Though they proudly declare themselves to be iconoclasts the government has never been positively iconoclastic. By nature, simply repressive. Negatively iconoclastic. Theirs is not a spiritual world. Never their intention to remove all taint of reproduction, though they profess much caution against it. Absolute abolition is felt to be impractical, resulting in complete powerlessness of expression. Not their intention to create a vacuum. Power needs expression. So their world reflects their power. Power of repression. Images of suffering abound. Worked and reworked through tradition to maintain the necessary intensity of horror and indifference. Though familiarity the general population is in part inured against inappropriately excessive reaction to these images, and in part driven to seek refuge from them in the available images of salvation. These salvation images form a direct transition following on from the images of suffering. Elements of each extreme included in their opposite.