Fabricated Festivity

From the Tarot of Durer, the Four of Batons; from the Philosopher's Stone, Mastership:

When I look at the Durer's Four of Wands, I don't think of a celebration for progress made. I only see a poor, dead lion, a braggart, and a dissatisfied woman. Can any foundation built on brute force, deceit, manipulation or intimidation have the strength and fortitude it will need to last? It may sustain itself for a while, but I imagine the dead lion has some angry relatives who will be looking for revenge soon enough. It's hard to build anything lasting on a foundation that is corrupt and rotten. The Mastership card looks as if someone has taken a giant blade and loped off the top of the monolith. Harm requires little skill, but healing and putting things back together does. True mastery is being able to accept a mess and turn it back into a masterpiece.

The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force. ~George Bancroft