被美國朋友問了這麽一個問題：
“I do not understand why, after Stalin, Russia allowed Putin to become a dictator; nor why xxx, after xxx, allowed xxx to become one.
Both countries were invited with open arms to join the Democracies of the world – and both declined.”
Translate: “不理解為什麽斯大林之後，俄羅斯讓普金上台，成為新的獨裁者。(大家都懂的原因，後麵那句我馬賽克處理，也都很容易猜到內容。)
兩個國家都被民主社會拋過橄欖枝，都拒絕了。”
（The answer in English was attached in the second half of the post.
我用英文回複了，附在後麵。下麵是對應中文。）
這是一個很大的話題，讓我來嚐試淺談一些個人觀點。
集權體製成功辦到了一些事。
首先，他們設法讓社會頂層的10-20%的人——政治人物/精英/有權有勢/富有的階層，即那些擁有最多資源有能力帶來革命甚至顛覆製度的人，相信國家的方向將是更加開放/開通/民主/自由，而當前的非自由階段隻是暫時的和必要的“犧牲/忍受”，為實現更美好的未來做準備的過渡階段。因此，這些人沒有做出改變的緊迫感。
自由在集權/威權國家，變成了是一種個人或者特權利益集團可以享受到的“特權”，然而，這些地方的文化，將這種情況甚至其變成一種動力，驅動人們去攀登社會經濟階梯，取得個人成功，卻缺乏為廣泛的公眾自由和平等權利而戰的精神。當然，我們總能找到不符合這種總結的個人（行為），但是，我這裏更多是從統計層麵來談這個問題。
其次，該製度利用了民族主義/部落主義，使底層20-30%的人認為，民主隻是一種西方品牌的產品，因此，推廣它就像是搞“文化入侵”。如果采用了這種製度，這是對自己先輩和傳統的“背叛”。而且，他們還相當擔心整個過程需要發生一場戰爭才能實現——即完成從現行製度轉變為民主製度。所以，隻要現在的生活還可以忍受，就沒什麽人感興趣冒險。這些BS和宣傳確實起到了維穩效果。
第三，集權像一個生產流水線一般，獨裁者（思維的）不止一個，而是千千萬萬。他們無時無刻不在控製著或者至少琢磨著如何控製人們的日常生活，在工作、學校、家庭、運動、互聯網，等等，無處不在。
第四，集權體製下的高壓和宣傳機器，有效地破壞了人的獨立思考能力和觀點多樣性。它使大量的人非黑即白地看待世界。即使突然之間人們獲得了投票權，也很有可能投票出來一個新的獨裁者。這就是許多國家的政權更迭戰爭失敗的原因之一。
實踐和建立健康的民主製度需要時間。與整個人類曆史相比，民主仍然是一個非常新的政治、文化和社會現象。如果我們以進化論的眼光去看，與人類的整個進化時間軸相比，一百年太短了。相比之下，99.999%的人類曆史都處於獨裁統治之下。熱愛自由的人，基本上是在與漫長的幾十萬年的人類曆史作鬥爭。就像我們都知道鹹菜等高鹽食物不健康，但由於人類絕大部分時候處於挨餓的曆史，人們仍然無法抗拒這些食物。
即使是現代民主製度也不是一天建成的。它早在幾千年前的古希臘和古羅馬就萌芽了，近一個世紀仍然在磕磕碰碰中前行發展，也存在缺陷甚至重大失誤，比如德國人選出來希特勒這樣的錯誤。
最後想說，我們通常認為，從專製製度向民主製度的轉變，是社會/政治製度往上遊進步移動的趨勢。我個人就是這麽認為的。然而，在某些國家，這可能是一個需要數百年甚至千年的過程。在一代人的時間裏，用實際的眼光看待現狀，把非自由社會和自由社會視為政治/社會製度的“多樣性”，更容易獲得心情的平靜。換句話說，讓我們遠離那些千年專製曆史的國家地區的麻煩，首先專注於加強美國自己的自由和民主吧。這就像，通常有兩種類型的物種可以在海島上繁衍生息。一種是有強壯翅膀和肌肉的鳥類，另一種是沒有翅膀或半翅的昆蟲。我們應該為昆蟲安裝鳥類強大的翅膀嗎？
順便說一句，我對美國的理解不是民主製而是共和製，詳細請參看????感謝聯邦製度，使我們能因地製宜，避免災難。這是一個更大的話題，簡單總結一下的話，請參考這個附圖。
以上屬於我的兩分錢看法。
It is a large topic, let me try to share some of my views.
The authoritarian system has succeeded in several things. First, they have managed to make their top 10-20% - politician/elite/rich/powerful classes, i.e. those who have the most sources to bring a revolution or turn the system upside down, believe that the direction of the country will be more open/outward/domacractic/free and the current non-free phase is just temporary and necessary "sacrifice/endurance" to a better future. It is not urgent for these people to make change. Freedom is a privilege/specific interest in authoritarian countries, however, the culture there turns it as a motivation to make people want to climb the social economical ladder achieving individual and or specific interest group's success, rather than fight for the general public's freedom and equal rights. Of course we can always find individuals contradictory to this, however, I talk about statistics here.
Second, the system has used nationalism/tribalism to make the bottom 20-30% believe that democracy is a western branded thing, therefore, it is like a "culture invasion". If they adopt it, it is a treason to their ancestors and traditions. They also fear that there would be a war going through the whole process - changing from the current system to a democratic system. As long as the current life is still tolerable, not enough people would be interested in taking risks. These BS and fear mongering propaganda indeed work well.
Third, the authoritarian system is a pipeline, there is not only one dictator kind of person, but tens of millions of them. They control (or want to control) people all the time in daily life, work, school, home, sports, internet, everywhere.
Fourth, the high pressure and propaganda machine in an authoritarian system have effectively destroyed people's independent thinking and viewpoint diversity. It makes a huge amount of people view the world either black or white. Even if all of a sudden people get the right to vote, there is a high risk they would vote for a new dictator. That's one of the reasons why regime change wars have failed in many countries. It takes time to practice and build a healthy democratic system. Democracy is still a very new culture, society and political phenomenon compared to the entire human history. If we look at evolution, a hundred years is too short compared to homo sapiens' whole evolving time. 99.999% of human history is under dictatorship. We are basically fighting hundreds of thousands of years of human history. It is similar to the case that we all know high salty foods such as pickles are not healthy, however, people still cannot resist those foods due to our long history of starving. Even the modern democratic system has not been accomplished in one day. It had budded thousands of years ago in ancient Greece and Rome, and in the recent century there were still mistakes such as the German people electing Hitler.
Last but not least, we often believe transforming from an authoritarian system to a democratic system is moving up the social/ political food chain. I personally believe so. However, it could be a process of hundreds and even thousand years in some countries. For a generation's length of time, it is more practical to treat non-free society and free society as "diversity" of political/social systems. In other words, let's stay away from their own troubles but focus on strengthening America's own freedom and democracy first. For instance, there are generally two types of species that can thrive on an island. One is birds with strong wings and muscles, the other is insects without wings or half-wing. Should we install birds' strong wings to insects?
BTW, my understanding of the USA is not a democracy but a Republic, which is another big topic, to make it simple please refer to the attached image.
That's my two cents.
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38年前今天裏根在複旦大學演講，此刻回味幾多傷感—我們還回得去嗎
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