Interesting -- a small rock formation in a river in Budapest, apparently extending no further out into the river than the height of a person, has apparently been known for centures as "starvation rock,"visible when the Danube was perilously low A city of millions, for centuries, knew this one small place as holding a meaningful sign. Not every sign need be massive, or massively reproduced.
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Interesting article in the media from a nearby countyr -- a basketabll coach moving to America, as he was tired of the local corruption, of having to have powerful friends in the city and to keep in touch with them if he expected to keep his job. Yes, well. The glimmer of truth to that, in the present generally non-meritocratic context, is that when you cross borders, there is a brief time of objectivity, when your degrees and levels of experience themselves are meaningful. But that only lasts a short while, especially in an interconnected world.
The model for Shakespeare's Polonious was Cecil, Lord Burghley. Old-fashioned fellow, always did arithmetic in Roman numerals. He once remarked that to be without a friend at court was to be like a hop without a pole. Now, I'm not saying that dukedoms should be awarded by competitive examination, but we should be more aware of the fact that the general industrial prosperity has slackened the inherent checks on those sort of things. Any given fellow will do, for the most part.
Read the old books. Focus your mind. Cultivate your own garden.