Napoleon was possibly the first ruler who managed to cause the death of more than a million persons in a single campaign, the invasion of Russia in 1812.
Thanks for this, dear Ugo Bardi. I always enjoy your thought-provoking posts, your sense of humor, and the window you provide into Italian history.
A reflection, only tangentially related to your post: It seems to me that it's easy for most people, who have not seen power up close, to wildly underestimate or even, in their innocence, ignore how strange an experience it is to have so many other people clamoring for one's favors. My personal observations have led me to conclude that powerful people do not necessarily, nor even usually, have more smarts nor standout talents than your average generally successful professional. (There are exceptions, of course.)
I oftentimes think that having extreme power is rather like having leprosy in that the normal feedback loops no longer work. If you've got a bad case of leprosy, for example, you can lay your finger on a hot stove and not feel it (ergo, lepers tend to lose their fingers). And so, analogously, a powerful man can tell a truly stupid and even offensive joke to his cronies and protégés (and wannabe cronies and prtotégés), and they all laugh as if it were the funniest thing they'd heard since 1969 (ergo, powerful man gets no clue that his joke was a stinker and that, dangerously for him, some cronies and protégés thereby secretly conclude that he is losing his grip, which in fact he is). Unfortunately, not always but usually, the feet-on-the-ground-of-reality spouse, if there ever was one, either falls into the distortion field herself, or gets discarded.
I'm not saying anything that isn't already older than Tales From an Eon Before Babylon (the lost book by Amadis of Gaul), I know. But I think it's misleading to assume, as most people seem to do, that extremely powerful people are, in their essence, different from other people. To restate what I just said, for the most part, the extremely powerful are in an unusual situation in which, because of the power they hold, the people surrounding them are not responding normally, and the quality of their informational feedback loops is thereby degraded. The more power, the more the information degradation-- until it hits a tipping point.
The very private, even unpopular, wife who needed plastic surgery but never got it, chances are, she is the powerful man's most valuable information asset. But you see how few powerful men comprehend that. Perhaps some of them once did, when they were young, before they entered the feedback loop distortion field. Power itself is powerful, many who attain it then get swept away, as Benito Mussolini did, like so much flotsam and jetsam.
Thanks for this, dear Ugo Bardi. I always enjoy your thought-provoking posts, your sense of humor, and the window you provide into Italian history.
A reflection, only tangentially related to your post: It seems to me that it's easy for most people, who have not seen power up close, to wildly underestimate or even, in their innocence, ignore how strange an experience it is to have so many other people clamoring for one's favors. My personal observations have led me to conclude that powerful people do not necessarily, nor even usually, have more smarts nor standout talents than your average generally successful professional. (There are exceptions, of course.)
I oftentimes think that having extreme power is rather like having leprosy in that the normal feedback loops no longer work. If you've got a bad case of leprosy, for example, you can lay your finger on a hot stove and not feel it (ergo, lepers tend to lose their fingers). And so, analogously, a powerful man can tell a truly stupid and even offensive joke to his cronies and protégés (and wannabe cronies and prtotégés), and they all laugh as if it were the funniest thing they'd heard since 1969 (ergo, powerful man gets no clue that his joke was a stinker and that, dangerously for him, some cronies and protégés thereby secretly conclude that he is losing his grip, which in fact he is). Unfortunately, not always but usually, the feet-on-the-ground-of-reality spouse, if there ever was one, either falls into the distortion field herself, or gets discarded.
I'm not saying anything that isn't already older than Tales From an Eon Before Babylon (the lost book by Amadis of Gaul), I know. But I think it's misleading to assume, as most people seem to do, that extremely powerful people are, in their essence, different from other people. To restate what I just said, for the most part, the extremely powerful are in an unusual situation in which, because of the power they hold, the people surrounding them are not responding normally, and the quality of their informational feedback loops is thereby degraded. The more power, the more the information degradation-- until it hits a tipping point.
The very private, even unpopular, wife who needed plastic surgery but never got it, chances are, she is the powerful man's most valuable information asset. But you see how few powerful men comprehend that. Perhaps some of them once did, when they were young, before they entered the feedback loop distortion field. Power itself is powerful, many who attain it then get swept away, as Benito Mussolini did, like so much flotsam and jetsam.