Ramesses II, Assad, and Elon Musk
This photograph of a fallen statue of Hafex al-Assad, father of the recently deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, brought to mind Shelley’s sonnet Ozymandias. I take comfort in the notion that what appears sometimes to be absolute power isn’t quite as absolute as the powerful assume it to be. Perhaps someday Elon Musk will regret his threat against those who suggest that the H1B visa program should be diminished. “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”
Consider, once again, Shelley’s sonnet offering reflections on a destroyed statue built to honor the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Perhaps the private person is not quite so confident as the public persona, but I find it hard to imagine Elon Musk regretting anything that he’s said or done. I rather suspect, though, that his power in the long run is not any more permanent or solid than that of Assad or Ramesses II. I’m choosing to hope that we survive long enough to see that happen.
A postscript: That photograph of the fallen statue is included in the Guardian’s The week around the world in 20 pictures collection. The entire collection is worth a review.