The modern digital world has removed friction from a vast spectrum of everything that can exist in our lives. Hyper-accessibility of information, the number of people we can connect with, what we can create, watch, learn, and share.

Not so long ago, all of this was available, but with certain limitations. We could meet and talk even with strangers, but we couldn’t talk to thousands a day. Teenage boys might have had a chance to accidentally see a naked female body, but now you can see thousands in an hour—and not just bodies, but all sorts of things those bodies do.

You couldn’t spend all day writing nasty things to strangers without any level of responsibility. Hundreds of millions of hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every year.

Some of this is clearly good. But much of it is also bad, like overeating sugar or excessive consumption of anything. It’s destroyed our sense of measure. Yes, previously that measure didn’t depend on rationality, but rather on the complexities of the real world—but it was still a measure. And when we overcame those complexities, we got informational, social, erotic, and other kinds of “obesity.” Actually, it’s even worse, because even in the worst, most disgusting case of obesity, there are still physical limits, while much of what’s happening now has no limits at all. Yes, some people can handle this abundance, filter it, and use it wisely. But just like with food—not everyone overeats, but the obesity epidemic is real, and most people suffer from excess, not lack; a small fraction suffers greatly, but the majority suffers noticeably.

And we keep losing any control over all of this, handing over what we had left to algorithms designed to extract maximum profit and further optimized by soulless neural networks.

Take YouTube, for example. An amazing service, a treasure trove of interesting content. And this is largely possible because there are no restrictions. But the sheer volume—over 180 million hours of video per year—is already one of the main issues: no team of humans could ever curate or moderate such a stream. So this becomes an argument against any filters or human curation. Why can’t the worst of the worst be filtered out? Well, supposedly it’s impossible, because the scale is just too big. But maybe this “ability” to filter out the worst is precisely the friction that’s necessary? YouTube definitely wouldn’t be what it is now if the corporation were responsible for the content. There would be less available, less interesting, less educational content. But there would also be less horror. And most importantly—if it wasn’t on YouTube, where would it be? Of course, maybe it just wouldn’t exist in video form, but the time spent watching, the effort put into creating, etc., would go into something else, and if everything on the internet had the friction of the real world, maybe the real world would be better, would develop more brightly. Maybe there would be more beautiful books. Or maybe less. It’s not clear.

Google, with its automated organization of information, simply crushed and obliterated all the manual directories people once created, like DMOZ or Yahoo. Now we see how those directories died back then. But what if Google hadn’t killed them, and they had continued to develop? Maybe there would have been more Wikipedia-like projects. Of course, history doesn’t deal in “what ifs,” but we can start caring about it now. And the truly important question is: who will decide what exactly to filter and how to limit? In the past, for example, the press and academia enjoyed a higher level of trust, since taking on that responsibility meant their commitment to objectivity was a vital part of their reputation. Today, this role is increasingly held by algorithms—and trust in them is almost nonexistent. Especially since many of them are secret, and often they contain obvious “dark patterns” or things that, if exposed, might even cross into criminal territory.

So here’s what I’m trying to say. The internet has given us unimaginable expanses of access without any real friction or resistance, and for years we’ve rejoiced at how wonderful this is. But maybe this resistance, friction, and other kinds of limitation from the real world are still necessary for us as humans? Maybe it’s like the paradox of choice: having no choice at all is bad, but when choice is too broad, it leads to paralysis, anxiety, disappointment, and dissatisfaction. This whole hyper-accessible world is like an ultra-slippery floor, where you can’t stand, you keep falling, sometimes even smashing your jaw so hard you see stars.

Total accessibility is an extreme, just like total lack of access. What we need is moderation, a golden mean. I say some things here bluntly. Maybe it’s unpleasant to hear, but I think we need a wake-up call.

Patrick McGee – Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company — A stunningly insightful book. I genuinely thought I knew everything there was to know about Apple — but this is a trove of new, often surprising material. Not just about Apple or China, but about globalization as a whole, and the deep contrasts between cultures.

At its core, it's a vivid case study of how today's high-tech manufacturing became so intertwined with China — and how Apple played a pivotal role in making that happen. And why.

Where to get

• 📚 Hardcover
• 📱 Kindle eBook
• 🎧 Audible audiobook

More information

• 🌐 Author's website

In this mini-essay I have adapted and expanded from insights presented during a 3+ hour discourse at Club IntLex on June 10, 2025, addressing the inadequate understanding of modern authoritarian regimes by Western academia and the public. While originally discussed in the context of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war and Putin's regime, these theoretical frameworks by Andrei Illarionov offer broader insights into the fundamental nature of political power structures worldwide.

TLDR Summary

At their core, states and mafias share identical operational structures and mechanisms—both function as power organizations that extract resources through threats of violence while providing protection services. The fundamental difference lies not in their methods or organizational logic, but in the moral codes, ethical frameworks, and normative systems that govern their internal operations and external relationships. Understanding this distinction is crucial for comprehending why some political systems develop democratic institutions while others consolidate into authoritarian structures, and why the boundaries between legitimate governance and organized criminality can become dangerously blurred.

States and Mafias: Two Faces of the Same Coin

One of the most provocative yet academically rigorous arguments in contemporary political science challenges our fundamental understanding of state legitimacy. The central thesis is stark: states and mafias are principally indistinguishable in their essential nature. While this may seem counterintuitive, the argument has deep historical roots dating back over 1,600 years.

Saint Augustine, writing between 413-427 CE, captured this insight in his famous observation from De Civitate Dei (The City of God): "Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia?" - "Justice being taken away, what are kingdoms but great robberies?" For Augustine and other thinkers of the late Roman Empire, the distinction between legitimate authority and organized criminal enterprises lay not in their fundamental operations, but in their relationship to justice and moral order.

This perspective suggests that what we call "states" and what we call "mafias" are simply subspecies of the same phenomenon: power organizations that operate through controlled violence and protection services.

The Mechanics of Power Organizations

Every power organization, whether officially recognized as a state or operating in the shadows as organized crime, functions through the same basic model.

The Dual Nature: Threat and Protection

• Extraction: The systematic collection of resources from a subject population through threats of violence (taxation for states, "tribute" for mafias)
• Service Provision: Offering security and dispute resolution services (police and courts for states, "protection" and arbitration for mafias)

When threats prove insufficient, both types of organizations escalate to actual violence. The mechanisms are identical—only the terminology and legal frameworks differ.

Different Ethical Systems, Same Operational Logic

What distinguishes various power organizations is not their fundamental nature but their moral and legal frameworks—their understanding of justice, ethics, and legitimate conduct.

Western Rule of Law

Modern Western political science measures legitimacy through adherence to rule of law principles: constitutional constraints, due process, separation of powers, and protection of individual rights. This framework has become so normalized in academic discourse that many scholars mistakenly treat it as universal rather than culturally specific.

Alternative Moral Systems: Po-ponyatiyam / "По понятиям" (By the Code)

However, other power organizations operate under entirely different ethical systems. The Russian term "по понятиям" (po ponyatiyam) - literally meaning "according to concepts" or "by the code" - originally emerged from criminal subculture but has become a pervasive organizing principle across various authoritarian systems, sometimes could be interprited as thieves honor.

This unwritten code of conduct initially developed in Soviet prison camps and criminal organizations, but its influence has spread far beyond its origins. The Ponyatiya / "понятия" system now governs behavior in:

• Criminal organizations (traditional organized crime syndicates)
• Prison systems (both as inmate culture and administrative practice)
• Authoritarian state apparatus (security services, bureaucratic hierarchies)
• Corporate structures in post-Soviet states
• Military and paramilitary organizations

Core Principles of "Po ponyatiyam"

The code encompasses several key elements that create internal discipline and organizational effectiveness.

• Hierarchical respect: Absolute adherence to established chains of command, where seniority and proven loyalty determine authority
• Dispute resolution: Formalized processes for resolving conflicts through agreed-upon norms and arbitration by respected figures, rather than arbitrary violence
• Mutual obligations: Complex systems of debt, favor, and reciprocity that bind members together
• Omertà-style silence: Strict prohibitions against cooperation with outside authorities or revealing internal operations
• Honor and reputation: Elaborate mechanisms for maintaining credibility, face, and deterring betrayal through social and physical consequences
• Resource distribution: Clear rules governing how profits, territories, and opportunities are allocated among members

Institutional Penetration

What makes "po ponytiyam" particularly significant in political analysis is how these informal codes have institutionalized within formal state structures. In many post-Soviet countries, the distinction between criminal networks and state apparatus has become meaningless, as both operate according to the same normative framework.

Importantly, adherence to these criminal codes can be more rigorous than many governments' compliance with rule of law principles. The "thieves' honor" system creates internal discipline and predictability that makes these organizations remarkably stable and effective. Members often display greater loyalty to unwritten criminal codes than citizens in democratic societies show toward constitutional principles.

Competing Moral Frameworks

The challenge for academic analysis is that these different ethical systems are often incomparable and contradictory. The moral framework of a Western constitutional democracy cannot be meaningfully compared to the код чести (code of honor) governing organized crime, or the religious law governing theocratic states. They operate from fundamentally different premises about justice, legitimacy, and proper conduct.

This creates what Illarionov describes as perpendicular moralities—ethical systems so different that they cannot be reconciled or ranked against each other using any universal standard.

The Tools of Control: Universal Methods

Regardless of their moral frameworks, successful power organizations employ remarkably similar operational methods.

The Trinity of Control

Political analysis reveals that effective power organizations consistently employ three primary instruments.

1. Economic incentives (rewards, benefits, patronage)
2. Compromise and leverage (blackmail, debt, mutual obligations)
3. Credible threats of violence (physical harm, imprisonment, elimination)

These tools operate not only within the organization's territory but extend to interactions with other power structures. The methods remain constant whether applied to domestic populations or foreign leaders.

The Strength of Modern Personal Autocracies

Contemporary personal autocracies—from Putin's Russia to similar systems worldwide—demonstrate remarkable resilience precisely because they successfully integrate multiple power bases. Illarionov's analysis identifies three pillars supporting modern autocratic systems.

1. Security Apparatus

Professional intelligence and law enforcement organizations that maintain internal control and external operations. These institutions provide the coercive backbone of the regime.

2. Organized Criminal Networks

Existing criminal structures that the state co-opts rather than eliminates. These networks provide informal enforcement, economic extraction, and deniable operations that official state organs cannot perform.

3. Technocratic Specialists

Professional administrators, economists, and managers who ensure competent governance of complex modern systems. These "systemic liberals" provide legitimacy and efficiency that pure coercion cannot achieve.

The integration of these three elements creates a hybrid system more durable than any single approach. Pure security states collapse from incompetence; pure criminal organizations face social rejection; pure technocracies lack enforcement mechanisms. The combination proves remarkably stable.

Historical Patterns: The Exception, Not the Rule

From this perspective, what requires explanation is not the existence of authoritarian power structures, but rather the brief historical moments when genuinely competitive political systems emerge.

The transition in Russia from Soviet authoritarianism to the relatively free elections of 1991, followed by the rapid consolidation of the current system, illustrates how exceptional democratic openings truly are. In just eight years, political participation contracted from 46 million voters choosing their leader to three unelected individuals selecting a successor.

This pattern suggests that competitive democratic systems represent temporary deviations from the historical norm of concentrated power, rather than natural evolutionary endpoints.

Academic Implications and Public Understanding

This analysis challenges several fundamental assumptions in contemporary political science and reveals critical gaps in how democratic societies understand authoritarian systems.

Misconceptions About Authoritarian Legitimacy

Common Misconception: Authoritarian regimes survive primarily through repression and popular ignorance.

Reality: Many authoritarian systems enjoy genuine support because they provide effective governance, economic stability, and social order according to locally preferred models. They often deliver better predictability and security than chaotic democratic transitions.

Implication: Democratic governments cannot simply assume their model is universally preferred or naturally superior.

The "Democratic Inevitability" Fallacy

Common Misconception: Democratic institutions represent the natural evolution of political systems and will eventually emerge everywhere.

Reality: Competitive democratic systems are historically exceptional and require specific cultural, economic, and institutional preconditions that may not exist universally.

Implication: Democracy promotion efforts that ignore local conditions and preferences often backfire, creating instability that discredits democratic ideals.

Moral Relativism vs. Universal Values

Common Misconception: Either all governance systems are morally equivalent, or Western liberal democracy represents the only legitimate form of government.

Reality: Different societies can legitimately prefer different balances of freedom, security, and collective welfare, but some core principles about human dignity and basic rights can still be defended.

Implication: Democratic societies must distinguish between respecting cultural differences and accepting fundamental violations of human rights.

Recommendations for Democratic Societies

For Policymakers

1. Abandon binary thinking about "democratic" vs. "authoritarian" states; develop nuanced frameworks for engaging with hybrid systems
2. Invest in understanding local moral and cultural frameworks before attempting democracy promotion
3. Strengthen democratic institutions at home rather than assuming they are naturally resilient
4. Recognize that effective governance matters more to most people than political freedoms

For Academics and Analysts

1. Study authoritarian systems on their own terms rather than treating them as failed democracies
2. Examine the internal logic and appeal of alternative governance models
3. Develop comparative frameworks that don't privilege Western political theory
4. Investigate why democratic transitions often fail rather than assuming they should naturally succeed

For Citizens in Democratic Countries

1. Understand that democracy requires active maintenance and cannot be taken for granted
2. Recognize that authoritarian appeals can be genuinely attractive during times of uncertainty
3. Support institutions and norms rather than treating them as automatically self-sustaining
4. Engage seriously with critiques of democratic performance rather than dismissing them

Conclusion: The Fragility of Democratic Distinctions

Understanding states and mafias as fundamentally similar power organizations provides analytical clarity about how political systems actually function, stripped of ideological preferences about how they should function. This perspective reveals both the universality of certain governance mechanisms and the crucial importance of the moral frameworks that distinguish democratic from authoritarian rule.

Universal Mechanisms, Divergent Applications

In both rule-of-law democracies and totalitarian states, the basic mechanisms of governance remain remarkably similar: tax collection through threat of punishment, maintenance of order through police power, dispute resolution through court systems, and external security through military force. The difference lies not in these fundamental tools, but in how they are constrained, legitimized, and directed by underlying moral and legal frameworks.

Even in the most developed democracies, elements of what we might call "mafioso" logic persist: political patronage networks, informal power brokers, behind-the-scenes deals, and the use of economic leverage to achieve political objectives. The crucial distinction is that democratic systems have developed institutional mechanisms to constrain, expose, and ultimately subordinate these tendencies to broader public accountability.

The Erosion of Democratic Norms

The power of modern dictators lies significantly in the weakness of democratic institutions in the developed world. When democratic societies fail to deliver effective governance, economic opportunity, or social stability, authoritarian alternatives become more attractive. When democratic institutions become captured by special interests, corrupted by money, or paralyzed by polarization, they lose their moral authority to criticize authoritarian efficiency.

We are neglecting first principles far too often. Democratic societies have become complacent about the foundations that distinguish them from organized criminal enterprises.

• Transparency and accountability in the use of public power
• Equal treatment under law regardless of wealth or connections
• Peaceful transitions of power based on electoral outcomes
• Protection of minority rights against majoritarian tyranny
• Independent institutions that can check executive power

The Moral Imperative

This analysis should not lead to moral relativism or the conclusion that "all governments are the same." Instead, it should deepen our appreciation for how difficult it is to maintain the ethical frameworks that distinguish legitimate governance from sophisticated criminality. The similarities in operational mechanics make the differences in moral framework even more precious and fragile.

Our Duty

Citizens of democratic societies have a fundamental obligation to ensure that the distinguishing moral frameworks do not erode. This requires several key commitments.

1. Vigilant protection of institutional independence - courts, electoral systems, and oversight bodies must remain beyond political capture
2. Insistence on transparency and accountability - the moment government operations become opaque, they begin resembling criminal enterprises
3. Active civic engagement - democracy cannot function with passive populations that delegate all decisions to professional politicians
4. Commitment to principled governance over partisan advantage - when political parties prioritize winning over governing ethically, they undermine democratic legitimacy
5. International responsibility - helping other societies develop effective governance without imposing inappropriate institutional models

The Stakes

The choice between democratic governance and sophisticated authoritarianism is not predetermined by historical forces or cultural inevitability. It is an active choice that each generation must make and sustain. The analytical framework showing the similarities between states and mafias should serve as a warning: without constant vigilance and principled commitment to democratic norms, any political system can degenerate into little more than a well-organized criminal enterprise with legal immunity.

The endurance of alternative systems reflects not necessarily their inherent strength, but often the failures of democratic societies to live up to their own stated principles. Our duty is not to assume democratic superiority, but to earn it through effective, transparent, and principled governance that provides genuine alternatives to authoritarian efficiency and criminal pragmatism.

This analysis draws significantly from the theoretical framework developed by Andrei Illarionov (He was Economic Chief Advisor to Putin 2000-2005 and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute 2006-2021), while incorporating broader perspectives on comparative political systems and organizational theory.

Links

• Primary presentation on states and mafias - Core theoretical framework
• Full 3 hour 37 minutes presentation at Club IntLex - June 10, 2025
• Andrei Illarionov's page at Cato Institute - Biography and publications

The original videos are in Russian, but modern translation capabilities should allow you to listen in the languare of choice now.

When some country or entire civilization develops separately from the rest and without contact, and over a long period of time major divergences begin in how they do things.

Unfortunately, there haven't been examples in the last few hundred years where both such civilizations that encountered each other again were comparable in development, yet had different approaches to organizing life and society. What happens is that one strongly dominates the other. Now on earth there are basically no other places left that are big enough for someone to develop in their own unique way. And so it turns out that we, along with you, all the readers and all your personal and virtual acquaintances, have long been in this very "developed" civilization. We're unlikely to meet aliens anytime soon, and even if we do, it'll be interesting for a different reason. But to encounter another specifically human civilization that's no less developed but unique, does many things differently - that would be really fascinating. There's so much we could learn. In anthropology this is called a "natural experiment" by the way.

To some extent this exists on a less radical level just between countries. Like, you go live somewhere in another country, and there they already have their own customs, their own cool conveniences and local neat stuff. More often of course there'll be more local quirks and inconveniences, which maybe aren't worse than "ours," it's just that we've already gotten used to ours, while there you still need to figure things out on the go. There was such a strong divide between the socialist bloc and the west, but that's already passed. It was even more complicated there because along with the opening to the west came the destruction of the previous system and therefore mass poverty and disorder, crime and for many just straight-up devastation.

But I'm really talking about something else. I'm just genuinely curious how a completely different society could develop. Where the economic model is different, where the structure of the state, family and education are absolutely nothing like ours, maybe there's even something that's just as important as education, rule of law and the institution of family, but we just don't have it at all, while they do and it's really significant. Maybe when that moment comes that we all eventually go into some kind of hyper-spaces and start living in literally completely isolated bubbles. And then a couple generations later there'll be this kind of gap. I'd love to find some like that right now, but only if they weren't malicious, because examples of savagery do exist after all, and there everything's different, it's just that you don't want to learn from that.

Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist and philosopher. As history has shown, Marxists failed to predict the future course of society, but they were remarkably good at exposing the flaws of their own era. After all, they fought real fascists — the genuine, vicious kind, not just anyone who happens to disagree, as is fashionable to label them today. And so I find myself noticing that Gramsci is being quoted quite a lot these days — and for good reason. He wrote about the “time of monsters” in his “Prison Notebooks,” penned during his imprisonment in a fascist jail in the 1930s.

His famous phrase goes like this: “La crisi consiste appunto nel fatto che il vecchio muore e il nuovo non può nascere: in questo interregno si verificano i fenomeni morbosi più svariati.” which translates as: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born: in this interregnum, a great variety of morbid phenomena appear.”

I actually like it even better when paraphrased: “The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born — now is the time of monsters.”

And this, of course, applies fully to our own time. The old order — the postwar New Deal — is dying, above all, decaying from within, contrary to the beliefs of many propagandists and ideologues of the Global South. That’s the real root: the old world’s inability to prioritize first principles. The strength of all the dictators of our day lies in the weaknesses of the so-called “developed” world. The monsters are those who exploit the chaos between orders, but they are not the new order. Who the new will be, we don’t know, but it certainly won’t be the party autocrats.

When computers first appeared, they were huge in size. And of course, they were incredibly difficult to use. Only specialists working in the field could operate them, or those who bought directly from companies and told them what kind of computer to build to order. Then came the so-called mainframes. There it became accessible to a wider circle. But still, the computers themselves were somewhere in a central location, and everyone worked on them remotely. And communicated through a terminal, meaning typing commands and getting something printed on screen in response, or later something printed on a printer.

Then personal computers appeared. When a person could already install something there themselves. They were very expensive and slower than those central ones, but gave much more freedom in what and how to do. Then these personal computers became cheaper, simpler to use, more accessible, and there became much more of them. Then these personal computers shrank altogether, became cheaper and turned into smartphones. We carry them with us, and their usage significantly exceeds the usage of personal computers.

And then AI appeared. And notice how resembels old paradime as if we are sent back.

Not even that it rolled back, but you could say a new branch of this whole path appeared — from a complex computer that only uber-narrow specialists use (this is pre-GPT-3), then a phase when it's like a mainframe, where we all connect to a central server and type something there, getting printed responses (meaning through all these ChatGPTs and the like). Now comes the phase like when there were first personal computers. Some are already running models on their own computers. But this is still very rare — difficult and expensive. The era when "mobile" devices for AI will appear is still ahead. And most likely, this branch, though it will be similar, will have many things different in both UX and UI.

I now prefer using those same LLMs on a computer more, my use of mobile devices compared to computers has decreased significantly, largely because of wanting to do something with AI. Well, and for other reasons too, of course. I still want computers to be smarter and more convenient. A unified OS across all devices. Like a cloud-OS that's fully synchronized and knows everything about me. Different types of devices are for different caliber tasks. Something's more convenient on the go, and thus portability will prevail there, something's more convenient to do on a huge screen, with a big keyboard, mouse, tablet. Something on a touchscreen, something without a screen at all, purely by voice. And so on. And as the main agent in all this — an AI that knows everything about me, but at the same time doesn't share my data with any third party without my explicit permission.

Currently on devices, this main "agent" is the file system and its interface, like Windows Explorer or Finder, or Springboard on iOS. They're the ones that kinda "know" about what we work with, storing and managing our files. But these agents are still extremely dumb, and therefore we have to do the same things many times a day. Even today's LLM models would handle that incomparably better.

So it is clear that the power of models is already sufficient for radical improvements, but specifically making products based on them lags far behind. And although it seems like there's now an endless bunch of different AI-based products — all of this is too little, and primarily because they do all this on a superficial level, not at the operating system level. And here, of course, it's a disgrace. Apple simply slept through this entire LLM revolution and still can't get their act together. Google only partially slept through it, already woke up, but institutionally they're weak at good productization. Microsoft is too big, unwieldy, greedy and very weak on taste, and apparently fell behind ideologically so they can't imagine how everything they do could be done differently. I won't even talk about Linux. Unfortunately, nerds aren't capable of thinking creatively with the user first. And these are the main players in the systems field.

Of course, others will appear, new ones, who will do everything better, but because this isn't coming from the current main system players, all this will happen noticeably later — there's just too much to do, and almost everything from scratch. But the "mobile" era of devices might go completely differently, and that's intriguing. I think it'll be even more interesting.

Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to his brother Theo back when he was in Arles, dropped a very interesting phrase — or rather, a quote — that stuck with me a long time ago. Initially, when I saw it, I didn’t know where it came from. Now I do — and I’m going to tell you the story.

In 1704, in Memphis, Egypt, they found an ancient Egyptian funerary stele. Not from the oldest period of Egypt, but nevertheless — it’s from the Ptolemaic era. (That’s when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, really liked it there, even built a city — Alexandria — and then one of his generals, Ptolemy, stayed on to rule. That’s how the Ptolemaic dynasty began, which ended with Cleopatra.) Later, the stele was moved to France, to a town called Carpentras. How it got there — nobody really knows. Probably got snatched from Egypt at some point and shipped to France.

What makes it interesting is that it has inscriptions in three languages: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Aramaic, and Greek. But back then, no one could read the hieroglyphs — the stone was partly damaged, the hieroglyphic portion of the text was fragmentary, and most importantly — Champollion hadn’t yet enlightened us with his insights. It would be a hundred years before he figured out that hieroglyphs weren’t just symbolic, but also had phonetic elements. That breakthrough came only after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. Jean-François Champollion cracked the code in 1822, thanks to that stone, which had been found back in 1799 during Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt.

So, when the stele eventually made its way to Carpentras, a local newspaper wrote about it — and that’s where our Vincent van Gogh came across it. People couldn’t read the hieroglyphs yet, but the Greek and Aramaic parts they could handle. So the article described the inscription, and among other things it said: "Here lies Taba, daughter of Tahapi, priestess of Osiris, who never complained about anything."

Van Gogh was deeply struck by that line. In fact, he mentions it in several letters to both his brother and his sister. And really — it’s not so easy to live a life, even a leisurely one, like someone from the privileged class, without ever complaining about anyone. When I first came across this phrase, I had no idea it came from Van Gogh’s letters — just the phrase itself, about this woman named Phoebe (that’s how I heard it first, and that’s how I wrote it down; now they say it should sound like Taba) — who never complained about anyone or anything.

Van Gogh asks his brother to tell Gauguin about her, and says that when he compares himself to this Taba (he calls her Thebe), he feels ungrateful. That real happiness lies in serenity — and when you have that, you may have this “real South” within your soul.

So yeah — may we all have a bit of that real South in our souls.