RRD:Today,of course is the beginning of Passover.Though a religious holiday it occurs to me that it has some parallels to the present.Today we still live in a world with despots enslaving the productive to build monuments to their "greatness".Producers are still ordered to "make bricks without straw".And when they fail to do the impossible they are denounced by those who produce nothing ,for being lazy.(...Ye are idle, ye are idle...fn1).Of course there are also two notable differences(leaving aside the religious elements).Pharoah saw no need to pretend that he was acting for the good of society. And he did not lecture his slaves on how he was lashing them for their own good.
Though not connected to Passover, Ayn Rand's essay "The Monument Builders" offers insight into the combination of grandiose delusions & neurotic insecurity that motivates dictators.Regrettably the full text is not available online to link to. Prestige — Ayn Rand Lexicon
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/prestige.html
..."The desire for the unearned has two aspects: the unearned in matter and the unearned in spirit. (By “spirit” I mean: man’s consciousness.) These two aspects are necessarily interrelated, but a man’s desire may be focused predominantly on one or the other. The desire for the unearned in spirit is the more destructive of the two and the more corrupt. It is a desire for unearned greatness; it is expressed (but not defined) by the foggy murk of the term “prestige.” . . . Unearned greatness is so unreal, so neurotic a concept that the wretch who seeks it cannot identify it even to himself: to identify it, is to make it impossible. He needs the irrational, undefinable slogans of altruism and collectivism to give a semiplausible form to his nameless urge and anchor it to reality—to support his own self -deception more than to deceive his victims."...
“The Monument Builders,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 88. Footnotes:
fn1.
"But he[Pharaoh] said, Ye are idle, ye are idle.."Exodus 5:17 Media attribution links:
Ryugyong Hotel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel
File:Triumphal Arch and Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
File:Paying Their Respects.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Though not connected to Passover, Ayn Rand's essay "The Monument Builders" offers insight into the combination of grandiose delusions & neurotic insecurity that motivates dictators.Regrettably the full text is not available online to link to. Prestige — Ayn Rand Lexicon
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/prestige.html
..."The desire for the unearned has two aspects: the unearned in matter and the unearned in spirit. (By “spirit” I mean: man’s consciousness.) These two aspects are necessarily interrelated, but a man’s desire may be focused predominantly on one or the other. The desire for the unearned in spirit is the more destructive of the two and the more corrupt. It is a desire for unearned greatness; it is expressed (but not defined) by the foggy murk of the term “prestige.” . . . Unearned greatness is so unreal, so neurotic a concept that the wretch who seeks it cannot identify it even to himself: to identify it, is to make it impossible. He needs the irrational, undefinable slogans of altruism and collectivism to give a semiplausible form to his nameless urge and anchor it to reality—to support his own self -deception more than to deceive his victims."...
“The Monument Builders,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 88. Footnotes:
fn1.
"But he[Pharaoh] said, Ye are idle, ye are idle.."Exodus 5:17 Media attribution links:
Ryugyong Hotel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel
File:Triumphal Arch and Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
File:Paying Their Respects.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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