The Cult of Personality....

Submitted by Bernard Guerrero on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 1:42pm

Politics

....as [url=http://abandonedfootnotes.blogspot.com/2011/03/simple-model-of-cults-of-personality.html]Signaling Device[/url].

[quote]

To the extent that cults of personality are taken seriously, moreover, they are often analyzed in terms of their effects on the beliefs
of the people who are exposed to them. Thus, the typical (if at times
implicit) model of how a cult of personality “works” is one in which
people are indoctrinated by exposure to the cult
propaganda and come to believe in the special qualities of the leader,
no matter how implausible the claims, simply because alternative sources
of information about the leader do not exist.

...

But this way of thinking about cults of
personality misses the point, I think. Not because it is entirely wrong;
it is certainly plausible that some people do come to believe in the
special charisma of the leader because they have been exposed to the propaganda of the cult since they were children, though the evidence for this is scarce.

...

Yet, though I do not want to deny
that cults of personality can sometimes “persuade” people of the
superhuman character of leaders (for some values of “persuade”) or that
they draw on people’s gullibility in the absence of alternative sources
of information and their need for identification with high status
individuals, they are best understood in terms of how dictators can
harness the dynamics of “signalling” for the purposes of social control.[/quote]

It boils down to baroque systems of obeisance being a costly (to the signaller) way of signalling loyalty to the Dear Leader (whomever he or she may be), and so a credible one. At the same time, the signalling erases information regarding how a subject feels about the Dear Leader, making it more difficult for others to figure out where you stand and coordinate with you to thwart the regime. If everybody says the love the Dear Leader, who can you trust with a samizdat or an invitation to a political meeting, or even with a sarcastic comment about the price of rice?

I think, however, that the author misses one important point. He paints a picture of the regime wanting gradations of kow-towing in order to gain insight into the true level of support, but that would be self-defeating. If the regime can tell the difference between mere tears for the Dear Leader vs. agony at the thought of Him coming to harm, then so can the commoners, which defeats a major part of the purpose.

The system of obeisance takes on ever increasing levels of craziness because to some extent it must take on the character of an arms race between the subjects of the regime. Once everybody realizes that you must cry when the Dear Leader breaks his arm, there is no longer any information value to be passed via crying; everybody does it, so it is now the SOP. Now those who want to signal true commitment must, at the risk of sounding like Emeril Lagasse, kick it up a notch. They must beat their breast at the thought of the Dear Leader's pain and wish that they could have sacrificed their own arm in his stead, etc. Lather, rinse, repeat. The process is not driven by the regime, exactly, but by competition between subjects to signal in the face of increasing signal strength from everybody else, peacock-like.

It's a fascinating subject

(#252602)

Submitted by Kierkegaard on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 1:30pm.

I might add for consideration the following:

That the modern "cult of personality" politics here in the West began with the Roman emperors and their "deification"--statues were used in ancient Greece as a part of political campaigns (and of course, in Egypt and Babylon, etc). But the notion of a single citizen becoming the avatar or face of a popular movement first became a regular feature of their consular elections. Though not, I'm disappointed to say, ours here at TheForvm.

Many of the techniques used in today's campaigns were developed and refined by Josef Goebbels. If anyone can be said to be the spiritual grandfather of Ed Rollins or James Carville, it is he. Goebels, of course, borrowed heavily from the personality propaganda tactics of Josef Stalin, who inherited Lenin's party PR machine. These were adopted almost whole by Mao, Pol Pot, and the North Korean Kim dynasty.

There seems to be a human need for this anthropomorphism of political belief--as witness the amateur psychosexual artistic images we saw purveyed during the last presidential election (Obama as unicorn, Obama as naked dream lover, Obama as social realist graffiti icon, etc). In other words, few voters (or non-voting citizens, or party members) seem comfortable with the idea of a political movement or belief system (or indeed, religion) unaccompanied by some reassuring image of a "strong leader" to personify it.

My instincts are the opposite--in fact, such images arouse my instant distrust. But then, I'm a "contrarian".

Too complicated

(#252517)

Submitted by HankP on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 9:38pm.

it's just another method of social control, like militarization, secret police and public executions.

BTW, regarding "They must beat their breast at the thought of the Dear Leader's pain and
wish that they could have sacrificed their own arm in his stead, etc.", there's a funny story by Suetonius (I know, I know) about when Caligula was very ill, and several senators prayed publicly to Zeus that they would sacrifice their life if only the gods would heal their emperor. Caligula recovered, and when he heard about the prayers of the senators he insisted that they make good on their promises.

I blame it all on the Internet

Just saying....

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Submitted by Bernard Guerrero on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 10:33am.

...."social control" isn't very descriptive, though. And to the author's point, it never appears like most of the people who pay lip service to the Cult actually believe any of the nonsense. Do you really think most of the NK population thinks that fatboy can teleport himself? It doesn't even have the "lack of currently measurable impact" that crap like ID has going for it; if the ^%$#*& can teleport himself, somebody would have filmed it by now.

"Unfortunately the universe doesn't agree with me. We'll see which one of us is still standing when this is over." -- Eliezer Yudkowsky

Excellent question.

(#252571)

Submitted by nyoos junkey on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 11:01am.

I would love to know the answer. The question of what people really believe of their religions has always fascinated me. It's my main reason for reading old books.