Dictator Style - Cult Guru Decor - Boss From Hell Style

[www.google.com]

Peter Yorke's book entitled "Dictator Style" may offer a new
tool by which to assess the potential pathology of a cult leader and his/her followers.

Back to Peter Yorke and Dictator Style.

Key elements are gold, marble, glass (chandeliers, mirrors), lack of proportion.

On pages x and xi of the Introduction, York gives us the list:

"Here are the ten key points of the Dictator Look"

1. Big It Up. Make sure everything is seriously over scale. If you copy
a French chateau, double the size of the rooms.

2. Go Repro. York tells us dictators like old style princely furniture and decor. Most dictators crave legitimacy. They want bling.

3. Think French. York does not have them on his list, but think of
the furniture favored by Saudi royalty

4. Think Grand Hotel. As York tells us, for impoverished kids, hotels
represented the good life template.

(In America, prior to the 1980s, the Movie Palace would have been
a poor kid's Success Template. There may be regional variations. A poverty stricken Mormon kid might
have taken inspiration from the lavish white marble LDS temple and Grand
Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. If that youngster left the LDS and later became a successful cult leader, he or she might replicate this Mormon Grand Style
when instructing an interior designer to decorate his or her HQ and worship sanctuary - or even duplicate some of its rituals, such as specifying that
disciples wear white uniforms.

(Though theosophical groups and many New Age groups with no LDS ties also
favor white clothes and white marble. It all adds up to big laundry bills for
anyone who has to dress in that get up.

5. Go for gold, starting with the faucet taps, mirror frames, furniture trim
and accessories, including desk clocks.

6. Lots of glass, especially mirrors and chandeliers and glass table tops. Labor intensive to keep clean -- a great way to keep low ranking disciple/peons
busy with make work tasks.

7. Important looking 18th and 19th century oils

8. Brand names

9. Marble, preferably new marble. Why? York tells us, old marble looks
grimy. Preferably shined to a high gloss. White marble buildings should
not be built near heavily used roads and highways; the petrol fumes will
turn them dingy -- which means high maintenance bills for future generations
of disciples who inherit the guru's folly buildings.

10. Pictures of the Great Leader. Lots and lots of pictures. On walls. On dashboard altars for cars. Computer wall paper. Jewelry. Pictures of
the guru in disciple's bedrooms -- that is beyond creepy. Do not marry someone
like that; you will find you are in a menage a trois -- and the guru will
always win.


This last item should be a tip off. Any group where disciples have the
leader's picture on the dashboard of the car, at their desks, in their
bedrooms (especially if its the wall FACING the foot of the bed), and
if disciples are wearing jewelry with the leader's picture -- run like hell.


Dictator Style by Peter York examines interior decor favored by Porfirio Diaz, Vladimir Lenin,
Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Josip Broz Tito, Francisco Franco, Juan Peron, Joseph-Desire Mobutu, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, Idi Amin, Jean-Bedel Bokassa, Saddam Hussein, Manual Noriega and Slobodan Milosevic.

The ideologies range from Fascist, Fascist/Catholic Traditionalist, various manifestations of Commmunism, Arab Socialism (Baath Party) to untutored
thuggery made good.

Lenin was upper middle class. Most of the others began as common soldiers.

Despite this diversity of ideology, religiosity, ethnicity, nationality and education, Peter Yorke identifies ten (10) feature seen again and again in the style and decor chosen by these despots.

There more of these are found in the same room, the graver the prognosis.

In the Western context, Louis XIV pioneered Dictator Style.

If you want to see the difference between 17th century French Dictator Style and 17th century French architecture at its exquisite best, compare Versailles
Vaux le Vicomte, a chateau built by Louis XIV's finance minister, Fouquet.

Louis threw Fouquet into prison, and appropriated the architects and artists
who created the disgraced minister's gem of a palace. Under Louis' direction, Fouquet's architect created Versailles. Grace and proportion were replaced by
Dictator Style.

Certain popular musicians have gone for this too. Liberace and some rap stars
come immediately to mind.

Even if he or she does not run a recognized cult, any boss
(or prospective spouse) who favors this kind of decor is probably
gonna be very, very demanding.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2017 08:52PM by corboy.