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Tyranny
List of forms of government
- Anarchism
- Aristocracy
- Authoritarianism
- Autocracy
- Band society
- Chiefdom
- Colony
- Communist state
- Corporatocracy
- Democracy
- Despotism
- Dictatorship
- Feudalism
- Kleptocracy
- Kritarchy
- Krytocracy
- Meritocracy
- Monarchy
- Ochlocracy
- Oligarchy
- Plutocracy
- Puppet state
- Republic
- Single-party state
- Technocracy
- Theocracy
- Theodemocracy
- Timocracy
- Totalitarianism
- Tribe
In modern usage a tyrant is a single ruler holding vast, if not absolute power through a state or in an organization. The term carries modern connotations of a harsh and cruel ruler who places their own interests or the interests of a small oligarchy over the best interests of the general population which they govern or control. However, in the classical sense, the word simply means one who has taken power by their own means as opposed to hereditary or constitutional power (and generally without the modern connotations). This mode of rule is referred to as tyranny. Many individual rulers or government officials are accused of tyranny, with the label almost always a matter of controversy.
The word derives from Latin tyrannus, and ultimately from the non-pejorative Greek τύραννος tyrannos, meaning "illegitimate ruler", although this was not pejorative and applicable to both good and bad leaders alike.[1][2]
The tyranny of the clock
[T]he monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.— Tennessee Williams, The Catastrophe of SuccessI had occasion of late to send two slim volumes of American literature...
The Bloodline of Tyranny
The Bloodline of Tyranny can be traced back in this country to a mentality that formed within the circles of power that began to consolidate during the Constitutional Convention...
The Tyranny Ratchet
The welter of opinions arising out of the al-Marri decision from the Fourth Circuit still needs to be deciphered by legal experts...
irony's tyranny
David Foster Wallace, dead of an apparent suicide over the weekend, was the author of Infinite Jest among other novels, short stories, and journalism -- a young (since I'm around his age, I declare him to be so) and brilliant "postmodern" (whatever that means) writer whose work I've never quite liked, although my wife does...
Fighting the Tyranny of the Reasonable
Every dog has its day. Today belongs to my favorite mutt purebreed, Norm Pattis, sitting on a hard bench in Detroit so that we don't have to...
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