Evil on Earth & The Power of Gratitude

Three Point Essay #13 | Tyrants

Jeff Sullivan

Sep 19, 2022

Here’s a three-pointer to open your mind.

Read the online version here

The mission of “Three Pointers” & about the author here

Ingratitude is the essence of vileness.
—Immanuel Kant

The devil.

The one feeling he’s not capable of?

Gratitude.

This idea comes from the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Why would this be the feeling, of all possible emotions, denied to the devil? It’s worth contemplating.

Perspective

Gratitude is important because it’s a good idea to ask yourself every once in a while: “how much worse could life be right now? (Maybe my life isn’t too bad after all)?”

This article will examine three periods in history when it’s hard to imagine feeling gratitude, to put things in perspective.

Times in which life became hell at the hands of cruel and oppressive tyrants.

*I’m not a historian, these are simplified explanations*

Mao Zedong’s Rule in China

Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.
—Mao Zedong

Some of the lesser knowns tragedies of history are the ‘Great Leap Forward’ and the ‘Cultural Revolution’ under communist ruler of China Mao Zedong, who ran the country from 1949-1976.

An estimated 40-80 million Chinese people were killed during his reign, mostly from starvation, but also from forced labor and mass executions.

The ‘Great Leap Forward’ was an attempt by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) to make the economy more industrial. The Chinese state seized farming lands and private properties.

This course of action increased CCP power. Opposing the government meant almost certain death.

From 1959-1962, millions of people starved to death. It was eventually named the ‘Great Chinese Famine.’

The ‘Cultural Revolution’ occurred from roughly 1966-1976. It was a social movement with a many objectives, including the aim to instill communist thought by banishing capitalist ideas.

It was a period of intense persecution and further starvation. Anyone against the state or communism had everything taken from them. Which for the average Chinese person at the time, was not much.

Hitler and the Nazis

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi flag are the preeminent symbols of hatred.

They persecuted Jewish people and other groups they insidiously deemed ‘inferior humans’, forcing them into labor camps where they were tortured and murdered.

They were also the driving force behind an entire world war breaking out.

The Nazi party indoctrinated many German people to their ideology through relentlessly broadcasting lies and killing anyone who dared express opposing views.

Joseph Goebbels was the minister of propaganda for Germany during this era.

His strategy of manipulation of the masses was in his own words to “make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”

Through violence and mass manipulation, they gained complete control of the government and the power to start waging wars of conquest. (While diverting precious war resources towards exterminating Jewish people and other ethnic groups they believed were ‘subhuman’).

Innocent people ripped out of their homes and separated from their families, never to see them again.

The conditions in the concentration camps they went to were heinous.

Prisoners got just a small ration of bread or watery soup each day, then expected to work long hours of physical labor.

Once someone became too weak or sick to work, they were sent to the gas chamber or shot.

Russia under Josef Stalin

Gratitude is an illness suffered by dogs.
—Josef Stalin

Most people are aware of the holocaust facilitated by the fascists in Germany.

But not as many are aware that similar levels of genocide happened in Russia around the same time, under the communist party of the Soviet Union led by Josef Stalin.

Stalin was known for being paranoid, and it showed. He ordered the murder of many of his fellow party leaders over the years, suspecting them of disloyalty.

As dictator, his demands always went unopposed.

If you’ve played ‘Call of Duty Warzone’ you know the gulag is not a place you want to be.

In real life, you didn’t want to be there either.

The real gulag was a system of forced labor camps that existed under Stalin.

People sent to the camp included any military or government official who was ‘disloyal’, farmers who resisted their private properties being seized by the state (known as kulaks), or any citizen who opposed communism / was deemed a ‘political prisoner.’

Stalin saw the camps as an efficient way to boost industrialization—by enslaving people and making them work for free to access natural resources for the government to use.

Being in the gulag was hell on earth: excessively long work days, little food, and brutal sleeping conditions, all in extremely cold weather.

Many people died there. It’s estimated that around 20 million people suffered in these camps.

Not to mention that when the Soviets were reaping what the farmers sowed—similar to what the Chinese Communists did—it facilitated a famine in the Ukraine: the Holodomor.

The result was again, millions of innocent people dead.

It seems like communism doesn’t ever work out too well, huh? It’s almost like it’s policies are…clearly contrary to human nature? It’s almost like capitalism and free markets are…clearly intrinsic to human nature?

That’s an article for another time.

Complexity

No sensible person would ever defend the actions of the tyrants described in this article, myself certainly included.

Objectively, the things they did were evil. Horrible.

But I can’t help but wonder, they must’ve thought they were the good guys, right? Isn’t that weird to think about?

But based on how terrible the things they did were, it’s hard to imagine they saw themselves as benevolent heroes.

In the movie “The Dark Knight” Michael Caine's character Alfred famously said (about the Joker):

“Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

The Main Point

The purpose of this article is not to suggest you don’t have ‘real’ problems in your life. Or that you don’t have struggles that are serious. Everyone does, and this article is not intended to downplay anything anyone is going through.

The reason for highlighting sinister people and historical atrocities in an article about gratitude is to make you realize the brutal reality of how terrible life can actually get.

And to make you understand that:

Every human being is capable of doing awful things—so appreciate the good things deeper
Every day something horrible doesn’t happen is a day to express gratitude
Every single breath free of suffering is a gift

Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.
—Zig Ziglar

A Life-Changing Book

Man’s Search for Meaning is a powerful book from psychologist Viktor Frankl. He survived the Nazi concentration camps, and founded the school of thought logotherapy.