Twice the word absolute in a definition

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AN EMPIRE, the Shorter Oxford Dictionary tells us, is "supreme and absolute political dominion" and figuratively "absolute sway, supreme control". When we try to control something we usually try to obtain total control, over our limbs for example, over our faculties. The effects of taking drugs or alcohol are habitually described as "losing control", likewise the effects of losing one's temper or falling in love: "I lost control". In business, "control" is a key word: controlling production, the money supply, the market, wages, prices etc. What is out of control is dangerous. Literally and figuratively there is nothing of the democratic about an empire: control implies leadership and absolute dominion implies someone or something to be absolutely dominated.

The empire is uncompromising: it is non-sharing, a monopoly. But when is the "absolute" achieved? There are always new lands to be conquered, new markets to be won. An empire is fuelled by ambition. Without job function email list ambition it shrinks and decays. Its ambition may be romantic and idealistic or materialistic and greedy. It may well be all of these. An empire is an achievement (ambition fuflilled) and purpose (ambition to be fulfilled). To realise the dream, fulfil the ambition to build an empire, I need a technique and I need technics. I may will myself to sail across the Ocean but I need the technics to build the ships to do it or else I am only day dreaming. Equally I may have the ships but not the ambition. An Empire is realised through the combination of will and technics. If one of these is lacking there can be no empire. Technics themselves are applied will. We can express it more poetically: an empire begins as a realised ambition to control reality.

Dream and reality, empire is also a dream of reality. The imperial enterprise is simultaneously romantic and pragmatic to the core, a boundless longing for glory and hard-nosed business sense, a quest for fame and a search for profits. The forgers of empires are pirates and priests, buccaneers and businessmen, idealists and men with no ideals at all, explorers and exploiters, reckless adventurers and anxious men of property investing for their old age. An empire proclaims itself altruistic.