antness

"one thing that always strikes me as mysterious is that so many of the northern towns see fit to build themselves immense and luxurious public buildings at the same time they are in crying need of dwelling houses." george orwell from the road to wigan pier_________________________no mystery here george...just an expression of power that is meant to overawe the proles and instill in them what geert mak terms "antness'...a feeling of smallness and inferiority in the face of monumental public structures...

from the hideous "palace of parliament" in bucharest...

to the neo classical kitsch in washington d.c....

to the somewhat less imposing local architecture, the intent is still the same...the message is "power resides here" ( you can't fight city hall...unless you are in this town which has questionable competency in wielding authority ) and you should understand that you are a supplicant ( think kafka's keeper of the gates of the law ) despite the propagandized " of the the people, by the people, for the people" ( asking which people is a valid question ) propaganda from high school civics...why george should find this physical manifestation of bureaucratic power to be mysterious is beyond me...the intent is to snuff out any sort of questioning of the wisdom of the powerful before it is expressed...and if the architecture doesn't quite do the job there is an army of aparatchiks inside to exhaust you with interminable requests for "one more document"...it's all part of the hegemony's institutional diminution of the individual...and it is all for the benefit of a few and has been from the get go...for the umpteenth time, read the federalist papers...mein kampf wasn't the very first blueprint of political intent...it goes a long way in explaining how a kleptocrat wormed his way into the oval office...he isn't the first..just the noisiest.