The word “tyranny,” originally τυραννία (tyrannia) in the Greek, seems to have become part of the current lexicon. The term derives from τύραννος (tyrannos), which translates as “lord, master, sovereign” but eventually acquired more sinister connotations in the classical period of Greek history under the cruel and oppressive rule of various demagogues like, among others, Polycrates of Samos and, more famously, the grasping Dionysius of Syracuse.
In the present historical moment in most Western nations, tyrants or wannabe tyrants have begun to proliferate — in France, Holland, Australia, New Zealand, the European Union as a whole, the United States, and my own country, Canada. Especially Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “an effete pseudo-intellectual,” as Matt Taibbi describes him, seems to have become the poster boy for the resurgence of the modern tyrant.
