Stalin was paranoid even by the standards of major world leaders. Khrushchev wasn’t so paranoid, for example. Stalin saw enemies behind every corner. That is not a happy existence.
Khruschev was deposed. Stalin stayed dictator until he died of natural causes. That suggests that Khruschev wasn’t paranoid enough, while Stalin was appropriately paranoid.
Seeing enemies around every corner meant that sometimes he saw enemies that weren’t there, but it was overall adaptive because it resulted in him not getting defeated by any of the enemies that actually existed. (Furthermore, going against nonexistent enemies can be beneficial insofar as the ruthlessness in going after them discourages real enemies.)
Stalin saw enemies behind every corner. That is not a happy existence.
How does the last sentence follow from the previous one? It’s certainly not as happy an existence as it would have been if he had no enemies, but as I pointed out, nobody’s perfectly happy. There are always tradeoffs and we don’t claim that the fact that someone had to do something to gain his happiness automatically makes that happiness fake.
Stalin was paranoid even by the standards of major world leaders. Khrushchev wasn’t so paranoid, for example. Stalin saw enemies behind every corner. That is not a happy existence.
Khruschev was deposed. Stalin stayed dictator until he died of natural causes. That suggests that Khruschev wasn’t paranoid enough, while Stalin was appropriately paranoid.
Seeing enemies around every corner meant that sometimes he saw enemies that weren’t there, but it was overall adaptive because it resulted in him not getting defeated by any of the enemies that actually existed. (Furthermore, going against nonexistent enemies can be beneficial insofar as the ruthlessness in going after them discourages real enemies.)
How does the last sentence follow from the previous one? It’s certainly not as happy an existence as it would have been if he had no enemies, but as I pointed out, nobody’s perfectly happy. There are always tradeoffs and we don’t claim that the fact that someone had to do something to gain his happiness automatically makes that happiness fake.
Stalin’s paranoia, and the actions he took as a result, also created enemies, thus becoming a partly self-fulfilling attitude.