Americans have a severe disease - worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes an obsession with winning that can have negative consequences.
Mikhail Gorbachev's statement highlights a societal issue in America where the relentless pursuit of winning—often termed the 'winner's complex'—can lead to detrimental effects on individuals and society as a whole. This mindset prioritizes success above all else, potentially fostering selfishness, arrogance, and a lack of empathy, which can be more harmful than physical diseases like AIDS.
In practice
In a speech addressing corporate culture, one could use this quote to discuss the dangers of cutthroat competition.
Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about Glasnost and Perestroika and democracy in the coming years. They are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal changes in the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep.
The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.
To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.
New approaches are needed, new orientations in both thought and action. We must make the transition to a new civilization...We are talking of a transition toward a new civilization. No one knows what it will be like. What is important is to orient in that direction... I am convinced that a new civilization will inevitably take on certain features that are characteristic of, or inherent in, the socialist ideal.
According to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible.... The essence of perestroika lies in the fact that it unites socialism with democracy and revives the Leninist concept of socialist construction both in theory and in practice. We want more socialism and, therefore, more democracy.
Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.
In general, people are afraid to acknowledge hallucinations because they immediately see them as a sign of something awful happening to the brain, whereas in most cases they're not.
A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones.
Whoever commands the sea, commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.
But that night as I drove back to Montreal, I at least discovered this: that there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them.
They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.
If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don't even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that's the job of dressmakers.
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