into the ideologue's hands.

The key word in your post is sociopathic.

Their Utopian vision is how things should be structured for the peasants, but not for themselves.
Socialism for thee, but not for me.

It is the lust for control of others, or to see others controlled, whom they consider to be beneath them that is the driving force. I believe they find it curiously arousing when the plebs have a boot on their throats.

[truth_seeker]

This is an unfortunate statement because it leaves out something important.  The fact is that Hitler had many quite influential admirers and/or apologists in the West, including a fairly large swath of the British aristocracy and much of the leadership of the America First movement.

Perhaps the author's point is that Hitler's admirers were not mainly of the "intellectual" class; those worthies had already given their hearts and minds to defending Stalin and Stalinism.  But at the same time, those same intellectuals only turned on Hitler after June, 1941, when the Nazis invaded Russia.

1. Hitler was elected

2. His treacheries went unknown/little known until well into his tenure

3. The America First movement in 1940 numbered about 800,000 out of population of 160,000,000

4. The principle reason AF was popular in America, was the fact Europe had wars off and on for centuries. America had just recently lost 117,000 dead fighting in WW I.

5. It did NOT make America Pro-Hitler, or Pro-Nazi, or White Supremacist, to want to stay out of it.

[r9etb]

1. Hitler was elected

2. His treacheries went unknown/little known until well into his tenure

3. The America First movement in 1940 numbered about 800,000 out of population of 160,000,000

4. The principle reason AF was popular in America, was the fact Europe had wars off and on for centuries. America had just recently lost 117,000 dead fighting in WW I.

5. It did NOT make America Pro-Hitler, or Pro-Nazi, or White Supremacist, to want to stay out of it.

1.  So?
2.  So?
3.  So?
4.  So?
5.  So?

You utterly missed the point of what I was saying, and I strongly suspect you also miss the point of the article itself.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Everybody believes that if they just ruled the world, life would be completely perfect for everyone.

Intellectuals believe this too, but they also believe they're smarter than everyone else, hence their love for dictatorships and such.

[r9etb]

Everybody believes that if they just ruled the world, life would be completely perfect for everyone.

Intellectuals believe this too, but they also believe they're smarter than everyone else, hence their love for dictatorships and such.

You raise an interesting point. 

Hollander says that intellectuals are drawn to utopian dictatorships -- but I would perhaps modify this to utopian systems, probably because they figure they're capable of making all the right decisions for all the right reasons.  This never works in practice, of course, which is why practical utopianism so often (i.e., always) quickly devolves into oppression. 

On the other hand, there are also a lot of people -- intellectuals and otherwise -- who go out looking for someone to rule over them. 

Sometimes those two ideas overlap, as in the slavish devotion of the leftist intelligentsia to the likes of Castro or the socialist regime of Daniel Ortega.

[geronl]

Power, even evil power turns certain people on.

We have seen it for a long time, we saw it with Castro, Chavez etc etc

Yes, we can even see a bit of that in non-evil politicians sometimes right here in this country.

[geronl]

1. Hitler was elected

When?

He came in second in 1932 to Von Hindenburg 53% to 36.8%. (the Commie got 10%)

The NAZI's and Communists were dividing the left.

He was APPOINTED Chancellor in January 1933. The Reichstag burned in February and the really old Hindenburg issued the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties. With the NAZI's controlling numerous government offices this was used as a basis to crack down on all anti-NAZI activity.

Hindenburg died in 1934, ushering in the NAZI-era.