Talk:Despotism

untitled
Fellow Wikipedians,

I'm enrolled in a college class where we're supposed to coypedit Wikipedia articles from the Guild of Copyeditors. I chose this article and tried to copyedit the entire article without adding citations or verifying facts. peteryeccoPeteryecco (talk) 20:57, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Some of these changes[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Despotism&diff=prev&oldid=715284241] haven't really worked, I feel. Any comments anyone?  Feel free to boldly go; and/or I'll try to get back to this.
 * "[Despotism] is defined in the English dictionary as “the rule of a despot; the exercise of absolute authority.”"
 * "the English dictionary" is vague - in fact these words add nothing!
 * Good call, though, linking to a dictionary site. That would be worth citing as a reference.
 * And you've dropped out the main point made in the original copy: "The word .. means to "rule in the fashion of a despot" and does not necessarily require a singular "despot", an individual."
 * "The term has been used to describe .. governments throughout history: it connoted the absolute authority of .."
 * The original copy was much more specific: ".. translate .. titles and positions". And "connote" is almost a weasel word, where the copy's "describe" was direct.
 * "Due to the word’s reflexive connotation throughout history, the word despot cannot be objectively defined. While despot is closely related to other Greek words like .. "
 * Long vague words / phrases (reflexive / connotation / throughout history / objectively). And an unlucky shift of meaning.  Your edited copy can/will indicate - wrongly - that the various Greek words involved (despot, basileus, autokrator) are linked in their origins.  Plainly they're not.  The only connection is that their meanings have drifted similarly.
 * SquisherDa (talk) 10:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

not sure
Not sure where to put this but when you google despotism, the web page description is obscene. Not sure how to fix it either.
 * (Seems OK now!) SquisherDa (talk) 06:17, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Despot / Despotism
Should despotism really have its own entry (as opposed to the title "Despot" which has historical significance)? It's not clear to me that the concept is sufficiently distinct from dictatorship to merit its own page.--Sjsilverman 05:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

source?
Is there a source for the following statement? "In the Orthodox Liturgy, if celebrated in Greek, the priest is addressed by the deacon as "despot" even today."--Sjsilverman 05:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

anonymous comments
I agree that despotism is similar to monarchy and aka the rulership of one man. But I must disagree in one. This mean of rulership was founded in early 15th century in Serbia at the end of the Serbian Empire. After Emperor Dushan Urosh fouth's death, his son Urosh the fifth was much to young to take over and continue the success his father made. So, the Serbian empire broke and, little after the Kosovo battle with Turks, where the great number of Serbian rulers died, Despot became the title for the ruler of the land that was smaller day after day. The last Despot in Serbia was Despot Djuradj Brankovic, and the last Capitol of midieval Serbia Smederevo.

The terms despotism comes from the french term 'despotisme' invented as part of criticisms of Louis xiv in 1690's france to designate a single ruler whose power is unconstrained by constitution or bodies within society. Earlier the English philosopher Hobbes had coined the term despotic or despotical (without a pejorative sense) to mean a ruler established by violence. Of course the author most assotiated with the term is Montesquieu who dealt with it systematcally as a catagory of government in his 1748 spirit of the Laws (a book which influenced the development of the term 'oriental despotism' extensivley). However the root for the term despotism is ancient greek 'despotes' or the master who ruled in a household of slaves or those servile in nature. However in its politcal sense this noun despot/despotes and its adjective form despotikos by aristotle who opinioned that despotic rule described not only over servants or slaves within a household but over 'barbarians' as they were, almost by almost by definition, unable to be free due to being more servile in nature than hellenes. It is important to realise the differences between 'despotism' and 'tyranny' the later of which was preffered by political scholars of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries due largley to their prefference for terminology with a Latin root (as humanists) and middle ages, during which there were only latin translations of aristotle avaliable (greek translations became avaliable once more in Europe in the fourteenth century. It is probally because of this greek root which Hobbes (a keen scholar of greek)this term in prefference of Tyranny, which had been the choice term for figures such as machiavelli and Jean Bodin.

Despotism vs Dictatorship
I am confused about the difference between a despotism and a dictatorship. They seem the same. Could someone clear that up for me.

Yes, between this an absolute monarchy. The Monarchy has absolute power to do whatever he wants, so does a Despot, I don't see the difference. The snare (talk) 02:44, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

"According to Montesquieu, the difference between monarchy and despotism is that in monarchy, a single person governs by fixed and established laws, whereas a despot governs by her or his own will and caprice. "

Actually, this is incorrect, I believe. What it is talking about "fixed and established laws" would be a constitutional Monarchy, the alternative which is an Absolute Monarchy, which is the same as what Despotism is. The snare (talk) 02:55, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Tyranny vs Tyrant
I'm not that up on my Wikipedia editing, so I'd probably be best posting this here for someone else to look in to...

At various points in this article, the the text 'Tyranny' and 'tyrannical' is linked to an album by the Generators called Tyranny probably they should be linked to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrant ?

Neutral Point of View
I myself find the section of the article addressing Bush and Cheney's so called "regime" politically biased. This is just my opinion and I'll glady back down if others believe me incorrect, but I just wanted to put this out there.

Picture/NPOV
The picture looks like a Cold War era propaganda poster to me, all it really says is 'despotism = bad' and doesn't help anyone understand what 'despotism' is, or what makes it different from other forms of authoritarian government [monarchy, dictatorship, etc.].... it just seems more like a judgement than anything else. --Filippo Argenti 22:12, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Papacy
The Papacy is often called a despotic by various people, but I'm not too sure what to think of it, and whether it may be relevant or not. ADM (talk) 09:22, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

What's the difference...
Between autocracy and despotism? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:34, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Despotism and Absolutism are not the same
It had very different historical and social background. Despotism is the oldest most archaic ruling-form in Human history.

Difference between absolute monarchy and despotism
"According to Montesquieu, the difference between absolute monarchy and despotism is that in the case of the monarchy, a single person governs with absolute power.[6]" As opposed to what? What does a despotism do differently here? Is it the fact that a despotism could be an oligarchy (of which I've never heard before, I assumed they were totally different)? We need a general consensus and some real studies on the difference between the two. 86.86.215.140 (talk) 11:16, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Fixed. The rest of the sentence had been removed by vandalism some time ago. It has now been reinserted, so it now reads: "According to Montesquieu, the difference between absolute monarchy and despotism is that in the case of the monarchy, a single person governs with absolute power by fixed and established laws, whereas a despot governs by his or her own will and caprice". The section could easily do with an expansion, but at least now it makes some sort of sense. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:09, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Despotic monarchy
Seems to be basically the same article. Doug Weller (talk) 13:50, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Never mind, page deleted as created by a sock puppet. Doug Weller  talk 01:37, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Turns out to be a synonym for Absolute monarchy. Doug Weller  talk 06:37, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Despotism. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20120211000722/http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=despotism to http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=despotism

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 06:44, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Despotism. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20120211000722/http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=despotism to http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=despotism

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 12:31, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Despotism in litterateur and art
Should we add some famous example of despotism in litterateur and art? We don’t have a lot of despotic governments we can reference towards, and this will add something who is looking for litterateur and art in this category. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.243.138.234 (talk) 20:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Literature.  Please learn to spell. 2605:8D80:4E1:BC0F:871:3E03:C1D9:AEC1 (talk) 19:43, 10 December 2023 (UTC)