Claiming that Stalin wasn’t happy sounds like a variation of sour grapes where not only can you not be as successful as him, it would be actively uncomfortable for you to believe that someone who lacks compassion can be happy, so you claim that he’s not.
It’s true he was paranoid but it’s also true that in the real world, there are tradeoffs and you don’t see people becoming happy with no downsides whatsoever—claiming that this disqualifies them from being called happy eviscerates the word of meaning.
I’m also not convinced that Stalin’s “paranoia” was paranoia (it seems rationa for someone who doesn’t care about the welfare of others and can increase his safety by instilling fear and treating everyone as enemies to do so). I would also caution against assuming that since Stalin’s paranoia is prominent enough for you to have heard of it, it’s too big a deal for him to have been happy—it’s promiment enough for you to have heard of it because it was a big deal to the people affected by it, which is unrelated to how much it affected his happiness.
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.
Claiming that Stalin wasn’t happy sounds like a variation of sour grapes where not only can you not be as successful as him, it would be actively uncomfortable for you to believe that someone who lacks compassion can be happy, so you claim that he’s not.
It’s true he was paranoid but it’s also true that in the real world, there are tradeoffs and you don’t see people becoming happy with no downsides whatsoever—claiming that this disqualifies them from being called happy eviscerates the word of meaning.
I’m also not convinced that Stalin’s “paranoia” was paranoia (it seems rationa for someone who doesn’t care about the welfare of others and can increase his safety by instilling fear and treating everyone as enemies to do so). I would also caution against assuming that since Stalin’s paranoia is prominent enough for you to have heard of it, it’s too big a deal for him to have been happy—it’s promiment enough for you to have heard of it because it was a big deal to the people affected by it, which is unrelated to how much it affected his happiness.
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.
You do see people becoming happy with fewer downsides than others, though.