#13 Personality Disorders

    In researching the corruptive effect of power I read “Was Saddam Hussein Like Adolf Hitler?”   The article was basically a report on the results of personality disorder tests that were done on both Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler.   I thought a comparison of both of these men would provide some interesting information and some useful arguments for my ARP.   I’m sure it will not come as much of a surprise to most people, but this article showed both Hussein and Hitler scored very high in  many of the categories of personality disorders.   However, the sadistic, antisocial, paranoid and narcissistic categories for both men were exceedingly high, and both had very high scores in most of the tested realms of personality disorders (sadistic, paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic, schizoid, schizotypal, obsessive-compulsive, dependent, depressive, self-defeating, borderline, passive-aggressive, histrionic, avoidant).   Hussein’s sadistic features were more profound that Hitler’s, and the research provided that Hussein might have been a paranoid schizophrenic.
This article provided me with some very useful information about Hitler and Hussein, as well as, gave me some personalitiy disorders to look for in other tyrannical or unjust rulers.   From this article I can assuming that most power-hungry people or people that misuse power will also have some sort of personality disorder.

Coolidge, Frederick L., and Daniel L. Segal. "Was Saddam Hussein Like Adolf Hitler? A Personality Disorder Investigation." Military Psychology 19.4 (2007): 289-299. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 7 Apr. 2011.

#10 Prelim. Research

    My analytical research paper will be about how power can corrupt people.   To provide some real world examples, I will be researching Hitler’s, Saddam Hussein’s and Muammar Gaddafi’s rise to power.   Also, I will find other rules or leaders that severely misused their power.   I will compare their intentions that they had, or claimed they had, before they gained power to what they actually did while in power.

Coolidge, Frederick L., and Daniel L. Segal. "Was Saddam Hussein Like Adolf Hitler? A Personality Disorder Investigation." Military Psychology 19.4 (2007): 289-299. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 7 Apr. 2011.

Johna, Samir. "THE ANATOMY OF CRIME: PHYSICIANS UNDER THE OPPRESSIVE REGIME OF SADDAM HUSSEIN." Acta Medico-Historica Adriatica 7.2 (2009): 303-308. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 7 Apr. 2011.

Nayar, Monisha. "The cult of Osama: psychoanalyzing Bin Laden and his magnetism for Muslim youths. By Peter Alan Olsson, Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008." International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 6.3 (2009): 232-235. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Apr. 2011.

Winter, P.R.J. "Penetrating Hitler’s High Command: Anglo-Polish HUMINT, 1939-1945." War in History 18.1 (2011): 85-108. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 7 Apr. 2011.

Zoubir, Yahia H. "Libya and Europe: Economic Realism at the Rescue of the Qaddafi Authoritarian Regime." Journal of Contemporary European Studies 17.3 (2009): 401-415. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 7 Apr. 2011.

#9 Prospectus (Power)

    My prospectus will be about power in the Star Trek universe.   There are many episodes that deal with the concept of power.   In the episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, one of the crew members gains extrasensory perception and takes over the ship.   The main point of the episode was how power corrupts people.   The crewman didn’t know how to properly use his powers.   This abuse of power is seen commonly in unjust rulers and tyrants.   There are plenty of examples of abuse of power in Star Trek: The Original Series, as well as, the real world.
    Questions that arise when seeing this power abused is abundant.   I would want to know how abuse of power is so prevalent, why people haven’t learned to stop this and why people change so much when they come into power.

#8 High School is Hell

    “High School is Hell” explains what issues the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer deals with.    The chapter picked out certain metaphors used in the show and dissected them, pointing out how they can be related to real life.   The main point of the chapter, however, was that many of the metaphors used in Buffy are very relatable to the real world.   Also, some of the principles of the show that seem like metaphors, are not actually a metaphor, but a literal representation of something.
    I have only seen a few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I think I see what the writer is trying to convey.   The writer was talking about how storytellers use monsters or some sort of evil to represent problems or fears of the real world.   The question brought up when talking about this from the chapter was, “Does this mean that at some level, the metaphors are more real than we first expected and that there is some truth behind the myth?   Might it be that the truth is scarier than al the collective monsters put together?”   I thought this was a great question to ask, because I feel like most people assume that stories or tales are just fiction.   I feel like people fail to see through the created monster to what the writer is trying to portray.   For whatever reasons (maybe the reader or consumer doesn’t agree with or want to accept the intended message, or the person is just reading or consuming the media for entertainment) people don’t fully understand or comprehend what they are consuming, which is a shame because most of the mentioned material discussed in “High School is Hell” is deep, thoughtful, meaningful and extremely prevalent in society.

#7 Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

    A man’s lust for power was depicted wonderfully in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before”.   In the episode, the Enterprise exited the galaxy.   The Enterprise soon travels through a ring of particles causing a few deaths among the crew.   However, one crewman, Gary Mitchell, was given Extrasensory Perception (ESP).   Gary gained the ability to read minds, to read and retain entire pages of information in seconds, to control objects just by thinking about them and to shoot lightning from his hands.   Spock and Captain Kirk realized that Gary’s powers would continue to grow exponentially, and soon he would become bored with the crew and kill them all.
    This yearning for power is not an isolated incident.   In fact, it is the reason we all live.   Most people strive to be the best they can be.   Very few people have no desire to better themselves in any way, shape or form.   This drive is why people set goals and strive for perfection.   For some people, being in good shape makes them what to be in great shape.   For others, having 100 friends makes them want 200 friends.   When goals are seen as constructive, the lust for power is commonly referred to as a drive or a will to succeed.   When individuals have less than constructive goals, the person is seen as obsessive and power-hungry.   Most dictators and tyrants are perfect examples of negative obsessions.
    It is important for some goals to be unattainable, and maybe even more importantly, people should realize that some goals (like having absolute power) are not possible to achieve.   Perfection would lead to complacency and eventually to boredom and anger.   Also, trying to obtain absolute control can drive people mad.

#6 Hitler takes over the starship Enterprise

    In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Charlie X”, the Enterprise beams aboard a teenage boy, Charlie, who is supposedly the last living human from his planet.   Charlie has not had any human interaction in a very long time and has no idea what acceptable behavior is or how to normal people interact with each other.   Aboard the Enterprise, Charlie has his first encounter with women, and he even falls in love with the first one he sees.   Soon it becomes clear that Charlie is not a normal person.   Charlie has the power to control people and objects with his mind.   He is easily upset and doesn’t always use his powers for good.   When Charlie doesn’t get his way, he throws a temper tantrum and lashes out at someone.   Captain Kirk witnesses Charlie make someone disappear, that is when Kirk realizes that Charlie was responsible for the disappearance of a ship a few days earlier.   Charlie ends up taking control of the ship and holds all of its crew members hostage.
    Watching the episode, I found myself thinking about Charlie as an Adolf Hitler of sorts.   Charlie’s mental ability to control people reminded me of the persuasive powers Hitler had.   After Hitler came to power, he could basically make anyone do anything he wanted them to.   If people made Charlie angry, or if Charlie didn’t like someone, he would just make them disappear.   If Hitler didn’t like someone or feared someone, he had them killed.   Also, Hitler’s primary goal was to eliminate all non-Aryan people.   Finally, Charlie’s takeover of the Enterprise could represent Hitler’s takeover of Germany.

#5 Star Trek thinks women are evil

    In the episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that I watched, crew members of The Enterprise were being killed left and right.   They were all being killed by an alien that fed by killing people for the salt in their body.   The way interesting part was how the creature hunted it’s prey.  It could transform into any person it wanted.   The intelligent part was that the creature knew the best way to draw in its victims.   It disguised itself as man’s biggest weakness, a woman.   The killer would take the form of an attractive woman and lure men to secluded area and quietly killed them.
    I think there were a few hidden messages in this episode.   It seemed to me like the writer, Gene Roddenberry, was not very fond of women, and it showed men as being weak and stupid.   The creature was usually a woman that sucked the salt out of men.   I believe that what the writer was trying to show was that women are evil.   Why else would the creature take the form of a woman?   A man could have killed the crew members just as easily as a woman.   However, the writer had the monster take the form of a woman for most of the episode.   The writer didn’t seem like he was trying to hide his view of women either.   He just showed women literally sucking the life out of men.   Also, the men in the episode were so mesmerized by women, that after seeing the creature’s woman form, they were completely unable to function.