Idi Amin's power seeking misbehaviors are consistent with a diagnosis of psychoactive drug addiction. The part in the film where he asks his doctor to make him feel strong again, with a snippet of a shot being directed into his behind, is consistent with amphetamines, the drug that made Hitler feel powerful.
The best explanation for power-seeking misbehaviors is always alcohol/other psychoactive drug addiction. Idi Amin is no exception. He was almost assuredly an addict, like nearly all despots in history.
That reminds me of an obscure book called Vessels of Rage, Engines of Power. It's about what you just described. I need to track that down and read it...
That’s James Graham’s book, also known as “The Secret History of Alcoholism.” His work was foundational for my work, which I took further. Graham showed that alcoholism causes egomania (which had been proposed in an obscure pamphlet, “Ego Factors in Surrender in Alcoholism,” written in the early 1950s by Dr. Harry Tiebout; I never found whether Graham had stood on Tiebout’s shoulders or developed the idea independently). I connected alcoholism-fueled egomania to the distortions of perception and memory, discussed by Vernon E. Johnson (“I’ll Quit Tomorrow”) to explain that egomania necessarily results from those distortions, especially “euphoric recall,” which causes the addict to remember everything he or she says or does through self-favoring lenses. This is all in my first book, “Drunks, Drugs & Debits.” Fun stuff.
Small world, ain't it? Three other curiosities of human behavior that bug me:
1. The fact that so many powerful people are highly correlated with sociopathic tendencies, and not by accident. The prevalence of sociopaths/psychopaths is so rare that they should have been exterminated long ago, but they apparently serve a purpose. Most denizens of modern societies are behavioral agrarians, who probably feel the need for predatory demagogues to defend them from the abuses of other sociopaths/psychopaths. Not only that, but the extreme alphas will take risks others won't, and don't care about being likable, so they provide plausible deniability to those who vote for them if they don't succeed.
2. Most violent crime and mayhem is committed by a tiny fraction of pathologic habitual offenders. For mysterious reasons, this well-known characteristic isn't given much airtime in criminal justice policy. I cannot figure out why; it seems like so many lives are wasted pursuing a concept of blind justice that denies the social science of modern criminology. Generally by the time someone is 25, it's obvious whether or not they are a menace to society.
3. In a related phenomenon, I have noticed that with cases of wrongful criminal convictions, mostly death penalty cases, liberals tend to support only the likely guilty, while conservatives only begrudgingly accept the exoneration of those who are clearly innocent. A famous example is former Black Panther Geronimo Pratt, who was framed by the FBI for a double murder they knew he could not have committed, and served about 30 years in prison. After about 20 years, due to FOIA, his lawyer was able to get a copy of an internal FBI memo proving that he was framed. And yet it took another decade for his charge to be overturned. Meanwhile, a movie was made about Hurricane Carter, who was very likely guilty of robbery/murder, and liberals have made celebrities of Mumia Abu Jamal and Stanley Williams, both dubious characters to say the least.
I also noticed this in the recent kerfuffle over ICE deportations. The "Maryland Family Man" that so many prominent Democrats were defending was in fact an illegal immigrant gang member with a history of domestic violence. At the same time, ICE had questionably deported a gay makeup artist named Andry Romero on spurious accusations of gang affiliation; he's a very harmless looking guy, no threat to anyone. And yet no Dems except NYC's Richie Torres said a word in his defense; and no Republicans were willing to step up and ask why such a young innocent-looking kid was swept up and sent to El Salvador's cartel hotel. [He's back home in Venezuela now, but he was in the midst of a legal asylum process when he was scooped up].
I still can't fathom why so many liberals can't tell the difference between violent predators and people who just need therapy, nor why so many conservatives can't see what's wrong with three-strikes laws being applied to someone who got a third felony strike for stealing a bicycle or something trivial like that. As one criminal-justice-reform prosecutor once said, "We have trouble telling the difference between people we're scared of and people we just don't like."
This was an impression I formed years ago from information I don't have at hand anymore. I got the distinct impression that he was involved in the robbery, if not the murder, according to locals who apparently knew him.
On top of the fact that I've never heard a single liberal celebrity or politician ever express an ounce of concern over legitimately exonerated convicts like Bobby Seale, or wrongfully deported immigrants like Andry Romero. They only seem to care about dirtbags. [With the exception of Richie Torres, who I mostly like.]
Your larger thesis I found interesting and think prob has merit. I just think the state had no case against Carter. (Doesn't mean he couldn't have done it, but the evidence was ridiculously weak after the two "eyewitnesses" recanted their stories.
Idi Amin's power seeking misbehaviors are consistent with a diagnosis of psychoactive drug addiction. The part in the film where he asks his doctor to make him feel strong again, with a snippet of a shot being directed into his behind, is consistent with amphetamines, the drug that made Hitler feel powerful.
The best explanation for power-seeking misbehaviors is always alcohol/other psychoactive drug addiction. Idi Amin is no exception. He was almost assuredly an addict, like nearly all despots in history.
That reminds me of an obscure book called Vessels of Rage, Engines of Power. It's about what you just described. I need to track that down and read it...
That’s James Graham’s book, also known as “The Secret History of Alcoholism.” His work was foundational for my work, which I took further. Graham showed that alcoholism causes egomania (which had been proposed in an obscure pamphlet, “Ego Factors in Surrender in Alcoholism,” written in the early 1950s by Dr. Harry Tiebout; I never found whether Graham had stood on Tiebout’s shoulders or developed the idea independently). I connected alcoholism-fueled egomania to the distortions of perception and memory, discussed by Vernon E. Johnson (“I’ll Quit Tomorrow”) to explain that egomania necessarily results from those distortions, especially “euphoric recall,” which causes the addict to remember everything he or she says or does through self-favoring lenses. This is all in my first book, “Drunks, Drugs & Debits.” Fun stuff.
Small world, ain't it? Three other curiosities of human behavior that bug me:
1. The fact that so many powerful people are highly correlated with sociopathic tendencies, and not by accident. The prevalence of sociopaths/psychopaths is so rare that they should have been exterminated long ago, but they apparently serve a purpose. Most denizens of modern societies are behavioral agrarians, who probably feel the need for predatory demagogues to defend them from the abuses of other sociopaths/psychopaths. Not only that, but the extreme alphas will take risks others won't, and don't care about being likable, so they provide plausible deniability to those who vote for them if they don't succeed.
2. Most violent crime and mayhem is committed by a tiny fraction of pathologic habitual offenders. For mysterious reasons, this well-known characteristic isn't given much airtime in criminal justice policy. I cannot figure out why; it seems like so many lives are wasted pursuing a concept of blind justice that denies the social science of modern criminology. Generally by the time someone is 25, it's obvious whether or not they are a menace to society.
3. In a related phenomenon, I have noticed that with cases of wrongful criminal convictions, mostly death penalty cases, liberals tend to support only the likely guilty, while conservatives only begrudgingly accept the exoneration of those who are clearly innocent. A famous example is former Black Panther Geronimo Pratt, who was framed by the FBI for a double murder they knew he could not have committed, and served about 30 years in prison. After about 20 years, due to FOIA, his lawyer was able to get a copy of an internal FBI memo proving that he was framed. And yet it took another decade for his charge to be overturned. Meanwhile, a movie was made about Hurricane Carter, who was very likely guilty of robbery/murder, and liberals have made celebrities of Mumia Abu Jamal and Stanley Williams, both dubious characters to say the least.
I also noticed this in the recent kerfuffle over ICE deportations. The "Maryland Family Man" that so many prominent Democrats were defending was in fact an illegal immigrant gang member with a history of domestic violence. At the same time, ICE had questionably deported a gay makeup artist named Andry Romero on spurious accusations of gang affiliation; he's a very harmless looking guy, no threat to anyone. And yet no Dems except NYC's Richie Torres said a word in his defense; and no Republicans were willing to step up and ask why such a young innocent-looking kid was swept up and sent to El Salvador's cartel hotel. [He's back home in Venezuela now, but he was in the midst of a legal asylum process when he was scooped up].
I still can't fathom why so many liberals can't tell the difference between violent predators and people who just need therapy, nor why so many conservatives can't see what's wrong with three-strikes laws being applied to someone who got a third felony strike for stealing a bicycle or something trivial like that. As one criminal-justice-reform prosecutor once said, "We have trouble telling the difference between people we're scared of and people we just don't like."
A penny for your thoughts...
I'm curious why you're convinced Hurricane Carter was guilty. From what I've seen, the evidence against him was very weak.
This was an impression I formed years ago from information I don't have at hand anymore. I got the distinct impression that he was involved in the robbery, if not the murder, according to locals who apparently knew him.
On top of the fact that I've never heard a single liberal celebrity or politician ever express an ounce of concern over legitimately exonerated convicts like Bobby Seale, or wrongfully deported immigrants like Andry Romero. They only seem to care about dirtbags. [With the exception of Richie Torres, who I mostly like.]
Your larger thesis I found interesting and think prob has merit. I just think the state had no case against Carter. (Doesn't mean he couldn't have done it, but the evidence was ridiculously weak after the two "eyewitnesses" recanted their stories.
Not to worry, I'm hodling Bitcoin, everything is fine.
Amin was ahead of his time as an early exponent of Modern Monetary Theory.
MMT is a death spiral for the Republic 🖨️💸💸💸