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Tuesday, February 26, 2019

“Tyrannophilia”


the AZEL

PERSPECTIVE

Commentary on Cuba's Future, U.S. Foreign Policy & Individual Freedoms - Issue 167
 

“Tyrannophilia”: The Love of Tyrants

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The political scientist, and historian of ideas, Mark Lilla has coined the term tyrannophilia to explain the love of tyrants shown by many intellectuals. Lilla is a self described liberal with book titles such as “The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics,” where he argues that American liberals need to emphasize commonalities in their politics rather than differences of identity.
Fidel Castro & Pablo Neruda
The “identity politics” that Lilla criticizes are those political positions based on the interests and perspectives of social groups with which people identify such as age, religion, social class, race, sexual orientation, etc. Identity politics are strategic to minorities and civil rights organizations. No wonder that Lilla has been described as a liberal with as many critics on the Left as on the Right.

Psychologist Steven Pinker singles out in “Enlighten Now,” that tyrants have enjoyed the support of intellectuals. He lists Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt as Hitler acolytes; Ezra Pound, George Bernard Shaw, William Yeats, Wyndham Lewis as devotees of Mussolini; Shaw and Wells also prized Lenin; Sartre, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Bertolt Brecht, W. E. B. Du Bois, Pablo Picasso, Lillian Hellman, were admirers of Stalin; add, Michael Foucault, Louis Althusser, Steven Rose, and Richard Lewontin as devotes of Mao. And, most offensive to me as a Cuban, the gushing over Castro of Sartre, Graham Greene, Günter Grass, Norman Mailer, Harold Pinter, Susan Sontag, and others.

Western intellectuals have a long history of loathing their own society and romanticizing its enemies.  I am sure my readers can add to this list of tyrannophilicintellectuals.

I can not think of a more offensive passage to illustrate the intellectual’s love of tyrants than the paragraph, cited by Pinker, from Susan Sontag’s “Some Thoughts on the Right Way (for us) to Love the Cuban Revolution.” Sontag, who passed away in 2004, was a beloved intellectual icon of the Left.  In the passage below, she is referring to the forced labor camps of the Military Units to Aid Production or UMAP operated by the Castro tyranny in the mid 1960’s. The UMAP were concentration camps for undesirables considered counter-revolutionaries that would not serve in the military service including, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seven-Day Adventists, Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, and homosexuals. Sontag writes:
  • “The Cubans know a lot about spontaneity, gaiety, sensuality and freaking out.  They are not linear, desiccated creatures of print-culture. In short, their problem is almost the obverse of ours-and we must be sympathetic to their efforts to solve it. Suspicious as we are of the traditional Puritanism of left revolutions, American radicals ought to be able to maintain some perspective when a country known mainly for dance music, prostitutes, cigars, abortions, resort life and pornographic movies gets a little up-tight about sexual morals and, in one moment two years ago, round up several thousand homosexuals in Havana and sends them to a farm to rehabilitate themselves.”
Among my readers will be some of the 35,000 Cubans forced to work in the UMAP camps under deplorable conditions 10 to 12 hours per day, seven days per week. Reportedly, 507 ended up in psychiatric wards, 72 died from torture, and 180 committed suicide. Before Night Falls, the moving autobiography of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, deals with themes from the UMAP camps.

I am not sure I will ever understand the tyrannophilia of these intellectuals, but Pinker suggests that it may begin with affinity to the ideas of German philologist Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Nietzsche has had a profound influence on Western philosophy and modern intellectual history. Nietzsche’s concepts of “will to power” and the “superman” (übermensch), who transcends good and evil to realize heroic glory, encouraged the romantic militarism that inspired many of the conflicts of the 20th century including both World Wars.

I favor the explanation of “professional narcissism” offered by Thomas Sowell and Paul Hollander. They suggest that intellectuals may feel unappreciated by the bottom-up mechanisms of liberal democracies. Their disdain for the common man is more in line with tyrannical top-down mechanisms. To professional narcissists, their worth is better appreciated by the tyrants they love.


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Abrazos,
 
Lily & José
 
(click on the name to email Lily or Jose)
José Azel, Ph.D.
José Azel left Cuba in 1961 as a 13 year-old political exile in what has been dubbed Operation Pedro Pan - the largest unaccompanied child refugee movement in the history of the Western Hemisphere.

He is currently dedicated to the in-depth analyses of Cuba's economic, social and political state, with a keen interest in post-Castro-Cuba strategies. Formerly, a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) at the University of Miami, Jose Azel has published extensively on Cuba related topics.

In 2012 and 2015, Dr. Azel testified in the U.S. Congress on U.S.-Cuba Policy, and U.S. National Security.  He is a frequent speaker and commentator on these and related topics on local, national and international media.  He holds undergraduate and masters degrees in business administration and a Ph.D. in International Affairs from the University of Miami.

José along with his wife Lily are avid skiers and adventure travelers.  In recent years they have climbed Grand Teton in Wyoming, trekked Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Machu Pichu in Peru.  They have also hiked in Tibet and in the Himalayas to Mt. Everest Base Camp.

They cycled St. James Way (
El Camino de Santiago de Compostela) and cycled alongside the Danube from Germany to Hungary. They have scuba dived in the Bay Islands off the Honduran coast and in the Galapagos Islands.

Their adventurers are normally dedicated to raise funds for causes that are dear to them. 
Watch Joe & Lily summit Kilimanjaro.

Books by Dr. José Azel
"Liberty for beginners is much more than what the title promises. It is eighty themes touched with the wisdom of a master, and the charm of an excellent communicator. Anyone that wishes to understand why countries do, or do not progress, will find in this book the best explanations.
If it was in my power, this work would be required reading for all college and university students, and I would recommend its reading to politicians, journalists, and policymakers. With this book Azel accomplishes what was achieved in France by Frédéric Bastiat, and in the United States by Henry Hazlitt: brings together common sense with intelligent observation, and academic substance. Stupendous"
Carlos Alberto Montaner
"Libertad para novatos es mucho más de lo que promete el título. Son ochenta temas tocados con la sabiduría de un maestro y la amenidad de un excelente comunicador. Cualquier adulto que desee saber por qué progresan o se estancan los pueblos aquí encontrará las mejores explicaciones.
Si estuviera en mis manos, esta obra sería lectura obligatoria de todos los estudiantes, tanto de bachillerato como universitarios, pero, además, se la recomendaría a todos los políticos y periodistas, a todos los policy makers. Azel logra con este libro lo que Frédéric Bastiat consiguiera en Francia y Henry Hazlitt en Estados Unidos: aunar el sentido común, la observación inteligente y la enjundia académica. Estupendo."
Carlos Alberto Montaner
In Reflections on FreedomJosé Azel brings together a collection of his columns published in prestigious newspapers.  Each article reveals his heartfelt and personal awareness of the importance of freedom in our lives.  They are his reflections after nearly sixty years of living and learning as a Cuban outside Cuba. In what has become his stylistic trademark, Professor Azel brilliantly introduces complex topics in brief journalistic articles.
En Reflexiones sobre la libertad José Azel reúne una colección de sus columnas publicadas en prestigiosos periódicos. Cada artículo revela su percepción sincera y personal de la importancia de la libertad en nuestras vidas. Son sus reflexiones después de casi sesenta años viviendo y aprendiendo como cubano fuera de Cuba.  En lo que ha resultado ser característica distintiva de sus artículos, el Profesor Azel introduce con brillantez complejos temas en  breves artículos de carácter periodístico.
Mañana in Cuba is a comprehensive analysis of contemporary Cuba with an incisive perspective of the Cuban frame of mind and its relevancy for Cuba's future.
Pedazos y Vacíos is a collection of poems written in by Dr. Azel in his youth. Poems are in Spanish.
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