Beware the cult of the individual
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The recent visit to Thailand by US President Barack Obama and a myriad of news stories about former US CIA director and retired general David Petraeus bring to mind the term "cult of the individual", defined by one source as "when an individual uses mass
Most famously the term was used in Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 “Secret Speech” to the Soviet Union’s 20th Party Congress, in which he said: “Comrades, the cult of the individual acquired such monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself, using all conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his own person.”
In the case of General Petraeus, he was glorified to such a degree through his own efforts, by US politicians and by the US media, that now he is being portrayed as a victim of his own amorous misdeeds, someone to be pitied so that US politicians and news media can get off the hook for having built a cult around him.
His indiscretions and poor decisions were much more than a case of adultery, and public trust – national and international – is the victim.
When the politicians and news media invest so much in the sanctification of any individual, then we common folk can forget about getting the truth should the anointed fall from glory.
As a matter of fact, we can forget about the truth in any case.
Guy Baker
Bangkok
