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Friday 17 July 2015

To create minions

Whatever the ruling power may be it is repugnant to any change; never does it voluntarily restrict itself in its faculty of bestowing or withholding offices, authority, consideration, influence, or salaries, every desirable and every desired good thing; as far as it can, it retains these in its own hands to distribute them as it pleases, and in its own interest to bestow them on its partisans and to deprive its adversaries of them, to attract clients and create minions.
Hippolyte Taine - The Modern Regime (1893)

An interesting quote because it implies that supranational bodies such as the EU and UN will attempt to reduce national governments to the status of minions. Often willing minions - as all good minions are.

3 comments:

graham wood said...

AKH Pleas help me here as I'm not very good with cartoon characters but is that Mr Tspiras in the centre with a Mrs Merkel on the left and a Mr Juncker on the right, or have I got it all mixed up and its Mrs Merkel in the centre?

Demetrius said...

The advantage of being a minion is that you always have someone else to blame.

A K Haart said...

Graham - I think that's right but it is hard to tell with minions. They talk gibberish too, so no clues to be had there.

Demetrius - blaming is an art which some seem to master from an early age.