I believe one of the more suppressed feelings of inadequacy among the wealthy and their fetishists is the degree of uncertainty in ever knowing for sure whether it was their own gumption which propelled them through higher education, or the wealth of their parents and shareholders. The sorts of persons sitting on corporate boards have the tendency of hiring others to do everything for them, from basic cooking and cleaning to the raising of their own offspring, to the actual design work for their billion-dollar ideas and uncountable factory hands for bringing those ideas from the drawing table to the world at large. I believe they possess such tendencies for simply not knowing how to do any lick of it themselves. Wealth protects the wealthy from having to learn anything about the world. It’s why they keep to their gated community, their private schools and exclusive clubs, so that they need never be reminded of how little they truly know about absolutely anything outside of their safe spaces, by ever even remotely mixing it up with those who do.
Contrary to that logic, Dean Keith Simonton has written some propaganda, arguing that the successes which come from lying, cheating and stealing are somehow more meaningful than from hard work or rational, actual, problem-solving. And that if legitimately well-read individuals were really smart then they’d lie, cheat and steal to be rich and famous like the industrialist heroes which Simonton evidently chokes his chicken to nightly. If success is only to be measured by wealth and notoriety then any reality TV star is more important than a plumber. The people tweeting about writing would be considered more productive than people who are actually writing. I’ve been following this gross trend for awhile now, of shaming intelligence. It’s certainly more common among the illiterati of the Bible Belt, but it can be found increasingly among the well-to-do when facts get in the way of pop culture, of whatever is hashtag-cool that particular day. The ever-pressing urgency for distractions and entertainment only exists when people honestly know nothing of what to do with themselves, so afraid of learning about new things, exploring new situations, evaluating new ideas. Boredom is self-possessed laziness, though easily waved away through group activities where this self-obsession can get lost in the crowd, free from any accountability.
It’s not just about shaming intelligence though, but also of shaming purpose, any purpose beyond self-worship and entertained. A million vlogging video game reviewers all obsessed with displaying how entertained they are in the confines of their consumerist box, that is not normal or healthy. Science informs us that common ants know more about farming and agriculture than all but a few societal outcasts of first world nations, where the ability to name the most X-Men members past and present is awarded more esteem publicly. Than literal self-dependence.
And contrary to Simonton’s undoubtedly well-paid piece of manure in prose form, Karl Aho and C. Stephen Evans have written a beseecher for Søren Kierkegaard, arguing that the hollowness of activity without syntax is proof of a feeble mind. They cite as examples modern denizens generally, aiming to appear busier than they really are for no other reason that to seem to strangers of some importance, but we can see this much more clearly among politicians and corporate heads, professional athletes and entertainers, and soldiers. All of whom take great pride in self-importance despite none of them actually accomplishing anything visceral or meaningful beyond mere self-worship. The hands which built their playgrounds of high-rises and stadiums, though publicly unsung, have clearly contributed more. Even the soldiers, whom if unsupported by any member of the community then said member of the community is lambasted and ostracized, are predominately ignorant, lazy and overweight.
Interestingly, Camille Paglia has also written a recent thing on how keeping up appearances is more often to do with filling personal voids than with measuring any actual success. At least by today’s lack of standards. Yet the plasticity is hero-worshiped nonetheless and all the more. When all that’s produced is shit, then the bigger the butt, the emptier the soul. Most people must sit for long hours of unproductive living to get butts so huge, when the cool people are smart enough to fake it. When not one voice to the daisy-chain is learned enough to know that a big butt maintains biological appeal simply as a signpost for easily fucked. If they developed their grey matter instead of their backmatter, they’d have better than the thousand words their pictures are purportedly worth, especially as selfies are for those without friendships to hold the cameras.
It’s why false idols like the high and mighty Elon Musk readily fall before the very same afterlife mythologies as any other religious zealot frightened to tears by the faintest hint of responsibility or accountability in the here and now. The cultish notion of the world being a simulacrum is no different, freeing its followers up from the chore of fixing what’s actually broke to instead place all their bets on a safe space in the ethereal sky. It is satisfyingly convenient for the world to not really matter, for people too ignorant to learn how to approach it, and too self-possessed to earnestly care anyway. How can anybody not associate the popular “fake it til you make it” ideology with Barnum’s line about never fooling all the people all the time but only either all of the people some of the time or some of the people all the time? Because the proverbial con-artist, in lieu of ever utilizing their own 5 senses, depends on subjecting themselves to the 5 senses of others, thus preventing said others from using their own 5 senses for anything more substantial or rewarding than serving as a lowly voyeur.
And while it’s hardly a secret that one is not a true fan, whether in terms of self-worship or focused towards whichever false idol is currently trending, unless one sacrifices something of themselves. Money, usually, but also time, and most definitely brain cells.