i'm starting to realize if you look at any really powerful people throughout history through the lens of conventional everyday morality, they're basically all evil as shit, but you always need someone or some group at the top to make decisions or everything goes to hell
what really makes a ruler benevolent or evil?
>what really makes a ruler benevolent or evil?
Start here OP...
What about Marcus Aurelius, Hadrian, William the Conqueror (good leadership for the Eternal Anglo) and so on?
a benevolent ruler is an ignorant ruler
an evil ruler is a wise ruler
>implying good and evil really exists
>>674295
Antoninus Pius too. Sigobhert the good of East Anglia was pretty decent.
>tfw deposed for ending slavery in your country
>>674268
If you look with a critical eye at the people who are currently in power you'll see nothing has changed
>>674268
In the ancient era it was wanton pillage and slaughter that defined any king.
These days it's some kind of get-along commercial agreements that keeps the peace.
Power is having control over others, Morality is treating others the way they want to be treated. The way most people want to be treated is to not be controlled.
Power is therefore immoral by definition. It can be made moral if a democratic society elects someone to be powerful, but he won't be that powerful because his power comes with strings attached.
So the really powerful people have always been immoral.
>>674871
I'm pretty sure power comes from being male and white.
>>674781
>this is what IR liberals actually believe
>>674425
I'm not so sure.
I think modern first world society kind of inculcates a benign docility among most of its inhabitants. Conventional morality has evolved in our era of relative peace as well. People of the 21st century put a higher premium on human lives than in earlier centuries were life was much more susceptible to the vicissitudes of fortune. Plus the modern age has given birth to hundreds watchdog groups eager to bring what we'd call "Human rights violations" into the open, acting as a kind of check on wanton cruelty.
Our ancestors were simply harder people who lived in a more brutal time and there people reflect that to a measurable degree.
>>674268
Not all of them.
>>674268
>what really makes a ruler benevolent or evil?
When a ruler makes decisions that hurt others only to satisfy his own ego then that is evil.
He can still do horrible deeds like kill lots of people in a war but as long as his intentions were pure and he really thought that he was makign a sacrifice for the greater good then he is not evil.
>>675022
Fritz too, in modern views, he would be considered a racist due to his very anti-Polish views, he wanted to wipe them out completely
>>675033
>Implying people today don't want to wipe out the Poles
>>675049
90% of people are liberals who want to gag on the tolerance cock
>>674969
Go back to tumblr
>>675022
>>675033
What about Joseph II?
>>674295
Are you talking about any of them like they were exceptions to OP's point?
William the Conqueror was vicious in cementing his control, like during the harrying of the north. I love Marcus Aurelius but he was pretty nasty to Christians too. I'd be very surprised if Hadrian had a clean record either though I don't know much about him.
These actions had motives beyond cruelty, generally establishing order, but that was exactly OP's point.
Don't apply modern morals for historical figures. Alexander the Great put entire towns to the sword, but that was just what they did. Their absolute highest point of morality was power and victory.
>>674295
>Hadrian
Not if you ask a Jew
>>674412
Was there a greater man in the history of Brazil? The only reason he didn't turn this place into a superpower was because of the intrisic corruption and his love of democracy
>>674268
For me it's how much the guy benefits his own citizens/subjects
>>674295
William the Conqueror was literally worse than Hitler
>>674306
By what scale do you use to determine how to act?
>>674268
>ctrl+f
>"Walzer"
>"Dirty Hands"
>no results
I think you'll find this an enlightening read, OP:
http://nw18.american.edu/~dfagel/walzerDirtyHands.pdf
>>674268
>He fell for the morality meme
Hello slave!
The only real moral imperative a leader has is to act in the best interests of the majority of his own people. I cant believe some leaders (cough cough Merkel) manage to fuck this up.
"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptable. "
"It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of 'em was one kinda sumbitch or another."
"Power is always dangerous. It attracts the worst and corrupts the best. I never asked for power. Power is only given to those who are prepared to lower themselves to pick it up."
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority."
>>674871
>implying the golden rule holds the sufficient requirements to be a moral law
have you read *anything*?
>>674268
And out of all people you chosen ivan the terrible for your pic?
He was fucking awful ruler
>hurr durr lets massacre novgorod and burn their cities instead of vassalizing them and thus making a great money making machine
>get dragged into war with denmark/sweden/poland and lose
>kill your heir and pretty much begin time of troubles
he achieved shit outside of creating title of tsar
