Can we have a discussion on cults of personality? How are they

>>3359663
>How are they created
A potent mix of isolationaism, supression of dissent, and authoritarianism, the best way to secure despotic rule is to have as many as possible (with power) recognize your rule as legitimate.
>What drives people to so fervently support murderous tyrants?
Intellectual dishonesty, mostly, the ideas that Monarchy/Socialism/Fascism is a totally legitiamate view, and the requirement of anyone speaking out for those posititons to defend what the public at large see as the embodiment of the system, Tankies deny their famines, Nazis deny their holocausts, and because both of these happened under a despotic government, there's a need that for the ideology to be valid, the despot had to be valid.

Father fixation on a larger level. Nation is in this instance always a mother-figure, while the people are children in need of "care and protection".

Strong, infallible, strict but just father-like figure is protecting his people (children) and his nation (mother). It's a deeply rooted psychological cause.

>>3359663
Well, in North Korea it grew out of Kim Jong-Il's attempts to claim power. People tend to misunderstand and assume Jong-il had power handed to him by Il-sung from the start, but Jong-Il's mother wasn't Il-Sung's official wife. Growing up, his half brothers took precedence.

Excessive praise of his father wasn't just brown nosing though: by doing it he set his father up as a mythical being, which of course made him seem more important. But it also set himself up as a superhuman figure through what he was doing: being the supremely dedicated, loyal and vigilant son, a sign of good moral character in a confucian society.

And most importantly, he did this when foreign exchange was becoming non-existant in the North Korean economy. And he didn't just offer praise but gifts. Vintage wines, western electronics and watches, an entire fucking research institute to extending his father's life, a fucking legion of trained child prostitutes.

And it wasn't like he was just pulling money out of the state budget to pay for this. There was nothing in the state budget to pay for this. Only Kim Jong-Il could secure outside goods like this. And Jong-Il climbed to the top like this.

And he set the pattern of how to move up the ladder in NK politics (especially since the old ways were gone). With rediculous, over the top praise, you're using a rhetorical device that makes you seem better too. By emphasizing how certain you are of Kim Jong-Il's skills as a general, you paint yourself as a loyal and humble soldier, etc. Snd by procuring bribes, you demonstrate how you can back up your words and get things done...which of course, makes it a competition. That's how it quickly gets over the top: tou have multiple officials and factions trying to outdo each other in their extravagant praise and gift giving, and so it takes on a life of it's own, independent of having it beaten into you by official decree.

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>>3359663

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>>3359663
I'll tell you precisely how they are created.

Political thinkers spend their whole time discussing and reading about the nuances of political systems, their implementation, etc.

To most people, this sounds like mumbo jumbo that is way too boring. Too bad most political systems can't be properly implemented without a critical mass of people understanding them.

Politicians know most people are stupid, so they half-ass the implementation of whatever political system in a way that will benefit them, while using the tendency of the proletariat to engage in celebrity worship to consolidate their power.

The cult of the personality is the fault of the elite for being exploitative narcissistic assholes, and of the proletariat for being illiterate morons who more readily understand icons and faces than the complex ideology they represent.

Children are also a problem. You raise them on images of Jesus/Mao/Whatever until they can READ. If we could spawn adult androids with fully formed political ideology we might see a political ideology ACTUALLY GET IMPLEMENTED WITH FULL COOPERATION AMONG ITS ADHERENTS.

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>>3361563
>Children are also a problem. You raise them on images of Jesus/Mao/Whatever until they can READ.

Let me add: This is what indoctrinates people into cults of personality. The iconography. It predates the literature and has a stronger psychological impact. Iconoclasts understood what modern ideologues consistently fail to understand. You cannot indoctrinate enough people with a PROPER understanding of an ideology while raising them on iconography.

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>>3361587
>it predates the literature
let me clarify that I don't mean this literally
I mean this psychologically. The painting of Jesus might be 1,000 years younger than the new testament, but a child is able to understand it and recognize it before being able to read the new testament for him or herself. The same goes for images of Mao, Trump, whoever. The details serve the point here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass_(sociodynamics)

You need a critical mass of people who UNDERSTAND the ideology in its INTELLECTUAL FULLNESS. You almost never see this except in ideologies which force adherents to go through rigorous training before being considered "members." Ideologies like Christianity, and modern political parties let anyone "into" the fold whether they truly understand/care or not. This creates a massive lack of what industries call "quality control" in the product, where the product is, in this case, a fully-formed ideologue.

>>3359693
Cults of personality don't need totalitarianism to exist.
>A potent mix of isolationaism, supression of dissent, and authoritarianism, the best way to secure despotic rule is to have as many as possible (with power) recognize your rule as legitimate.
These things help, but are not essential.

celebrity, royalty, and politician worship in the "free world" demonstrates this quite well.

>>3359663
>Can we have a discussion on cults of personality? How are they created?

By the CIA and western oligarchs.

>>3361704
Nice one chomsky