Dictator Personality Anyone?

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I do not really know exactly what a dictator's personality or psychological profile is supposed to be like, but I was wondering whether anyone else feels like they have a personality similar to what they believe a dictator would have. I am not referring to psychopaths like Hitler or Stalin, but just in general does anyone feel like they have a controlling personality( not controlling of individual people ), but that they believe that a specific "world view" - and I use that term very loosely - a specific world view and way of being should prevail? I also do not refer to any sort of racist, sexist or homophobic agenda, but more of a sort of contempt for how things are, how the "normal" masses think and how they try to impose their slothfull "slave morality" ( a term coined by Friedrich Nietszche ), on others - or at least a perceived imposition of their weak pious morality on others.

Friedrich Nietzche said more or less that the dumb masses try to impose their slothfull moral values on others especially the noble people or "supermen" so they can level the playing field. This, as many people have misunderstood ( especially Hitler ), was not based on race or anything like that. It was, from my own interpretation, a way of the normal people trying to bring down the gifted and different people to their own level so that the latter wouldn't get any advantage over them. As a specific example, he mentions that the christian clergy of the time tried to brainwash people into rejecting the physical and sensual precisely because the clergy where the most physically decrepit of people at a natural disadvantage.

In summary I am one who feels that if people are gifted in some way whether physically or mentally, they should ruthelessly exploit their gifts to gain the upper hand on everyone else without shame or hindrance. (ruthelessly but not dishonestly or with any cruelty ). I do not claim to be one of these gifted people by the way. But I believe, If you are good looking, you should have a proportinally good looking partner. If you are highly intelligent, you should be rewarded proportionatley to your intelligence. Everything should follow this simple logic. Maybe it is my own misinterpretation of society, but I often feel that society is too soft-headed to accept these simple rules. It's as if there is an undeclared war between those who try to gain an advantage with their gifts and those who try to equalize everyone. Maybe this is just what it means to be human; the normal human condition not some defect of nature, I don't know but I have never read an article by a sociologist or psychologist that addresses this admittedly strange topic.

I often see movie stars or celebrities who are ( for want of a better word ) - freaks. And yet they have achieved a godlike status for no apparent reason other than the fact they seem to satisfy the masses simply because they are "normal everyday people" and completely inoffensive. I also find that people who are gifted in some way are often ridiculed or treated with a cruel contempt as if simply because they are better in some way, they do not deserve the same sympathy or rights as all the other "normal people". I find that sort of mentality upsets me and I would prefer if my world view was the norm and yet I can't help feel as if there would be many people who would believe my ideas where "evil", while I believe that I am in no way trying to be evil. In fact I believe if you are part of a gifted minority, you would find the imposition of the masses' slave morality as evil yet they would not be classified as evil simply because you are part of a numerical minority. However, I believe that probably one of the fundamental reasons many autistic spectrum people find themselves lonely is because they cannot accept the seemingly contrived complexities of human society and it does not neatly fit into their more logically structured and less sentimental world view.

Does anybody ever have these strange ideas or even think about these things? I would be very interested to know. I admit they sound disturbing even to me.

Certainly, but neither the crippling of others nor the gain of an upper hand ever alters any terrain.

"They seem disturbing even to me" is very Nietzschean.

Nietzsche is a complicated and wildly inconsistent philosopher - his inconsistency is a virtue, he's too honest not to make his uncertainties explicit and argue against everything he himself says.

And to directly answer your question, yes, I think I can identify with the elitist mindset of some dictators, Mussolini in particular. But some dictators, like Stalin, were extremely un-Nietzschean - drab, without imagination, without any sense of their own absurdity. Hitler was somewhere between Stalin and Mussolini - he read Nietzsche but was a rigid idiot and had no ability to understand him.

A few years ago I read a paper about Nietzsche and his concept of politics as the great man (Napoleon was who N. referred to) using the world, and its inhabitants, as a sort of canvas. As with everything Nietzsche wrote, he sometimes expressed opinions that run fully contrary to this, but I'm sure he understood the Mussolini-type mentality.

Incidentally (rambling on, but I adore Nietzsche and want to encourage you to explore him) his narrative in the geneaology of morals is, as history, nonsense, it's intended more as a counter-myth to the prevailing democratic/liberal/christian myths that he found objectionable. I doubt he ever believed morality developed in the way that he describes it, but I think the "moral" he believed to be true - i.e. his story about the origins of morality illustrates how he believes morality is connected to weakness, ressentiment, etc.

I agree that the masses seem to almost beg to be exploited, but I wouldn't feel at all comfy ruling over them. I just want them to pull their fingers out and think for themselves. Doesn't matter if it's me or somebody else dominating them, or if it's the natural order of things to do so, I'm against it. Inasfar as I have leadership skills, I don't use them to take from people, and will always prefer support the underdogs if and when they struggle to overthrow the tyrants.

I must have one, or at least a desire to be a government official. Hell, I want to be governor of New York.

Yes I strongly agree that Nietzsche was very self-contradictory. It's not that I take every thing he said as gospel, but there are certain things that strike a chord even if they are not scientific fact. I think even his self-contradiction had a logic of it's own probably intended to jolt people out of any kind of conformity or any sort of mental laziness in any direction (whether Nietzche was conscious of this or not). For the sake of being as objective as possible, I have to stress that I do not think my ideas are necessarily correct. Actually I think if anything my ideas are probably based more on feelings than pure logic, it's just that I am curious if any of you folks out there have similar inclinations.

Yes.

I know someone who has a bit of a dictator personaliy. She's not a very pleasant person, to be around. She thinks that she can bully everybody around, at my clubhouse. She carries herself, like she's a man, with a 10 inch cock.

Yeah, well, I do have such inclinations. And the whole quoted section I agree w. basically. The OP suggested you were certain of your views in a very un-Nietzschean way but apparently not.

edit: i.e. I mean the wording suggested that, basically: the "should" talk etc. Or that's the impression I got anyway. But that's been clarified.

And this is a good point and gets to the heart of why I like N.:

I often compare myself to Hitler, though I know I am morally his superior.

I'm not like that at all. Not an elitist bone in my body, and I don't go in for calling most people "sheeple" or other condescending crap like that.

What does logic have to do with any of that? What is desirable to a given person is not the same as "logical." Believing that intelligence (not going get into by what measure) is "good" is a value, not a logical deduction.

As far as ruthlessly exploiting to get the upper hand -- that assumes that that intelligence, and other traits the writer values are necessary or sufficient to successfully accomplishing that goal. What if they aren't? What if charisma or schmoozing is worth 10 times what intelligence is? ...Then come the cries of "that is an irrational system! It should reward me for what I think I should be rewarded for!" But it's not irrational, and it's not rational. No system of values is.

A guy working in a coal mine will consider that risking his life ought to entitle him to high pay. You're good at C-star algebras (or whatever kind of advanced math), and think that should entitle you to high pay. That is a difference in values. It has nothing to do with logic. And logic can never provide an answer as to which is the better rule to base pay on.



It's not contrived, it's a system that evolved for various reasons. The thought seems to be that the system should be set up so that the talented rise to "the top." But, ironically, if that did happen, they would then likely try to change the system, so that no one else could follow in their footsteps. Success doesn't like competition, and the wealthy do put pressure to try to make things such that people can't "rise" too far to threaten their status. It's like how small businesses like free-market competition, and big ones like an anti-free-market system (monopoly). So a system initially set up to let the "gifted" rise will likely result in them changing it when they get to the top so that people like then won't be able to get to the top and threaten their dominant status.

Evolution (of systems as well as biology) just doesn't care very much what we think is good or bad and what should be rewarded. This is not to say I think the way things are is good, but my complaints are different.

Sounds like "Jumped up adolescent who thinks they've invented philosophy" personality to me. Nothing new, nothing surprising, nothing I haven't heard before from a bunch of people who thought that it made them less unremarkable than they were.

In all probability you are correct Apple_in_my_Eye. I wasn't really arguing that what I thought or what my feelings where, are correct. I was only really saying that I just get an uneasy feeling when things are measured or when people are propped up almost irrationally based on such qualities as schmoozing or things like that that I personally value less than the other qualities such as intelligence or appearance. (And that's not because I am good looking or intelligent because I am not particularly either). But I mean just look for example at the American movie industry. In the 50s and 60s, the movie stars where generally better looking, better at acting and more sophisticated. And they also spoke better English and behaved like adults not like little ret*d children like many actors do today. Just look at "Dharma and Greg" and you'll see exactly what I mean. I know it's a great generalization but I do believe the actors and their acting was of superior quality back then. And that's not taking into consideration how the content has become more explicit and so forth, it's just the acting and the actors I refer to.

Also in America at that time more people graduated with science degrees and put more value on academic achievement. This as you probably all know has changed dramatically. And this is the same trend in my own country, Australia, and probably many other developed countries. And I think it's because there is too much importance placed on useless qualities like looking cool and playing the system and schmoozing your way to the top which in my humble opinion just causes a society to rot. It's just that, or at least the perception that that has happened, that really annoys me.