Peter the Reformer

[nutronjon]

Is Bin Laden deserving of being called Bin Laden the Great? He has followers and has achieved some military victories, although he is very disadvantaged compared to the military powers of George Bush. Is this what makes a man worthy of being called Great?

 

In answer to question of what makes a person a tyrant, it is a power structure that does not restrain the person. I think all kings would be tyrant. I know our dictionaries add cruelty and oppressive to the meaning of tyrant, and this unfortunately misleading. The worst tyrants are very nice people, who believe they are acting for the good of others. A tyrant is someone who can do as s/he pleases, because those who are done to can not prevent the doing. This definition includes mothers, fathers and three year old children. We tend to give bureaucrats the power of tyrants. What makes a tyrant a tyrant is the power relationship. They hold the power and those who are done to do not.

 

I think you have glazed over the importance of the church to Peter's power a little too quickly. What happened to the church in the west, that did not happen to the Orthodox Church?

 

Marx was German, and perhaps no country has been more torn apart then Germany because of religious conflict. The 30 Years War which devasted Germany, began as a conflict between Protestants and Catholic. The French also witnessed terrible conflict between Protestants and Catholics, and wars between England and France were wars between Protestants and Catholics. The democracy of the US is in part because of science and in part because of this religious conflict. The consciousness of our world was changing when Marx wrote, and this change has everything to do with the freedom of democracy or the opposite, living under a despot. This is the east/west conflict, and it is as old as Persia and Athens. This is a fascinating subject and I very mcuh appreciate your interest. You are better informed about Russian history than I am.

[alexander]

The worst tyrants are very nice people, who believe they are acting for the good of others. A tyrant is someone who can do as s/he pleases, because those who are done to can not prevent the doing. This definition includes mothers, fathers and three year old children. We tend to give bureaucrats the power of tyrants. What makes a tyrant a tyrant is the power relationship.

using this definition, almost every person is a tyrant. anyone who has ever ruled was a tyrant for sure, which makes peter yet another tyrant. Your parents would immediately become tyrants if they have ever taken a fork away from a young you. Not-so-virgin Marry was a tyrant of biblical proportions, because she must have taken rocks and stuff away from Jesus so he would not try to eat them.... The cruelty and oppressiveness should both be in the definition of a tyrant, because that is what is a modern man thinks when someone says that word.... so let's stick with that

 

Is Bin Laden deserving of being called Bin Laden the Great

He may very well be, and to his followers he already is the great Bin Laden. He was a worthy soldier, and a general of the Afghan rebel forces fighting the oppressive communists, who were trying to conquer them. He was a good general in that same war, and now he is the man who is leading the fight agains the non-believers in the world.... to his followers, he already is great.

 

You see the perspective of "the Great" is dependent on which direction you look at it... and sometimes the outside view, and the inside view differ quite greatly. You see, to you, a person who looks at someone from the perspective of "He killed a bunch of people, he killed his son for being stupid, he expanded the territory of Russia by killing more people, he is a tyrant" he may not seem like the same person who looks at him as "He changed russian tradition (feat on itself, russian traditions are very hard to temper with) and standardized a whole crapload of stuff, he opened new trading routes to europe and brought in new technologies and crop(potato) from the west. He started modernising russia, he gave it it's fleet and newer style weapons so it can defend itself. He built the impossible, a beautifully architecturally sound, truly european city... on a swamp... he built up russian economy, and it's image in the eyes of the down-looking westerners... stabelized the throne and rule line."

 

anyhow, this tyrant talk is useless unless you harshen your definition of Tyrant until most people don't fall in that category, then we can talk this tyrany. If you are trying to play devil's advocate, please use historical examples of what it is you don't agree with and what it is you as a russian tzar at the time would do. Till then, this discussion is more like trying to explain to a religious person that god is a fairy tale that ancient people created to explain what they could not explain about the world...

[nutronjon]

Yes, exactly, as our parents have the power of tyrants. I think the point I am making is essential to understand. The US has balanced powers, because tyranny is about the relationship of those in power with those they have power over. Unfortunately for many years, the presidency has gained unbalanced powers and Cheney and Bush have taken this to extremes, even violating international law by condoning the abuse of human beings, one of those tortured, giving false information that lead to justifying the attack on Iraq. What a mess. The US is in serious trouble, but because their dictionaries give them a poor definition of tyranny, they don't realize seriousness of the trouble.

 

Many years ago, the Children's Protective Services took my grandchildren and made them wards of the state. They did this by charging my daughter with allowing her husband to beat her when the children were present. That is a ridiculus charge, but well meaning people do not understand the absurbity of it. The legal system works on the side of the Protectice Service and the parents and children do not have good legal representation. A case worker is assigned to the child, and has wayyyyyy too much power to decide what happens to the children. There are no balances in the system, because everyone judges the parents by what is written in files, and those files are written to justify the case worker and the system. To stress how absurb all this was, my daughter's husband was put in prision and the state still held her children, even when the threat to them was in prison! I never dreamed there was so much to learn about tyranny as I learned when my grandchildren were wards of the state. I assure you, everyone had excellent intentions. Because they are all saw each other as very good people with very good intentions, the tyranny was even worse, than if anyone, besides my family, had been suspected of being a bad person, like Saddam. Tyranny is a matter of the relationship, and very nice people can be very powerful tyrants.

 

Your reasoning for saying Laden could be considered a great person is good, and it is also the reasoning that gives gang leaders power on the streets, and status to prisoners who are locked up because they are not people we want on in our communities. Perhaps when civilizations call people great, they might give some thought to the values of this greatness, and if we want everyone to act on those values.

 

Peter the Great was a tyrant even in the way he went about changing Russia for the good. He used serfs to acheive his own ego desires. Humanity is in serious trouble as long as it approves of what Peter the Great did even to his own people. Now had he ended serfdom and enabled his people ti individually great people, the way democracy does, not only would Russia probably have become a great power equal to the US, but I would then consider him a great man.