They Don't Make Dictators Like They Used To

Two people who I hope were tourists were posing and taking photos of each other at Circular Quay railway station this afternoon.  I'm not sure why.  There are places on the station where you can stand and get a decent shot with the panorama of Sydney Harbour behind you and, best of all, very little of the actual station but these two weren't standing in any of them.  I can only assume they thought they would look better by comparison if they chose a background of grey, bleakly depressing ugliness.  Since one of them was wearing a shirt fashioned to look like an NYPD flak jacket and the other a shiny suit of metallic grey its possible they were right but probably not by much.

While we're touching on things of fashion, Muamar Qaddafi is dead.  We know he's dead because there are pictures of a rebel brandishing his gold plated pistol.  Do all these dictators have the same style consultant or what?  "OK, you've got the puppet legislature, a brutal secret police, your most corrupt cronies as ministers and a deeply demoralised army headed up by your drug addled son.  What else do you need to show that you have really made it in the dictator stakes?  You need something both brutal and tasteless; I've got it!  A gold plated gun."

What is it about absolute power that drives people to orgies of bad taste (as well as destruction and bloodshed of course)?  Louis XIV was just as big a tyrant and arguably less likeable than Qaddafi so how is it that Louis gave the world Versailles and all Qaddafi gave was a gold plated pistol and a crappy statue of a hand crushing an aeroplane?  Of course upbringing and education have something to do with it.  Upbringing and education can't give you taste if you possess none any more than birth can make you a gentleman however if you possess any natural inclination in that direction education and upbringing will help bring it out.

I don't think that can be the complete answer though.  Surely with a history as replete with bloody handed tyrants as ours we should be able to find one with some sense of taste if not class.  I strongly suspect that the answer lies in a feeling of insecurity.  I don't mean personal insecurity or insecurity of position; every dictator is rightly concerned about that and even Louis XIV wasn't famous for taking chances with his safety.  No, I mean psychological security.  Deep down inside every dictator knows he's just a thug who murdered or manipulated his way to the top of a very shaky pile.  The monstrous statues, the golden pistols, the staggering, tasteless excess all smack of the nouveau riche trying to out nob the nobs.

Versailles is staggering but it isn't tasteless and I suggest it isn't because Louis was utterly confident about his position.  Not about its permanence or the inability of others to take it away from him but the absolute, serene confidence of knowing that it is right and proper that he be where he is.  Louis was appointed by God and you don't get more legitimate than that.

The palace of Versailles is seen as a symbol of course.  A symbol of power, magnificence, of France's place in the world and Louis' place within France but perhaps it should better be seen as a symbol of confidence.  Louis had the place built because he wanted it.  Simple as that and because of who he was it never occurred to him that it might not happen.  Versailles certainly sent a message to the world and was intended to but it didn't reflect on Louis.  Versailles is a reflection of Louis.

And to be fair I suppose a golden pistol and a crappy statue is a pretty good reflection of Qaddafi.