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The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World QUOTES

The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World QUOTES

1 " What is the endgame of all these megaconstructions? Well, in ancient Egypt, the late 6th-dynasty state had not only become so large that it was nonfunctional (think of the giant cable company that never answers the phone), it had also become a mass of intercompeting elites who used the government to serve no one but themselves. (Think of today´s relentless multimillion-dollar bonuses, payoffs, bribes, insider trading, and fraud, all happening openly with no one going to prison.) As the competition ramped up, and as the Egyptian state became impoverished from mismanagement, the end result was nothing less than war. "

― , The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World

2 " Examining Senwosret III´s Egypt clarified how hate rhetoric broadcast within a society created political cohesion. Emasculating an enemy through dehumanizing ideas and acts forged a nation. "

― , The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World

3 " ...Akhenaton is the king who allows us to see the invention of one-god worship for what it really was: a patriarchal cult leader´s tactic, the modern manifestation of which many of us still deludedly follow. I´m not saying that every practicing monotheist is an authoritarian. I´m saying that monotheism was specifically invented to support authoritarianism. "

― , The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World

4 " ...The authoritarian is usually not some kind of evil genius but rather the bumbling fool, who in an attempt to become the biggest, most wealthy, most successful king of kings, ends up bringing down the entire system. "

― , The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World