I have been following with the interest the events of the tense succession crisis in North Korea. Kim Jong Il, “the Dear Leader”, has appointed his younger son, Kim Jong Un, as “the Brilliant Comrade”, passing over the elder son, whose name I do not recall seeing. I do know, however, that there is speculation that the elder son was passed over for the dubious honor of leadership of North Korea because he attempted to enter Japanese Disneyland with a fake passport. Such disgraceful behavior is reminiscent of the Athenian suitor for the daughter of the tyrant in Corinth, who drunkenly danced away his chance at her hand and then brazenly claimed he had no regrets. Kim Jong Un’s title as “Comrade”, rather than “Leader”, does not have a precedent in the previous transfer of power; in that case, the government announced the change without any previous suggestion of the ailing health or recent demise of “the Great Leader”. The elevation of “Comrade” to the meaning of “Crown Prince” (the final blow to a title founded in radical egalitarianism) suggests that the Dear Leader is still alive, but incapacitated. How much true power the Brilliant Comrade will wield if and when he becomes the Brilliant Leader is a vexing question, in light of the nuclear tests and the characteristics of the third generations of Kim tyrants. I should pause to explain that my Classical training has taught me to use “tyrant” as a technical political term (rather than a near generic term of political abuse), which indicates a “bad” monarchy, one which has no cultural or historical legitimacy in the country in which it establishes itself. In general, the Greek tyrannies began with an ambitious man who rallied his countrymen under the banner of improving their condition, who overthrew the current government, and who (if fortunate enough to avoid assassination) passed his rule onto his son. Most Greek tyrannies collapsed in the second generation; those which survived did so because they had transformed into pseudo-monarchies. These states remained pseudo-monarchies because they lacked the clear line of succession which (most) monarchies possessed. The third generation was the last for the tyrannical dynasties. Even the Syracusan tyranny, which approached most closely the ideal of monarchy, fell in the third generation, only to be re-established about a century later, and those latter tyrants claimed a descent from the former in imitation of monarchy.
The presence of two brothers in the rising generation is not reassuring. Even in monarchies which had a clear succession, there was often much tension between the Crown Prince and his younger brothers, such as the sons of William the Conqueror, or the Emperor Vespasian; in monarchies which lacked this tradition, such as the Ottoman Empire and the empire of the Mongol Horde, fratricide was a common occurance. A few occurances of happy balance have existed, such as the harmony between Emperor Charles V and his brother, but for the most part history and legend record conflicts such as that of Romulus and Remus, Caracalla and Geta, and the sons of Solomon, allegedly the “wisest” king of all history. Even if the brothers themselves do not seek to quarrel, the internal parties of the state (and they always exist) now have the opportunity to support their own candidate and undermine that of their rival, whereas a lone son can be a puppet in equal measure, but does not provide the same opportunity.
In this age, inimical to the establishment of new pseudo-monarchies and not exactly friendly to the existing established monarchies, I would not expect that the Kim tyranny will survive a third generation. How much the eventual collapse will damage the world, given North Korea’s posturing, remains to be seen.
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