The Chooser’s Problem

Naming something at Princeton — preferably the former Woodrow Wilson School — after Fidel Castro is a great idea. But actually Castro was a small-timer; why not name the School after people who achieved the same things on a larger scale, like Josef Stalin or Mao Tse-tung? They accomplished similar things but with worldwide impact: overthrowing an ineffectual and relatively soft dictatorship and replacing it with a more efficient and strict version, with much better oversight of the citizenry, killing or driving into exile a goodly number of dissenters, wrong-thinkers, members of disfavored groups, counter-revolutionists, and former supporters who became disappointed idealists, as well as ruining their country’s economy. Of course, those great leaders never got to visit Princeton, but that was Princeton’s fault. We should also consider Pol Pot and Idi Amin, and others of the same ilk, for perhaps less prestigious but still worthy eponymous honors.