For Lee Kuan Yew,26 the aspirational ideal was to become, as Confucius urged more than two thousand years ago, a junzi, which has been variously translated as an “exemplary person,” or “gentleman.” This was someone who is27 “loyal to his father and mother,” “faithful to his wife,” “brings up his children well,” and is a “loyal citizen of his

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Sargon’s reign, over four thousand years ago, set the archetype of ‘king as father.’ He had himself portrayed as paternalism embodied, the Great Man, an ideal leader who stood above his people and knew what was best for them. In order to do so, Sargon also invented patronage as a business model for the arts, recognising the capacity of culture to

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