When we seek the honest perspective, the eyes which see the other as self and the self as other, we can no longer function in this world. Now that we see power for what it is, and how it blinds our conscience, we cannot be content with it. And yet this entire world is made in the image of power. It is power, from the rapist on the street to the thugs who compose our corporate state, which leads us to our ruin. And yet, all organisms need power in order to survive. Power is at once our only hope, and our final reckoning. It is in this paradox that we find the cross, a symbol most absurd and most beautiful, perhaps the one true legacy of our aborted Christian heritage. The cross recognizes the paradox of power, and it seeks to transcend it. How? By surrendering all power, and dying. By being crushed. But in the insanity of the cross, the absurdity of the resurrection, the message of this symbol becomes clear: the dead shall live, and the powerless shall transcend all.