Dear George,
Our future is secure. I have some encouraging news from the culture front—a new generation of empire builders is coming of age. According to a recent study, today’s college students and tomorrow’s leaders (Gen. Y) are really into narcissism. They don’t know squat about relationships or empathy.
Empire thrives when the ego becomes psychotic, because all empires are narcissistic by nature. The ultimate expression of narcissism is when I take from you so I have and you don’t.
Listen to this description of Gen Y’ers and see if this isn’t the stuff of empire: they are into “self-esteem boosterism, luxury as necessary entitlement and…instant fame-ification.”
What is beautiful about this group is that their inability to empathize or to form relationships guarantees we’ll never see anything like a viable polity that might question the need for our matchstick empire. These kids will care more about Anna Nicole than about the Bill of Rights.
They are a product of freedom’s dialectic. Freedom thrives when free individuals come together as a community to advance and protect their freedoms. Over time, the emphasis shifts from community to the individual. The more the sense of community fades, the more the individual clings to the ego as if it were a life raft. Before you know it, individualism rots and becomes egocentricity as people focus on shoring up their flagging self-esteem.
This is why psychotics make the great empire builders. If a man’s self-esteem rests on a bed of loose sand, the best way to give it the illusion of strength is to kick some ass. It’s very uplifting. It’s a fact, George, that only the emotionally crippled appreciate power in all of its manifestations and nuances.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
4:57:35 AM 
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