This should be read Machiavellianly:
When power wants (or needs) to secure itself against life's mis-fortunes - a problem aggravated the more total the power (Mono-theism) - is how to deal with the envy which this power arouses in others. The Devil wants to be God, the aristocrat dreams of being king, the archbishop covets the Papal seat...
IF what we need is stability, security of power, then power must not arouse such envy. How? Law cannot get at it since it gives no direct evidence of itself. Education takes too long and its results too diverse and unpredictable. No drug was yet invented to make it go away.
How to make sure we're rid of envy?
We make the masters un-enviable.
Try and revolt against this power, and you will find yourself fighting ghosts and shadows; look for the good they have over you and all you find, to your horror, are monsters of control around whom the aura of servitude and humility/humiliation (not everyone experiences it the same) is so powerful, it starts feeling like being envious of Atlas or Sisyphus.
It allows live and let live, to each his own, haters gonna hate...
With meek power comes meek responsibility.
Even engaged in suicide, on a planet that's literally sick of progress (or its whitewashed cousin, "development"), we still can't isolate a "sui" pulling the trigger.
That's the point, you see..
That is how the meek inherited the Earth.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
[Picture (Wiki Commons): François-Guillaume Ménageot, Envy Plucking the Wings of Fame.
Suggested Reading: Friedrich Nietzsche, Homer's Contest;