Elon Musk is much more interesting than other mega rich dudes in that he symbolizes where we all are right now. He’s a mirror we are looking in with fascination because the conflict he enacts for us daily mimics ours.
On the one hand, we are mesmerized by the possibilities of the fluid lifestyle. It liberates creativity, frees us from every shackle, makes us feel powerful, flatters our sense of importance, and offers the rush of accomplishment. Fluidity wouldn’t be so powerful if it weren’t so darn enjoyable. We all feel its pull. I’m following a writer who wants to live a carless trad lifestyle in rural New York, and every word he writes is neoliberal, aka fluid, aka post-national, aka whatever you want to call it.
But at the same time, we all feel that something that matters to us a lot is being traded for the fluid freedom of ceaseless productivity and idolized choice. There’s no audience to observe our feats of lonesome striving because everybody is busy performing their own. There’s no “us” at all. It’s lonely, and there’s so much anxiety that even the richest man in the world can’t get through the day without being medicated to the gills. We are all on something by Musk’s age of 53, and probably earlier. We are all chronically ailing.
And we all feel nostalgia for the now irrelevant idea of rights. We pine for politics in the sense of an expression of the life of the polis. There is no polis and there are no citizens in any sense that matters. We have convinced ourselves that wanting anything other than complete freedom is a betrayal of the ever-important self but the desire for something bigger than the compulsion to keep choosing is there, nagging and begging for attention.
We look at Musk’s clumsy reenactment of the role of a statesman and a family man, and it’s both cringe in its parody-like shamelessness and endearing in its naive cluelessness. Choice is a jealous deity and won’t tolerate any other gods on its pedestal. We all want to be the agents but not the objects of choice. But that’s impossible. We don’t want to accept anything given, anything we haven’t chosen but we also want to be accepted as given, as unchosen, as endowed with rights just because we exist. In this, we are all Elon Musk, and he fascinates us because we recognize ourselves in him.
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“Elon Musk is much more interesting than other mega rich dudes in that he symbolizes where we all are right now.”
Agree wiht this. To me Elon is a reflection of the monstrosity that is the current state of capitalism, governance, and society. We just can’t look away the same way we can’t look at some monstrosity exhibition in the museum. Unfortunately, this monstrosity is not at a museum, but in government firing a bunch of people and looking to import obedient wage slaves to replace us.
The kind of weird thing to me, is why Trump keeps him around. Wondering what the strategy there is. Maybe Elon is his agent of chaos? The “liberal” boogeyman? It’s a risky strategy to associate himself with Elon. I guess we’ll see how things evolve.
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I think Trump promised him he can run for president next, and that’s why Trump is saying he won’t endorse Vance.
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That’d take some serious legal wrangling as he wasn’t born in the US.
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Strangest things have happened in the last five years. We’re in a period where the old laws and norms are being thrown out.
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Yeah, I wouldn’t rule it out. Nobody in DC is big on the constitution these days, current regime included.
Just… if we’ve got as far as throwing that out, do we even elect presidents anymore?
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“he wasn’t born in the US”
Respect for the constitution is…. not high. The US no longer has the discipline to actually pass an amendment so I assume the constitutional issue will simply be ignored, if he decides to run (though why he’d want to be president is…. not clear).
Whatever talents he has are not those needed for the position. But… hey, it’s there so whatevers.
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Still seems strange to me. Why would Trump want Elon to run for president next? Maybe Trump is an “Accelerationist” at heart?
Also, how do people feel about Elon where you live? I think he’s becoming increasingly unpopular. Even his Tesla fanboys are losing faith as he’s tanking their stock.
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“I’m following a writer who wants to live a carless trad lifestyle in rural New York, and every word he writes is neoliberal, aka fluid, aka post-national, aka whatever you want to call it”
Shagbark, is that right? I’ve only read a couple of his free posts, but he does seem to have internalized the fluidity of self-reinventation.
His wife’s writing doesn’t feel fluid at all, though.
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Exactly, he has a project a day and each more transformational than the rest. He criticizes the people who don’t want to be satisfied with a quiet peaceful life but is clearly uninterested in such a life for himself.
Keturah goes even more in that direction because she tries to market herself as a media personality and a writer with absolutely no talent for either. It’s extraordinary that somebody who grew up in a religious cult (in her own words) and is 6th generation in her family without a social security number or birth certificate is still exactly like any young Insta hopeful of her generation. Not even the most trad upbringing is capable of defeating the dream of being an influencer. It’s kind of really strange to observe. The sameness of the people whose whole marketing strategy hinges on being unique.
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I think I know who you’re talking about (Hickman?). I’m curious as to what makes you think his writing is neoliberal. He just posted about buying a house, finding a place to settle down, and so on. Wouldn’t that be the opposite of a fluid lifestyle?
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He’s going to buy a house, he’s going to buy up many houses in the area and resell them, he’s going to buy up land and create a vacation destination, he’s going to buy boats, he’s going to start a commune, he’s going to sell subscriptions to a written newsletter. It’s a plan a day and it transforms constantly, always with the aim of making a profit, bringing market relations into everything.
This is not a bad thing. Entrepreneurship is great. But let’s not pretend it isn’t exactly what this is.
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