Have you read James C. Scott's The Art of Not Being Governed? I recommend it in general, but I think his description of southeast Asian empires has them displaying a lot of Ra-ness. People in empires are self-described as being better even when their lives as similar to-- but worse-- than the lives of people outside the empire.
I've read Seeing like a State but not that one. I'm not sure how that kind of ethnocentrism is Ra-like.
https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/ra/
A detailed look at the belief that high status social structures can be so much better than anything one can think of that there's no point in even trying to think about the details of what to do, and how debilitating this is.
Discussion of the essay