Is it better to be loved or feared?

Is better to be feared or loved? It depends by what you mean by loved. If you mean loved like you love a teacher who gives easy A's then a leader would be more successful being feared because eventually the teacher realize what he/she or doing is wrong. The teacher will become a more realistic grader and some students will be unsuccessful academically. The students will resent the teacher and if this situation occurred with a leader and his/her followers then the followers would rebel. But if one means love, the way one loves their parents that is a whole different story. A ruler would want to be loved like a parent because your subjects would love you and respect you. For example if your parents punish you for something you did wrong you still love them. And to achieve this a ruler must look after their subjects like children. Always watching out for them, providing them the necessities of life and punishing them when they mess up. This is probably one of the only ways a ruler can be loved with out their own downfall.

European Feudalism

At the beginning of the first millennia europe there was at the dawn of a new form of government. People were living in closer communities instead of camps in the middle of the woods. They were moving in closer so priests or blacksmiths could be closer at hand. This was a net positive for european societies. One reason is that it formed a better community. The second reason is that it formed a better government. It included kings, counts and vassals which isn't a democracy but it wasn't necessarily a monarchy.
Closer knit societies are good for several reasons. One everyone knows more people. Less people are isolated and with more people a community is more three dimensional. Another reason is that blacksmiths, tailors, priests and doctors are easier to access. This way people could have their necessities that could make life easier and sometimes save lives.
The other reason that the new government was a net positive was that it was a clear system of government. There were just three levels and it was all somewhat equal. Everyone was controlling and controlled by someone.

Pericles Funeral Speech

When Pericles made is speech in front of his fellow Athenians he was supposed to make a memorial speech for the soldiers that died in battle against Sparta. And he did. Sort of. When making his speech it was more like a pep talk. He talked about how awesome Athens was and how it was an example to all other governments.  He did not talk directly about the soldiers who died but mostly what they died for. Which was Athens. This made him an effective and good leader because he was able to manipulate peoples emotions for a good cause. He made people feel good about where they lived and made them feel that the soldiers died for a rightful cause.

What would happen if one escaped Plato's Cave

In a discussion with his students, the famous philosopher was confronted with the question about reality. His response was that reality was like a cave. The cave he was describing had a fire in the very back of it with a few people casting shadows on the wall of the cave from the fire. Then closest to the wall there were prisoners who could only see the shadows cast on the wall. The prisoners only reality were the shadows cast upon the wall of the cave. Now imagine what if one of the prisoners managed to escape?

If a prisoner had escaped the cave he/she would see sunlight for the first time. They would be blinded by the light and be outside for the first time. They would then want to help everyone else in the cave see what reality really is. The ex prisoner would return to the cave and tell everyone that their whole reality is false. Now nobody in the cave would like to hear that everything they believe is completely wrong. So they would first deny what the escaped prisoner had said. But knowing truly what reality is the ex prisoner would persist in trying to get people to come outside. They would soon become angry at him and kill him. This is a perfect example on how people in real life for the past five thousand years have reacted to people that try to tell them their reality is wrong. Nobody likes being told that their whole belief system is false so they react harshly. 

Was the East German Government Effective?

When one thinks of the East German government they think brutal, secretive and evil. But was it effective? It depends on how view the word effective. Was it effective in making life easier for its citizens or effective in making a progressive government. Or was it effective in keeping the government constantly in a state of all power. The East German government was only effective in re-ensuring its survival by crushing all independent thoughts. For example in the film The Lives of Others they arrested an artist who was a neighbor to another artist who fled the country. They interrogated him for two days straight until he cracked and mentioned one name. They tortured one man for one name for forty eight hours proving how desperate the government is to maintain it's regiem. 

Who was the most ethical in "The Lives of Others"

In the film The Lives of Others there was a large amount of unethical behavior. People were being monitored in there own homes, artists would be interrogated for two days and people in charge could force women to sleep with them or else they would be thrown into prison or worse. But there was also light in this dark world. An agent for the stassi (Secret Police) named Weisler is the most ethical person in the film. He was assigned to spy on an artist named Dreyman and when he heard about him talking negatively about the government he didn't turn him in. Also when the Stassi was searching Dreyman's appartement Weisler removed the typewriter Dreyman used to write an anti-east germany article.