In our societies men are paranoiacally ambitious, because paranoiac ambition is admired as a virtue, and successful climbers are adored as though they were gods. [...] What must be the day-dreams of people for whom the world’s most agile social climber and ablest bandit is the hero they most desire to hear about?
Duces and Fuehrers will cease to plague the world only when the majority of its inhabitants regard such adventurers with the same disgust as they now bestow on swindlers and pimps. So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable. The proper attitude towards the ‘hero’ is not Carlyle’s, but Bacon’s. ‘He doth like the ape,’ wrote Bacon of the ambitious tyrant, ‘ he doth like the ape that, the higher he clymbes, the more he shewes his ars.’
Aldous Huxley, ENDS AND MEANS, p.50-51
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