Tag Archives: literary oddities

“Barons: Robber, Press, Etc.: Individuals operating in spite of—or perhaps thanks to—a severe inferiority complex transformed into megalomania.

As Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller demonstrated, the robber variety can find some inner peace through the semi-physical therapy of having people make and do things. A select few may even come to resemble the sort of medieval barons who bullied King John into signing the Magna Carta. The press sector offers less scope for improvement. Devoid of practical therapeutic tools, it leaves the mentally unstable to pontificate publicly while using their power to bully others into silence. So long as the widespread ownership of newspapers prevents them from limiting the public’s general freedom of speech, these unhappy individuals provide others with the welcome distraction of colorful comic relief.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.