“Those at the top of the authoritarian pyramid . . . must attempt to do . . . the decision-making for the whole society. But a man with a gun is told only that which people assume will not provoke him to pull the trigger. Since all authority and government are based on force, the master class . . . faces the servile class . . . precisely as a highwayman faces his victim. [Honest] communication is possible only between equals.”
–“Hagbard Celine” in Robert Anton Wilson’s and Robert Shea’s The Golden Apple, Book II of the Illuminatus Trilogy
Sharp and Pointed 