Magnanimous dictators

It’s 1972 and Ennio Flaiano knows he’s going to die.

He gets his affairs and journals in order and makes one final entry. It’s about - of all things - beloved dictators.

It’s about how dictators have learned how to make themselves loved. It’s no longer enough to reward and punish without reason, to keep everyone on their toes.

With the vast amount of information at everyone’s disposal and therefore with the multiplicity of emotions unleashed every day in a world ever more on the verge of hysteria, dictators have finally discovered magnanimity.

Dictators condemn their enemies to death as the world quivers and quakes and then pardon them the next day.

Whereupon the world heaves a sigh of relief, wags its tail out of gratitude and pours out more of its love for magnanimous dictators.