This is what perverse really means — to be disobedient to the rule of fear and hatred and shame, to seek one’s own definitions and ideals regardless of what others insist are the limits to what you may want or have.
“He probably wanted real power, the power to direct one’s environment towards a harmonious end, and not fictitious power, the power to order and be obeyed; and he must have known that he had not been able to exercise real power over Rome. It would have been easier for him if what we were told when we were young was true, and that the decay of Rome was due to immorality. Life, however, is never as simple as that, and human beings rarely so potent.”
Rebecca West | Black Lamb and Grey Falcon