Status Updates From Hotel Ukraine

There was nothing he did, nothing he thought, that wasn’t aimed at keeping him in the favors of those whose power he craved, resented, feared. It was, oddly enough, one of the few things Arkady appreciated about Zurin: he never let you down. He would always behave as abominably as you had expected.

“So on one level we’re civilized but deep down we’re all cavemen?”

"He said that a despot feels he can get away with not following the rules because he is so powerful that society’s restraints and laws don’t apply to him. And the more powerful and alienated from society’s rules he is, the more brutal he can be.”

“Well, apparently we all have a small percent of caveman—otherwise known as Neanderthal—in our DNA, and the caveman got what he wanted with violence. It was only when society set rules and laws that punished them, that cavemen learned how to get what they wanted in other ways."

“Yes. And look what good that’s done. I’ve spent two decades exposing corrupt leadership and it’s as if nobody cares enough to do anything about it. There’s more corruption now than there’s ever been.... They’ll get used to it, and if they don’t know anyone fighting out there, they won’t feel involved. It will become the wallpaper of their lives, a distant war that drags on and on.”