The Danger of Absolute Power

How does absolute power ruin a great leader? Throughout history the world has advanced, connected, and been torn apart by great leaders.  The greatest of leaders have shared many qualities in common, such as effective public speaking, strategic thinking, and the ability to inspire people. However, there is one vital characteristic that only some of them have possessed: the ability to give up power. This quality separates the leaders who have their minds focused on the best interests of their countries’ citizens, and the leaders who are focused primarily on themselves. I would like to focus on how two of history’s great leaders differed in their ability to give up power, Napoleon Bonaparte and George Washington. Not only were they alive in the same time period and admired each other, but they led in extremely similar fashions, with the exception that only one of them knew when to give up power.

When Napoleon Bonaparte led a coup against the French leadership, he had an ambitious mind and brilliant military strategies. He made decisions based on the well being of his citizens, such as supporting Jewish rights (against the ideas of ghettos). Also under his rule, the French economy became very strong. However, as Napoleon conquered more land and became more powerful, he began to abuse his privilege as the single leader of France (He had absolute power).  He made decisions based on his own ambitions and not the good of his country. He entered into wars that France wasn’t strong enough to fight and spent great quantities of money on his own life style. In the end, Napoleon was exiled from France because after he had made mistakes influenced his own ambitions, the citizens of France no longer supported his rule.

George Washington led the American army during the Revolutionary War and was later elected President of the United States.  Like Napoleon, he was a great military leader, and was able to defeat Britain. He was also a military idol and hero in the newly formed colonies and similar to Napoleon, there was no other leader that was strong enough to stop him from pursuing whatever could want. However, Washington knew that unless he was to give up his power (after two terms of Presidency), America could find itself as a monarchy, just like they fought to free themselves from in England. After two terms of serving as President Washington stepped down and gave up his power to the newly elected John Adams.  He knew that it was time to pass the responsibility to someone else. Unlike Napoleon, he didn’t hold on to power for as long as he could, and as a result America gained the foundation for the structure of how their Presidents would lead in the future.

The Positives and Negatives of Ethnocentricity

Our human nature has always driven us to have ethnocentric attitudes.  Since the first epochs, civilizations and individuals have believed that they have been the best.  Whether it was the Egyptians who ruled a sizable portion of the ancient world, Alexander the Great who conquered territory outside of Greece, or the Roman Empire that covered land through the Mediterranean world, dominating civilizations have tried to impose their customs and beliefs on weaker societies. Today, we are very similar.

Ethnocentric attitudes have a lot of negative consequences. Ethnocentricity can lead people to make poor decisions because they believe that the people they are victimizing have inferior ideas or are simply less important than them.  For example, the Christians of Europe waged Crusades against Islamic civilizations.  Centuries later the Europeans expanded into the Americas and enslaved or killed many of the natives.  More recently, Hitler led a massacre of Jews all over Europe because he believed that Arian (his “race”) was the “master race” and the Jews were less than human.  In this case, ethnocentricity motivated a powerful leader to conduct a killing-spree on a religion he despised.

Though being ethnocentric clearly can lead to terrible consequences, I believe ethnocentricity can have positive affects on society as well as negative ones. Ethnocentricity can be very positive because cultures can learn from each other.  If one civilization believes it is “better” than another, chances are, it will try to either conquer the other civilization, or spread its ideas to it.  This can be a positive thing because when cultures share ideas such as agricultural growing methods and governmental strategies.  Less developed civilizations can improve on their own lives based on these influences.  For instance, Alexander the Great when on a conquest not only to capture neighboring civilizations, but also to spread his culture’s ideas about religion and government.  This conquest would later influence a great number of different civilizations to live life similar to the Greeks, which in my opinion, turned out positively because it inspired modern democracy.

Ethnocentricity can have a positive impact on society because it can influence cultures to learn from each other, but at the same time it can be destructive because it can motivate cultures to destroy each other.

The Atomic Bomb's Justification

Throughout history, advancements in war technology have caused increasingly larger amounts of casualties.  For example, bows and arrows could kill one person at a time, while cannons could decimate a whole battalion. The victims of war usually are the members of the military.  It is morally frowned upon to attack civilians, and there are even rules regulating how soldiers are supposed to treat non-combatants. 

Therefore, the question needs to be asked, is the attack of civilians ever justifiable?

Towards the end of WWII, the United States and Japan clashed and more than 100,000 died fighting throughout the Pacific Islands.  During the same time, a new weapon was developed in America called the atomic bomb.  In a show of power, America dropped not one but two atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.  These bombs were not aimed at army bases, but at civilian populated areas. The fatalities from these attacks reached more than 250,000. An argument could be made that war is never humane, but in this case, America took war to a whole new (inhumane) level.  Not only did the American forces kill the opposing military, but they aimed their most powerful weapons at Japan's innocent civilians. 

       Many historians argue that this decision was necessary. In other words, the ends justified the means.  In order to end a miserable war, America had to make a point that they were too powerful to fight against. This message was successfully sent, because soon after the bombs were dropped, Japan surrendered the war and America was victorious.

The question of whether this attack was justified must also be looked at through the perspectives of the people involved.  To the family of an America soldier during WWII, this decision was extremely fortunate and necessary.  Their child would have a higher chance of being killed in the war if the bomb had not been dropped.  However, to the member of an innocent Japanese person killed by this bomb, the decision was unnecessary and showed inhumanity.

As a "historian" looking to the past attempting to analyze this without bias, I would argue that the decision to drop the bomb was the right choice, but the bomb didn't need to be dropped where it would kill innocent civilians.  I agree that if America hadn't dropped an atomic bomb, the war would have gone on for many years to come. However, did America really need to involve thousands of civilian casualties to prove their point?  In my opinion, America could have dropped a bomb on an area more concentrated on military personnel to show the same amount of power, while maintaining a certain amount of humanity. When war reaches the point where civilians are being attacked, then it is inhumane to go on.

The Outcomes of Globalization

Ever since the development of the Silk Road, vastly different civilizations and cultures have been trading and swapping goods, ideology, and culture.  These exchanges don’t only represent small-scale interactions, but lead to the rise of globalization.  Globalization is the process of different civilizations evolving based on knowledge learned from other cultures through exchange of products and ideas. 

         My question is, would globalization be positive for the future world, or negative? Do the pros of globalization outweigh the cons?

First, it is important to examine globalization’s positives impacts on the world.  People of different cultures traded ideas and information about what was going on in their civilizations.  This connected Europe and Asia because humans living in different civilizations were able to learn about each other’s ideologies, which in turn could inspire new ideas in new regions.  Trading between Europeans and Asians led to “cultural and economic exchanges that would occur throughout the rest of history.” I would actually argue that the apparent value of sharing ideas inspired printing press, one of the “single most important events in human history.” This is because the Silk Road made it clear that when cultures exchanged ideas, they could benefit by learning from each other.

On the other hand, the beginning of globalization had a very negative effect on the world.  Once international relations come into existence, conflicts between civilizations often emerge. For example, civilizations with different religions clashed such as the Christians and the Muslims during the Crusades.  Simple disagreements could soon turn into full on war, like in this case.  In a way, the black plague that was spread through the Silk Road trading route, killing millions, would foreshadow the wars and deaths that were to follow because of conflicting civilizations’ disagreements. 

A third way to look at the question about the pros and cons of globalization is to realize that it was probably inevitable that we would eventually globalize.  As populations grew, they would collide with other civilizations, resulting in intercultural interactions. However, I think it was beneficial that civilizations started interacting along trade routes because if they had waited until empires had collided while competing for the same land, then initial interactions between different cultures would be nothing but hostile.

Our Instinct To Survive

The first epoch highlights the creation of many aspects of modern civilization such as the beginning of laws, governments, interactions with the environment, and technology. As I read through this account of early history, I asked myself, what is the reasoning behind creating these ideas?  In other words, what pushes humans to create laws, governments, and technology? The simple answer would seem to be to live easier lives.  However, I wish to dig deeper and find why humans have the urge to make life more comfortable for themselves.  

My answer to this question is that we are pushed by our core instinct to survive.  My belief is that the history of civilization, the creation of simple hunting weapons to massive empires, is derived from the evolution of the human instinct to survive.  In the earliest times, the idea was to survive in the moment.  People focused on how they were going to get their food and how to keep warm.  However, as the ability to survive became more difficult because, for example, populations were establishing themselves in areas “not necessarily ideally suited [agriculturally] for a growing population”, humans needed to come up with ways to deal with these challenges.  That is a main reason why humans were motivated to live in communities rather than alone.  Communities created governments with the purpose of providing “rules and order to the growing masses” to survive when “the population grew and land grew scarcer.” In other words, when the population grew and basic living essentials were harder to come by for all, laws were needed to keep order.

Even when civilizations like the Egyptians came up with major advances like hieroglyphics and pyramids, and the Ancient Greeks developed ideas concerning democracy, science and philosophy, the motivations were still related to survival, but in different ways.  The human necessity to survive at that point evolved from literal survival to where survival meant leaving a lasting legacy. Written language, architecture, science and other aspects of civilization are perfect examples of surviving through a legacy, as humans leave a part of them in the world even after they are gone. 

The timeline of history shows the evolution of the human instinct to survive, which in my opinion is the reason civilizations were created.

Do Communities Hold Us Back From Our Personal Pursuits?

Thousands of years ago, hunter/gatherers began to realize that there was a way to live more rationally and sensibly.  Rather than just thinking about how to survive for the moment, humans started thinking about how to survive best for a over a longer period of time.  With this need in mind, communities were created.  Communities offered more protection, better ways of accumulate food, and other benefits which meant surviving more easily.

But do our natural human instincts for self-survival ever override our motivations to coexist in a community? For example, communities developed governments and laws to provide "rules and order to the growing masses of population." These rules can have negative impacts on the members if they prevent the members to pursue what they please. An instance in history where a community might not have been beneficial to its members was in monarchies where the leaders made decisions that didn’t take they community members’ interests into consideration.

         Even though a leadership structure is needed to enforce laws and to keep the civilization running, people can find themselves in a situation or in circumstances where their own survival conflicts with the laws of the community.  I think it is easy to say that you would steal a friend's candy bar if you were starving. However, the real question is, would you fight against your friend if there was one candy bar left in the world and the consumption of that food was a matter of life and death for both of you? 

Do the benefits of belonging to a community always outweigh the contradicting human instinct to drive to attempt new things?  Do our communities rules and expectations hold us back from what we want to pursue in life?  These are questions that I believe are not often discussed, because there not many people want to question the feeling of safety in a community. Yet, once in a while there may be an independent-minded individual who will question whether being in a community is always the right decision.