Authoritarian Regimes and Human Suffering Essay Example

Collectivist control is the agonizingly fossilizeable pressure under which human beings suffer, but the degree to which humans thrive necessitates the preservation of their individual rights. People living under authoritarian regimes suffer like they are not citizens of the states they live in. Their governments ideologically strive for equity for equity’s sake without their subjects’ legal consent. The United States and more similarly individual-minded nations have contrastingly seen greater prosperity than both North Korea and China. They have seen prosperity because they allow their citizens to be treated as citizens. In general, people fare better when given liberty to live life reasonably. As an objective historical standard, collectivist regimes like the Soviet Union, China, Nazi Germany, North Korea, (the list goes on), have caused more human suffering within their nations than countries like the United States. Not more than half a century ago, the citizens living in the states of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev were exposed to more freedoms as Gorbachev moved to the Union toward a more capitalist model under the perestroika program, and as a result began to protest to move towards a more capitalist and privatized model like their Western counterparts. Once even insignificant amounts of freedom are given to a collectivized society, members of that society, like people who have ridden first class on an airplane having to return to coach, will never be willing to revert to their collectivized state. Authoritarian states, such as China, do not allow for freedom of speech, as brutally exemplified in the suppression of college protestors in the Tiananmen Square Massacre which their government refuses to acknowledge. It was evident even the people of China themselves do not unanimously agree with the government’s ideals as they are portrayed in Chinese media. Independent thinkers like the Tiananmen Square demonstrator simply known as “Tank Man”, a person photographed standing in front of a convoy of tanks to block them from going towards the protest, are willing to die for the advocation of individual freedoms. Contrastingly, the people living in more individualized states have a greater sense of happiness, tend to have graters standards of living and much more progress than collectivized states. The United States for example set a constitutional precedent of allowing for freedoms protecting citizens from a tyrannical government 246 years ago, and since then has made strides in political progress expanding those freedoms to all citizens. Paul Kecskemeti wrote in his “Totalitarian Communications as a Means of Control” there can be no such thing as a public opinion in totalitarian regime, but only the illusion of seemingly unanimous public opinion on all topics is created through state-created propaganda. He means people living under authoritarian control could not possibly have their own voice heard, because oftentimes, it disagrees with the state. The need to express one’s beliefs is evident among individualized states due to their expressions and pride about freedom itself. The United States displays multiple motifs like its flag, Declaration of Independence and multiple patriotic songs uplifting ideals of human rights. If the preservation of human rights is not viewed from an historical or political angle, it is still evident human beings require freedoms to express themselves. On multiple occasions there have been efforts by musical artists to circumvent the obligations set on them by record companies. In the 1980s, Warner Brothers Studios legally withheld the rights Prince’s name and music, so he in response changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol and was often referred to merely as “the Artist” to avoid any further legal issues preventing his ownership of his own music and name. More recently in 2021, Taylor Swift completely re-recorded her “Red” album to regain the rights to songs featured on it. She was met with a wave of support and appraisal by her fans upon its release, so her efforts were well aimed in attempting to regain her legal rights to expression. All people, not exclusively these two artists, intuitively and naturally will intend to circumvent any obstacle presented, sometimes only to express themselves effectively. However, the power imbalance of collectivized regimes can result in the abuse of power by few individuals, oppressing most of a nation’s population. Last year in Belarus for example, dictator Alexander Lukashenko cracked down on demonstrators protesting his being elected, claiming it as the result of a staged general election. Lukashenko has also allowed immigration surges occur into bordering nations, which worsens the spread of COVID-19. The people of Belarus clamored for a more just leader but were denied due to their opposing views to the authoritarian regime. When an authoritarian regime eliminates opposing views only to organize the state to strive towards a single vision or goal, it eliminates any possible alternative solution to issues such as immigration. The discourse and dissent absent in authoritarian regimes is the driving force of progress within nations like the United States, because all solutions are considered in an arena of ideas where the best solution prevails, not the solution for the sake of a regime or ideology like the solutions constructed by collectivized states like China, North Korea and Belarus which are clearly found to cause more mass turmoil than happiness.