Despite never knowing the proper name for it, nor completely comprehending all the philosophical discourse surrounding it, I never considered tyrannicide a good idea. And despite reading nearly thirty pages on how tyrannicide is different from political assassination (another thing I’d never thought about before)… I still don’t think it’s a good nor logical course of action.
Article 1 was all about convincing its audience that tyrannicide needs to be talked about more. However, Andrade is unable to dispute the fact that most tyrannicides put their countries in an even worse place than before. And the reason why lines up perfectly with Carson’s (author of one of last week’s articles) argument about MLK. One person, in contemporary times at least, is not going to drastically change a country. It may look that way, but what about all of their subordinates? All the people who make sure they stay in power despite the public wishing otherwise? One of them can step up easily, then what? Kill them too? What about the corruption that bred this “tyrant.” It’s not as simple as the Trolley Problem. If it were, I guarantee people wouldn’t have stopped talking about it.
Article 2 discusses various angles to compare and contrast political assassination and tyrannicide. Often, it really is difficult to differentiate the two. I’d say the most successful/convincing angle was the behavioral lens, yet even that was ambiguous. I actually found myself agreeing with the quote that the author put in as a counter-argument: “Tyranny belongs to an age of heroes, or to situations where the safety and character of the state depends on the personality of one man.” George argues this because this quote makes it sound like a true tyrant can’t exist because the state of a nation can’t depend on one man’s personality… And that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make. There is no ONE person you can kill (ahem, assassinate) to make a nation be the way you think it should be–whether you’re from that nation or otherwise.
Both George and Andrade made really good points in bringing up how western culture kind of idolizes Tyrant killers in film, in literature, in myth, and in ancient history; however, reality isn’t so simple. Both articles talk about the possibility of true tyranny in modern times, but I don’t think true tyranny, the kind that tyrannicide could completely negate, can actually exist in modern times.
(p.s. sorry for spelling errors, it’s 1am)
I also loved in both articles how the authors pointed out the prevalence of tyrannicide in history, films, art, and literature; in their own way, these forms contribute to the romanticism of tyrannicide and how “heroic” it may seem. But, we must consider the fine line between terrorist acts and tyrannicide and take into account the controversy in killing someone.
I totally agree with what youre saying here. I don’t believe that corruption is something that is just a single person. Corruption is a system-wide issue that no one person can fix. Even if you did kill the person at the top, they have a lot of people around them that are usually in on the action as well, therefore, killing that one person is not going to change anything. It would just change whos at the top not the entire system of corruption.