Monday 28 February 2022

Oligarchy

There’s a weird kind of mania that seems to overcome certain people past midlife, especially when they’ve been playing out that alpha dominance for much too long. New ideas and approaches are only seen as an outright threat to that insatiable comfort zone such oligarchs have instilled over the years. They’d sooner destroy or drag down the lot with them, than ever give up the game. Some experts say it’s too much testosterone that does that to people, even women, reduces reason down to that old knee-jerk reflex of clashing horns. I saw it in my father and numerous people of similar hierarchical obsession, come hell or high water, only to leave all in ruins. I’ve seen it in the government of those last 16 years. I see it in Erdogan and now especially Lukashenko and Putin. Closure paranoia never does listen to reason, nor seem to learn much from history. It’s all “Ich-GmbH” as we say in Germany.