Dubai's Tower of Bling.

Dubai's tower remind me of Thucydides' "The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians". One of the arguments for Empire made by the Athenians against the Spartans goes as: if you don't keep and expand your Empire, somebody else will expand theirs. "The Athenians add that they are not the first to yield to the temptation of empire, but that it has always been established for the weaker to be kept down by the stronger, and that no one with a chance to acquire something by force has ever yet been dissuaded by the argument of justice" (Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. History of Political Philosophy. 3rd Ed. p. 13). The argument of the stronger -stated by Glaucon in Plato's Republic- is similar to those childhood dreams of being able to do whatever you want without fear of punishment or retaliation -eat all the candies, sneak into the girls bathroom without being seen. As long as you wear a ring that makes you invisible you would surely do anything to satisfy your desire. "When he had in his power to help himself without fear to any thing he pleased in the market, or to go into private houses and have intercourse with whom he would, or to kill and release from prison according to his own pleasure, and in everything else to act among men with the power of a god" Plato. Republic, 360 c). Unlimited power corrupts men and makes tyrants.
The most striking thing about Dubai is that is a creepy place in the middle of the desert trying to play Empire. An ugly, humongous, phallic, egotistic tower in the middle of nowhere to burst someone's megalomania; the same way an empty headed would cover himself with bling to compensate for his lack of schooling or a guy with a short penis would buy a million bucks toy car.
"The thing you have to understand about Dubai is – nothing is what it seems," Karen says at last. "Nothing. This isn't a city, it's a con-job. They lure you in telling you it's one thing – a modern kind of place – but beneath the surface it's a medieval dictatorship." Johann Hari. The Independent, April 7). A quest for empire without power. Not even a quest for empire: is the bling without the car, the toy car without the mansion, the mansion without the girl. "For we think, on the basis of opinion, regarding the divine, and on the clear basis of a permanent compulsion of nature, regarding the human, that wherever they have the might, they rule" (Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. History of Political Philosophy. 3rd Ed. p. 14), the Athenians ambassadors at Sparta and at Melos never sounded so good. Enjoy the concrete built, airplane proof -oh that is so important-, symbolic phallus in the land of pre-feudalism, but just don't get caught kissing the girl in the lobby or you would have to leave your bones in the desert.