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I've long been intrigued and appalled at the depravity of elites, wondering at how many persons can cause so much pain and suffering to others in their pursuit of political and economic power. Some of it, of course, can simply be explained as consequent upon the systems they work within. I myself, when a university administrator, played the institution's games, seeking promotion within it. But the influence of an American university on people's lives seemed hardly capable of being malign except perhaps in matters of property acquisition. Our conscious concerns, as regards our publics, were with providing services, raising consciousness and expanding empathic awareness. Still, from a broader view, we were part of a system, whether it be conceived in terms of U.S. imperialism or global capitalism, which certainly does do a great deal of damage. In that sense there was complicity, though we conveniently were able to assuage our guilt, even feel virtuous, by sponsoring Peace Studies programs and Radical Scholars' conferences.

But what about people at the pinnacles, people who literally plan wars, population relocations, massive layoffs? How do they manage? This remains substantially a mystery to me.

Hilton's novel addresses some of the deepest desires of human being in their purity, contrasting this world with an idealized one where such desires are met, putting persons from this imperfect world into that perfect one, showing what might happen.

The crux to the perfection of Shangra-La is that there aging is greatly slowed, slowed so much that its inhabitants tend toward wisdom, have the opportunity to reflect, to gain perspective, to really grow up. The contemplation of such a society, fleshed out in a novel, caused me to consider how the fear of growing old, disabled and unappealing may well be the greatest of human anxieties, that the pursuit of wealth and power may, in fact, resolve into that deeper fear, representing palliatives against the inevitable.

It is surprising that there isn't more literature about utopian longevity.