It all depends on what they DO. If they do what we want them to do then we call them benevolent. eg:"MAO firmly guided China through the 20-eth century" versus "MAO brutally banished political dissidents to labor camps in remote provinces". It can take centuries before their actions have ripened enough for a clear verdict to emerge. "Malevolent" is a particularly tricky word here, since it implies an evil and unstated intention. something that is just impossible to prove.
This post was edited by JakobA the unAmerican. at March 20, 2018 12:56 AM MDT
Your answer was well spoken, but I disagree with a few ideas here. First, that history judges better than immediacy. History forgets and fumbles the actual events many times.
Also, many dictators are certainly evil and have unsated intention, not unstated. Their lust for power knows no bounds, they believe in nothing but themselves and those they want to own and control. Everyone else is expendable. That is true evil. To me, anyway. I don't want anyone who believes in nothing but himself anywhere near me and certainly not ruling any office of any importance.
The problem with that definitionion of dictator is that it does not permit your original question ("are all dictators evil?") to be asked as a serious question. The definition take it as a given that of course they are Evil, so you cannot ask that question without admitting that maybe they are not all evil.
This post was edited by JakobA the unAmerican. at March 20, 2018 3:27 AM MDT
Generally there are always people whose lives benefit from a dictatorship; to them the dictator is benevolent. To the people he oppresses, he is malevolent. But someone has be silenced and oppressed for a dictatorship to work.
This post was edited by WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH at March 20, 2018 12:55 AM MDT
JakobA the unAmerican. 