If you hear about someone in the news, it means they're not important enough to be able to silence journalists. They're a figurehead or a patsy. Occasionally you get upjumped merchants, I suppose.
Less true further from the Imperial heartland. Putin seems to make real decisions. I don't know enough about Xi to make a firm opinion, but it's certainly possible that he has genuine input. Smaller countries can go both ways. They can be seized and have puppets installed, and they can get seized, for a time, by locals who don't know how important it is to squelch journalism.
Tfw you realize Plato's "Allegory" of the Cave is a literal description of public life for at least the past two thousand years if not the entirety of recorded human history. What did that 'Babylonian' know?
ReplyDeleteWith caveat: the mortals aren't watching the shadows, they are the shadows. They cannot be liberated from the cave.
ReplyDeleteShadow puppets disappear in bright light.
Shadows also disappear in total darkness.
They can only live in the cave, near the dull, flickering fire.