“You common cry of curs!” – The Tragedy of Coriolanus, Act III, Scene 3
We all hate the rich and powerful. No, you do, I promise.
You might not fault them for their means, but you will never forgive them for their ends. Some decry the decadent lifestyle, others express disgust at abuse of their station to shove their opinions everywhere, and everyone knows they’re irreparably detached from reality. They just…sit there, menacingly, mocking our sorry state, forever fixed in our iconography. And I wish, oh how I wish it was limited to our media, but no. They’re everywhere: Our names for things, our institutions, our daily conversations, there’s no escaping their grasp.
Like all power, the relationship is reciprocal—they’re everywhere because we’re fixated on them. Not them as people, though, because we want nothing to do with them. Try to stomach that recurring section in Us Weekly (which will be a deliciously ironic title post-societal collapse), the one where paparazzi have nabbed photos with telescopic lenses of whoever out and about in sweats around LA, and let me know if you feel anything approaching kinship. Doesn’t matter if “They’re Just Like Us!” or not, they’re still a blight.
So what is it, then? Is it their insufferable personalities, the primary and secondary “content” they produce, the system that shoves it all in our faces when all we want to do is go on with our business? If we didn’t want it, you’d think the market would figure that out and get rid of them.
I’ve read that this fixation is wrought by culturally learned narcissism, that they are the scapegoats for our own inadequacies. Alternatively, and simultaneously, they are projections of our own desires—not to succeed, but to be seen as valuable for being and not doing. Neat theory for the specific manifestations in the most modern contexts, but I think we go too far in saying it’s the root cause. We’re just not that committed to our psychoses.
All symptoms, I’d say, but not the cause.
I’d say the problem is, we don’t live in a society, bottom text. All we have are two informal castes separated by a threshold delineated by the signifiers of power, the mirage of power, with no meaningful way to use it. Since there is nothing meaningful one can do to the other and vice versa, there is no relationship, only detachment. Through detachment, there is pain and otherness, and someone to stare at on the other side while still being in the same “place.”
Once you pass a certain threshold, some combination of money, fame, and position, you become one of them. And after that, what do you do? You already did the thing which got you there, and now you supposedly have the ability to do anything, but there’s nothing to be done. You are more or less above the law and common way of life, but so are the other tens of thousands just like you, and they’re not doing anything, and you just got here. What are you trying to prove?
And now, you don’t live among the common folk, but you know they all hate you because past-you hated you, too. You might buy the “haters gonna hate” rationalization and throw the finger up right back at ‘em, but really, you miss them so, and it’s their absence you resent. You’re very lonely; you hated the rich and powerful before you became one yourself, so why would you like them now? Displaced and directionless, you just do nothing but seethe instead.
I see a lot of homeless people around. If there is any significant difference in the day-to-day emotional state and frantic non-activity between the homeless and the elite, I've yet to see it. Both have phones now.
Stratification is necessary for society to form attachment between the elite and the not-so, and this process must start from the top for it to be organic and thus sustainable. In order for a leader to provide that natural, central point of organization for the top stratum, he needs to claim that position with authority and allow the followers the sense of begrudging assent. The elect are merely chosen; the elite don’t like any of each other anyway, so they’ll never internalize the group’s choice as the proper one.
In turn, the leader sets the example for the elite in how they should behave toward those beneath them. With him above, and the tension settled among, they can coordinate on meaningful action toward those below. This is how we do things in all other contexts except for the one that matters most.
Narcissism is a natural defense mechanism for the isolated and disengaged. Deprived of natural, healthy hierarchy, we can’t help but recoil at the image across the threshold and turn inward. There’s no trick or special sauce to any of this, and we’d much rather have it than not.
Reactionary thinkers point out our social ills and propose hierarchy as high concept, or some sort of abstract repair tool. But I think it’s important to draw the two closer together and humanize it a bit. We're talking about people, right? It's not that hard.
I have more to discuss of less tangential relation to this lesser-known Shakespearean tragedy. Truth be told, I only know it by the Fiennes-Butler flick, but that might be the better starting point for this sort of thing.
We all hate the rich and powerful. No, you do, I promise.
You might not fault them for their means, but you will never forgive them for their ends. Some decry the decadent lifestyle, others express disgust at abuse of their station to shove their opinions everywhere, and everyone knows they’re irreparably detached from reality. They just…sit there, menacingly, mocking our sorry state, forever fixed in our iconography. And I wish, oh how I wish it was limited to our media, but no. They’re everywhere: Our names for things, our institutions, our daily conversations, there’s no escaping their grasp.
Like all power, the relationship is reciprocal—they’re everywhere because we’re fixated on them. Not them as people, though, because we want nothing to do with them. Try to stomach that recurring section in Us Weekly (which will be a deliciously ironic title post-societal collapse), the one where paparazzi have nabbed photos with telescopic lenses of whoever out and about in sweats around LA, and let me know if you feel anything approaching kinship. Doesn’t matter if “They’re Just Like Us!” or not, they’re still a blight.
So what is it, then? Is it their insufferable personalities, the primary and secondary “content” they produce, the system that shoves it all in our faces when all we want to do is go on with our business? If we didn’t want it, you’d think the market would figure that out and get rid of them.
I’ve read that this fixation is wrought by culturally learned narcissism, that they are the scapegoats for our own inadequacies. Alternatively, and simultaneously, they are projections of our own desires—not to succeed, but to be seen as valuable for being and not doing. Neat theory for the specific manifestations in the most modern contexts, but I think we go too far in saying it’s the root cause. We’re just not that committed to our psychoses.
All symptoms, I’d say, but not the cause.
I’d say the problem is, we don’t live in a society, bottom text. All we have are two informal castes separated by a threshold delineated by the signifiers of power, the mirage of power, with no meaningful way to use it. Since there is nothing meaningful one can do to the other and vice versa, there is no relationship, only detachment. Through detachment, there is pain and otherness, and someone to stare at on the other side while still being in the same “place.”
Once you pass a certain threshold, some combination of money, fame, and position, you become one of them. And after that, what do you do? You already did the thing which got you there, and now you supposedly have the ability to do anything, but there’s nothing to be done. You are more or less above the law and common way of life, but so are the other tens of thousands just like you, and they’re not doing anything, and you just got here. What are you trying to prove?
And now, you don’t live among the common folk, but you know they all hate you because past-you hated you, too. You might buy the “haters gonna hate” rationalization and throw the finger up right back at ‘em, but really, you miss them so, and it’s their absence you resent. You’re very lonely; you hated the rich and powerful before you became one yourself, so why would you like them now? Displaced and directionless, you just do nothing but seethe instead.
I see a lot of homeless people around. If there is any significant difference in the day-to-day emotional state and frantic non-activity between the homeless and the elite, I've yet to see it. Both have phones now.
Stratification is necessary for society to form attachment between the elite and the not-so, and this process must start from the top for it to be organic and thus sustainable. In order for a leader to provide that natural, central point of organization for the top stratum, he needs to claim that position with authority and allow the followers the sense of begrudging assent. The elect are merely chosen; the elite don’t like any of each other anyway, so they’ll never internalize the group’s choice as the proper one.
In turn, the leader sets the example for the elite in how they should behave toward those beneath them. With him above, and the tension settled among, they can coordinate on meaningful action toward those below. This is how we do things in all other contexts except for the one that matters most.
Narcissism is a natural defense mechanism for the isolated and disengaged. Deprived of natural, healthy hierarchy, we can’t help but recoil at the image across the threshold and turn inward. There’s no trick or special sauce to any of this, and we’d much rather have it than not.
Reactionary thinkers point out our social ills and propose hierarchy as high concept, or some sort of abstract repair tool. But I think it’s important to draw the two closer together and humanize it a bit. We're talking about people, right? It's not that hard.
I have more to discuss of less tangential relation to this lesser-known Shakespearean tragedy. Truth be told, I only know it by the Fiennes-Butler flick, but that might be the better starting point for this sort of thing.
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