Perspective

"'As the ordeal went on, it became clear to certain of these
balloonists, observing from above and poised ever upon a cusp of
mortal danger, how much the modern State depended for its survival on
maintaining a condition of permanent siege--through the systematic
encirclement of populations, the starvation of bodies and spirits, the
relentless degradation of civility until citizen was turned against
citizen, even to the point of committing atrocities like those of the
infamous pétroleurs of Paris. When the Sieges ended, these
balloonists chose to fly on ...'"

-(Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon, Pt. I, Ch. 2, p. 19f.)