Part of Schachnovelle as I remember it is that Dr. B as Weltbürger is driven crazy by the dual facts that Czentovic is both a primitive brute and yet succeeds at chess via brute force, which perhaps is meant to be compared with his earlier imprisonment in 1938, by people who succeeded at politics not by subtlety but by brute force.

The idea that cosmopolitan, educated, and cultivated people could be left like deer in the headlights by brutes setting themselves through by force reminded me of your description of TMT, or at least the ego-protective "helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes" part of your explanation.

Does this unpacking make any more sense?

(meanwhile, the Melian Dialogue is the source of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479662 )