Alexey Tsvetkov, poet
I would like to say a few words about the mechanism of action of dictatorships based on the results of many years of monitoring them, mainly one. Please do not consider this political science, pure empiricism. I don't even pretend to be a priority.
The dictatorship as such historically appeared relatively recently. History, of course, has known worse monsters than many today, but yesterday's monsters did not have effective control tools. They could freely cut out or sell into slavery the population of the rebellious town, but they had nothing to massively set their brains with. Today they have at least a TV box, but also a lot more.
The main goal of this brain correction is the general infantilization of the population. This is what some Commodus and his Heliogabalus could only dream of. The rights of the population are almost completely deposited in a paternalistic authority, which from time to time releases them for the use of someone or everyone, subject to strictly specified boundaries: for a cockerel on a stick, for ice cream, for elections. It makes no sense to argue that the elections are wrong: the kind that the authority allowed, no more and no less. And the zoo - some other time.
There should be no third parties between the parents and the child, and when the dependent contingent, carried away by the game, chooses some Furgal or Shostak, they are strictly corrected from above. If you have a broken pipe or a shit at the entrance, the correct procedure is to file a petition to the very top, and once a year this very top will appear on TV and, perhaps, give an order to patch up the pipe and wash the entrance.
Infantilization implies a degree of agreement on the part of the dependent contingent, but it must be distinguished from learned helplessness - in fact, there is little in common. Children tend to constantly rebel against parental authority, sometimes they even steal cockerels in the supermarket or try to dodge vaccinations. They are corrected, sometimes flogged. But you can complain - about the teacher, teacher, neighbor. It is ridiculous to complain to your parents about your parents.
In principle, such infantilization is an attribute of any modern state, but it can vary greatly in degree. In more free ones, it is possible for a while to lead some Furgal to the very top, but then the people are distracted and again begin to steal cockerels and evade vaccinations.
Some consider themselves foundlings and are looking for a real parent on the side. Let's say it's Biden. And they are very offended when Biden does not take parental rights into his own hands and does not drive away the nasty stepfather or stepmother.
Original is here.