Seminar: Augustus and Hitler

First meeting: 4 April

How good of a dictator would you be?[Take this test and report on your grade next week]...and...a set of dictator cards and decals; how about Friendly Dictators? and a manual on how to be a dictator.

Note the annual 'dictator' issue of Parade Magazine

Program (all times approximate):

Introductions, review of schedule and themes of the course (20 min 15:30 to 15:50)
The paper assignment (10 min. 15:50 to 16:00)
Serious but free discussion of the issues of dictatorship and tyranny (60 min.: 16:40 to 17:40) .

What do Augustus and Hitler have in common? Not identical, but are there sufficient similarities to discuss them together? And how do they compare to others?

Tyrant, dictator; fascism; totalitarian, autocratic .... various forms

The Classical Definition of Tyranny: The Tyrant seized power, gaining popular support by promising to defend the poor from the aristocracy …the traditional definition of the Greeks. Is there a difference between "dictator" and "tyrant"?

Karl Friedrich: 'six point syndrome' of a totalitarian state:

an official ideology
a single mass party
terroristic police control
monopoly control of the media
a monopoly of arms
central control of the economy

In the 20th Century, dictators have become closely associated with "totalitarianism" in European countries. a dictator / tyrant is one who:

maintains but subverts the constitution; constraints put on political liberties—legal, procedural, institutional; sometimes (aka: 'party') an organization parallel to the apparatus of the state. Claim that the party and its leader represent the 'will of the people' as a whole (even if they don't know that!). The superiority of the Führererlass. A personal oath of allegiance, first in party, then in state.
preserves power by intimidation; typically controls strategic places and has a body guard.
is the object public veneration as a "heroic" and "transcending" savior. Represents a “popular/national” program: national revival (art, architecture, events); an important variant on this theme is the identification of an "enemy" (internal or external).
his power is confirmed by the public acceptance of a criminal act. That is, when the "crime" goes unpunished, the dictator has transcended the existing legal contrainsts...princeps super legibus. Göring in July 1934 after the Röhm purge "we all approve, always approve, whateve our Führer does."
rejects European liberalism and humanism (as the sources of all problems; could not represent the will of the people, only that of factions); who perceives his cause as "revolutionary" (contruct a "new" state, "new" social order), and who uses "science" to justify the pursuit of "progress". Perceives old order as degenerate. "True democracy means not a helpless surrender to cliques, but submission to a leader whom the people have elected themselves" Max Weber, 1922...the use of the plebiscite.
Is there such a thing as the benevolent dictator?

Aristotle:

http://pages.prodigy.net/mschnall/tyrant.html. [This link no longer works, but if anyone knows the episode, please le me know]. Includes a lengthy excerpt from Aristotle’s politics and also an interesting clip from the “X-Files” on the subject of tyranny. From Politics, book V.

The tyrant should lop off those who are too high; he must put to death men of spirit; he must not allow common meals, clubs, education, and the like; he must be upon his guard against anything which is likely to inspire either courage or confidence among his subjects; he must prohibit literary assemblies or other meetings for discussion, and he must take every means to prevent people from knowing one another, for acquaintance begets mutual confidence.

Further, he must compel all persons staying in the city to appear in public and live at his gates; then he will know what they are doing: if they are always kept down, they will learn to be humble… A tyrant should also endeavor to know what each of his subjects says or does, and should employ spies… for the fear of informers prevents people from speaking their minds, and if they do, they are more easily found out.

Another art of the tyrant is to sow quarrels among the citizens; friends should be embroiled with friends, the people with the notables, and the rich with one another. Also he should impoverish his subjects... by keeping them hard at work, are [they] prevented from conspiring…Another practice of tyrants is to multiply taxes…The tyrant is also fond of making war in order that his subjects may have something to do and be always in want of a leader.

Tyrants are always fond of bad men, because they love to be flattered, but no man who has the spirit of a freeman in him will lower himself by flattery; good men love others, or at any rate do not flatter them. Moreover, the bad are useful for bad purposes. It is characteristic of a tyrant to dislike every one who has dignity or independence; he wants to be alone in his glory, but any one who claims a like dignity or asserts his independence encroaches upon his prerogative, and is hated by him as an enemy to his power.

Such are the habits of the tyrant and the arts by which he preserves his power; there is no wickedness too great for him. All that we have said may be summed up under three heads, which answer to the three aims of the tyrant. These are, (1) the humiliation of his subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will not conspire against anybody; (2) the creation of mistrust among them; for a tyrant is not overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another; and this is the reason why tyrants are at war with the good; they are under the idea that their power is endangered by them, not only because they would not be ruled despotically but also because they are loyal to one another, and to other men, and do not inform against one another or against other men; (3) the tyrant desires that his subjects shall be incapable of action, for no one attempts what is impossible, and they will not attempt to overthrow a tyranny, if they are powerless.