The Philosophy of Mass Murder

Rachael, I agree it’s astounding that Dunn, whose profession is political communications, apparently has never heard that Mao, one of her two “favorite political philosophers,” is probably the greatest mass murderer in human history. She thinks the lesson of his life is “follow your own path.” Could it be possible she doesn’t know that under Mao, if you didn’t follow his path, your next path was to a mass grave?

Farcically, she also misunderstands her other favorite, Mother Teresa. As Dunn tells it, the nun received a letter from an affluent person asking to come to Calcutta to work with her. Mother Teresa replied, “Go find your own Calcutta.” Dunn explains Mother Teresa was saying, “Go find the thing that is unique to you ... not somebody’s else’s challenge.” Uh, no. Mother Teresa was saying you don’t have to come to Calcutta to address suffering—find the suffering where you are and minister to it. Maybe Obama should get Dunn a copy of Political Philosophy for Dummies.

Emily Yoffe is Slate's Dear Prudence and Human Guinea Pig (emilyyoffe@hotmail.com)

Comments

I dunno...

By: _Nancy_ | Sat, 10/17/2009 - 11:04

Admiring an unctuous old charletan and becoming wrapped up in Mao's cult of personality don't seem all that contradictory on a certain level.

Unfortunately Mao is still

By: pampl | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 19:03

Unfortunately Mao is still largely idolized and celebrated in China (similar to the way Stalin is in Russia) so if this news gets big enough then the Obama White House will have to choose between bowing to domestic pressure or pissing off the Chinese. Their government is insulated enough from popular opinion that it can normally disregard this kind of defensive nationalism, but implicitly criticizing Mao's mass killing might cross a line.

Well...

By: MrJM | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 16:53

Any philosopher looks bad if you only focus on his acts of mass murder.

-- MrJM

double standard

By: swmobill | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 16:33

Well, I guess if Bush's communication's director had stated that their favorite political philosophers were Jesus Christ and Hitler there would have been a huge uproar. Folks would have used this to show why the administration was so bad, but i bet they will just say that it's only a philosopher.

Even John Lennon, whose

By: rcwilliams83 | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 16:22

Even John Lennon, whose school of public relations famously led him to proclaim that his band was bigger than Jesus Christ, was still savvy enough to bring us catchy pop diddies proclaiming the relative uncoolness of Mao:

But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao,
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow.

And you know John swung even farther to the left than the Obama administration does.