“Cult of personality”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

A cult of personality arises when a country's regime – or, more rarely, an individual – uses the techniques of mass media, propaganda, the big lie, spectacle, the arts, patriotism, and government-organized demonstrations and rallies to create an idealized, heroic, and worshipful image of a leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. A cult of personality is similar to apotheosis, except that it is established by modern social engineering techniques, usually by the state or the party in one-party states and dominant-party states. It is often seen in totalitarian or authoritarian countries.

The term came to prominence in 1956, in Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, given on the final day of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the speech, Khrushchev, who was the First Secretary of the Communist Party – in effect, the leader of the country – criticized the lionization and idealization of Joseph Stalin, and, by implication, his Communist contemporary Mao Zedong, as being contrary to Marxist doctrine. The speech was later made public and was part of the "de-Stalinization" process the Soviet Union went through.

Background

The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority (auctoritas) of the Roman State. Throughout history, monarchs and other heads of state were often held in enormous reverence and imputed super-human qualities. Through the principle of the divine right of kings, in medieval Europe for example, rulers were said to hold office by the will of God. Ancient Egypt, Imperial Japan, the Inca, the Aztecs, Tibet, Siam (now Thailand), and the Roman Empire are especially noted for redefining monarchs as "god-kings".

The spread of democratic and secular ideas in Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries made it increasingly difficult for monarchs to preserve this aura. However, the subsequent development of mass media, such as radio, enabled political leaders to project a positive image of themselves onto the masses as never before. It was from these circumstances in the 20th century that the most notorious personality cults arose. Often these cults are a form of political religion.^[1]

The term "cult of personality" probably appeared in English around 1800–1850, along with the French and German use.^[2] At first it had no political connotations but was instead closely related to the Romantic "cult of genius".^[2] The political use of the phrase came first in a letter from Karl Marx to German political worker, Wilhelm Blos, 10 November 1877:^[2]

Characteristics

There are various views about what constitutes a cult of personality in a leader. Historian Jan Plamper has written that modern-day personality cults display five characteristics that set them apart from "their predecessors": The cults are secular and "anchored in popular sovereignty"; their objects are all males; they target the entire population, not only the well-to-do or just the ruling class; they use mass media; and they exist where the mass media can be controlled enough to inhibit the introduction of "rival cults".^[4]

In his What is character and why it really does matter, Thomas A. Wright states, "The cult of personality phenomenon refers to the idealized, even god-like, public image of an individual consciously shaped and molded through constant propaganda and media exposure. As a result, one is able to manipulate others based entirely on the influence of public personality...the cult of personality perspective focuses on the often shallow, external images that many public figures cultivate to create an idealized and heroic image."^[5]

Adrian Teodor Popan defines cult of personality as a "quantitatively exaggerated and qualitatively extravagant public demonstration of praise of the leader". He also identifies three causal "necessary, but not sufficient, structural conditions, and a path dependent chain of events which, together, lead to the cult formation: a particular combination of patrimonialism and clientelism, lack of dissidence, and systematic falsification pervading the society’s culture."^[6]^[7]

The role of the media

The media has played an instrumental role in forging national leaders' cults of personality.

Thomas A. Wright reports that "It is becoming evident that the charismatic leader, especially in politics, has increasingly become the product of media and self-exposure."^[5] And, focusing on the media in the United States, Robert N. Bellah adds that, "It is hard to determine the extent to which the media reflect the cult of personality in American politics and to what extent they have created it. Surely they did not create it all alone, but just as surely they have contributed to it. In any case, American politics is dominated by the personalities of political leaders to an extent rare in the modern world...in the personalised politics of recent years the "charisma" of the leader may be almost entirely a product of media exposure."^[8]

Enjoying repeated electoral success; particularly his third election victory in 2008, Silvio Berlusconi, an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments, was the most controversial head of government in the EU.^[9]^[10] He is the controlling shareholder of Mediaset and owned the Italian football club A.C. Milan from 1986 to 2017. Forbes magazine ranked him 12th in the List of The World's Most Powerful People due to his domination of Italian politics in 2009.^[11]

Purpose

Often, a single leader became associated with this revolutionary transformation and came to be treated as a benevolent "guide" for the nation without whom the transformation to a better future could not occur. This has been generally the justification for personality cults that arose in totalitarian societies, such as those of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. Jan Plamper argues while Napoleon III made some innovations it was Benito Mussolini in Italy in the 1920s who originated the model of dictator-as-cult-figure that was emulated by Hitler, Stalin and the others, using the propaganda powers of a totalitarian state.^[12]

Pierre du Bois argues that the Stalin cult was elaborately constructed to legitimize his rule. Many deliberate distortions and falsehoods were used.^[13] The Kremlin refused access to archival records that might reveal the truth, and key documents were destroyed. Photographs were altered and documents were invented.^[14] People who knew Stalin were forced to provide "official" accounts to meet the ideological demands of the cult, especially as Stalin himself presented it in 1938 in Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) , which became the official history.^[15]

Historian David L. Hoffmann states "The Stalin cult was a central element of Stalinism, and as such it was one of the most salient features of Soviet rule...Many scholars of Stalinism cite the cult as integral to Stalin's power or as evidence of Stalin's megalomania."^[16]

In popular culture

The American band Living Colour won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1990 for their song "Cult of Personality".^[17] The song includes references to Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Benito Mussolini, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Malcolm X.

Gallery

See also

References

1. ^Jan Plamper. The Stalin Cult: A Study in the Alchemy of Power. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. 2012. pp.13–14.
2. ^¹²³{{cite book|last=Heller|first=Klaus|title=Personality Cults in Stalinism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CreuLAI0c9sC&pg=PA25|year=2004|publisher=Isd|isbn=978-3-89971-191-2|pages=23–33}}
3. ^{{cite web|last=Blos|first=Wilhelm|title=Brief von Karl Marx an Wilhelm Blos|url=http://www.zeno.org/nid/20003602281|website=Denkwürdigkeiten eines Sozialdemokraten|accessdate=22 February 2013}}
4. ^The Stain Cult: A Study in the Alchemy of Power. p. 222
5. ^¹What is character and why it really does matter. p.29
6. ^See Adrian Teodor Popan, The ABC of Sycophancy. Structural Conditions for the Emergence of Dictators’ Cults of Personality (PhD dissertation U of Texas 2015). Bibliography pp 196–213.[https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/46763/POPAN-DISSERTATION-2015.pdf online]
7. ^{{cite journal |title=The ABC of sycophancy : structural conditions for the emergence of dictators' cults of personality |date=August 2015 |doi=10.15781/T2J960G15 |url=https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/46763/POPAN-DISSERTATION-2015.pdf|hdl=2152/46763|last1=Popan |first1=Adrian Teodor |publisher=University of Texas at Austin }}
8. ^California Law Review. p.747
9. ^[Re-inventing the Italian Right: Territorial Politics, Populism and 'post-fascism' Carlo Ruzza, Stefano Fella, Political Science]
10. ^{{cite book|last1=Ruzza|first1=Carlo|last2=Fella|first2=Stefano|title=Re-inventing the Italian Right: Territorial Politics, Populism and 'post-fascism'|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4cVgOb7fsNcC&pg=PA227|year=2009|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-34461-6|page=227}}
11. ^{{cite news |url=https://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/20/power-09_Silvio-Berlusconi_9SKC.html |work=Forbes |title=#12 Silvio Berlusconi |date=11 November 2009 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121111021540/http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/20/power-09_Silvio-Berlusconi_9SKC.html |archivedate=11 November 2012}}
12. ^Jan Plamper, The Stalin Cult: A Study in the Alchemy of Power (Yale UP, 2012), pp 4, 12–14.
13. ^{{cite journal |last1=du Bois |first1=Pierre |title=Stalin – Genesis of a Myth |journal=Survey. A Journal of East & West Studies |date=1984 |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=166–181}} See abstract in {{cite book|author1=David R. Egan|author2=Melinda A. Egan|title=Joseph Stalin: An Annotated Bibliography of English-Language Periodical Literature to 2005|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C_7Xh2euykoC&pg=PA157|year=2007|publisher=Scarecrow Press|page=157|isbn=9780810866713}}
14. ^{{cite journal |last1=Strong |first1=Carol |last2=Killingsworth |first2=Matt |title=Stalin the Charismatic Leader?: Explaining the 'Cult of Personality' as a legitimation technique |journal=Politics, Religion & Ideology |date=2011 |volume=12 |issue=4 |pages=391–411 }}
15. ^{{cite journal |last1=Maslov |first1=N. N. |title=Short Course of the History of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)—An Encyclopedia of Stalin's Personality Cult |journal=Soviet Studies in History |date=1989 |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=41–68 }}
16. ^{{cite journal |last1=Hoffmann |first1=David L. |title=The Stalin Cult |journal=The Historian |date=2013 |volume=75 |issue=4 |page=909 }}
17. ^[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0hYpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=woQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6625,4056376&dq Here's List of Nominees from all 77 Categories.] The Deseret News. Salt Lake City, Utah. 12 January 1990. page W7. Accessed 8 August 2017.