A Nonfiction Book
Might a Child spread the benefits of “a created X/x” to all?
According to Philip Rieff in his book Charisma, ‘[o]ur culture is dying mainly because the objectivity it requires is destroyed by constructions of endless expressional quests that have nothing true and resistant about them.’¹ Rieff would say this is true even if every possible X was ultimately an x: even if illusionary, the loss of X could be “the death of culture.” Without X and authoritative community, “self-restraint” and “self-expression” necessarily collapse into one another; lines cannot be drawn between categories like “self-forgetfulness,” “self-esteem,” “self-acknowledgment,” “self-help,” or “self-expression”: the self cannot help but act in a manner that could be therapeutic. Unable to escape this “could,” the self must exist in uncertainty, existentially unstable.
Amid this anxiety, feelings of guilt can lessen, precisely because people can feel unsure if they should feel guilty about this or that, and many would likely embrace this change as positive. Rieff wouldn’t be so optimistic, connecting the loss of guilt with the loss of CCE and “the triumph of the therapeutic,” warning:
‘Guilt is the ruling emotion of every creedal culture; those inside such a culture are compelled to take responsibility for themselves. This is to say that they must act entirely within the enclosing symbolic. Any other action is transgressive. The enclosedness of the symbolic is not separable from the sense of responsibility.’²
Where there is no guilt, there is no meaningful CCE or X. If no one feels guilty about doing x, in what meaningful sense could it be said that x is wrong? Certainly, there can be laws that make x illegal, but if laws are why people don’t do x, and if people don’t in anyway punish themselves emotionally and mentally for doing x, then the people are not ready to be free: they must be contained and forced to live one way versus another. People will struggle to organize what constitutes “responsibility” and “right action”: the State may have to move in (not that the State can fill this role, as discussed in “Kafka, Law, and Character” and “Equality and Its Immoral Limits,” both by O.G. Rose). At the same time, guilt can be used to manipulate and cause unnecessary depression, as CCE and X can be used to brainwash — such is “the tragedy of us.”
Rieff continued (and please ask what system won’t people feel is “too open” that people know they created):
‘In a society that is too ‘open’ [people] lose confidence in the limits they actively defend against transgressive behavior. Such a sense of responsibility against the transgressive expressions of self or group, in defense of the enclosing symbolic, constitutes the guilt without which culture has no alternative except to engage in its own destruction; all of what we now call ‘aggression’ are really the amoral forms of cultural auto-destruction; all aggression is transgression, loosed from its true constraining sense. In such a cultural condition, the only possible form of greatness is transgressive [making authoritarianism likely].’³
It is unlikely that knowing “x is wrong” will be enough to compel action if there isn’t also the “feeling” confirming that knowledge (for we are not merely “brains on sticks”). Laws could still organize citizens, but its perhaps probable citizens vote for representatives who remove restrictive laws (except for obvious restrictions on say murder). This will leave citizens alone, unbound by guilt and unbound by “givens — what will guide them? For Rieff, the answer is likely “influence,” which is to say a culture of fetishism, sophistry, and celebrities.
Freedom requires symbolic boundaries of which likely require X and CCE to maintain meaning to the majority (again, I will not deny entirely the possibility of an Atheist Thomas More). Guilt is how people “check and balance” themselves with internal boundaries, and where guilty is gone, law will prove needed, though it is practically and financially impossible for law to oversee everyone and everything. There will likely not be “holy fear,” and for Rieff:
‘To live without this high fear is to be a terror oneself, a monster. And yet to be monstrous has become our ambition, for it is our ambition to live without fear. All holy terror is gone […] We live in terror but never in holy terror.’⁴
Our Secular Age is one that makes it difficult to know what people should feel guilty about or if they should feel guilt at all, and for Rieff this is for everyone to become monstrous. For Rieff, the loss of Bonhoeffer is the priming of everyone to be Hitler: we cannot forgo Bonhoeffer and, in that sacrifice, free ourselves from the possibility of the demonic. Today, CCE lost, we ‘confuse charisma with publicity,’ character with popularity, and hence have lost the capacity to keep ourselves from being our own nightmare.⁵ Where there is guilt, there is CCE; if efforts to restore CCE today try to do so without bringing back guilt, they will fail (the same goes with X). But who in a therapeutic age has a stomach for guilt?
Consider this excerpt from Rieff, which brings to mind the thought of Baudrillard and his “death of the real”:
‘A mixture of transgressive and therapeutic parodies of personal devotion, without intensifications of the interdictory form, now dominate both our cultural and political life. Religion and politics merge in mass theater. The mask is the face; it need not be taken off for there is nothing behind it — a sucking vacuum, that voracious emptiness that characterizes the power politician. Charisma becomes the art of masking effects, to destroy the charismas of perception; as all true discipleship becomes impossible, under these theatrical conditions, so all charismatic authority becomes false, which is the same as to say transgressive — against the interdictory form rather than intensification of it.’⁶
Rieff suggests a distinction between “charisma” and “publicity,” which I here will discuss as “charisma” and “influence” (seeing as today there are so many “influencers”). There is a “false charisma” which Rieff admonishes, but I’ll here associate “charisma” with the Biblical prophets and something “holy” (which Rieff discusses), while “influence” is more aligned with publicity and being a celebrity. Basically, under what Alexander Bard calls “Attentionalism,” there is little (holy) charisma, only influence, and influence is “unbound.” Everyone feels responsible for “gaining influence,” or otherwise we feel like failures (possibly suffering mentally), and yet the best way to gain influence seems to be to create “clickbait,” dopamine hits, and other exercises which can weaken culture. Since there is no “holy fear,” little will be “off-limits” to use for gaining influence, and most will generally use that influence to “point back to them” and to build their own platform (as people feel they must). In the past, leaders and prophets could use charisma to “point to God,” and in fact to use charisma for self-gain was to risk sin and transgression. Now, it feels irrational not to use influence in our personal favor, which risks further atomization and tribalism as everyone splinters off into their own “spheres of influence.” There is no “holy fear” that this could be problematic and selfish (not to say it necessarily is), as there is also no “holy fear” that could influence us into a community that lead us astray (for there is no X relative to which we could be astray). Our guard is down; our focus is on building influence and connecting with influencers who could help us grow. There is concern about this, yes, but not “holy fear” that a cosmic order is being violated or ignored. Building a platform is just business, yes? It isn’t an ego. It isn’t an idol. (Indeed, there is no X relative to which it could be such.)
It’s interesting, but it seems that when people are radically free, they search for people to lead them (as noted in our emphasis of how “existential anxiety” can lead to “strong men” taking control). The more “givens” are reduced, the more people will feel a need to a find a person to help them know what to do. There seems to be little other way to “fill the gap” which is left open with the loss of a “cosmic order”: in the past, it was imaginable that people went off and joined a monastery to worship God and “the cosmic order” in greater solitude (say like Teresa of Ávila), but now that seems unlikely if not impossible. There is no X for us to align with through and in solitude; yes, we may still choose an isolated and atomized life, but this will likely be a rejection of the social order (say with the hikikomori in Japan), not a sacrifice for the sake of knowing God. Hence, if we want to determine “the right way to live,” there seems to be a lack of internal and more isolated resources (like reading Scripture or engaging in prayer) by which we may figure this out on our own (for good or for bad). Hence, we must look outward, but not “in the world itself,” for there is no X in which the world itself might be a Creation, participatory, and sacramental (for example). Thus, “looking outward” means we must end up “looking for people,” and this is why considering charisma, magnetism, and the like is important so that we might consider if the power could be used for good or if this power is too powerful not to corrupt.
If everyone is trying to build their own platform though, are we really looking “outward” for people to lead us? This might seem like we are “decentralized away” from being so lead, and perhaps there is truth to this, but as far as I can tell the critical way people build their influence is by connecting with people who have bigger platforms. Everyone can be a celebrity now, but celebrities are still our focus, which means the problematic dynamic Rieff identified has spread: it is not the case that decentralization has weakened the problem and diluted it away. No, there are more celebrities, but I’m not sure if we can say that “being a celebrity” has been diluted in its effect. Arguably, our concern for “attention” and “influence” has only grown (a reason perhaps “the mental health crisis” has worsened).
Where “givens” are gone, people still look for guidance (perhaps in particular desperation), and the main principle which guides people seems to be personalities, influence, and attention. Without X, the classic monastery seems replaced by “retreats” and platforms which make us feel like “celebrity culture” is dead because everyone can be a celebrity, but the logic of “influence” which concerned Rieff seems stronger than ever. Is this a bad thing? Well, it’s a topic that deserves expansive review throughout O.G. Rose, but what we see today is a world where people can connect and build influence while at the same time avoiding “The Real” of people and community (as discussed in “Outside Catastrophes and Inside The Real” by O.G. Rose). We might be becoming flat, fragile, and two-dimensional like screens, and yet at the same time I’ve spoken with Tom Lyons on how digital spaces could be used to enhance our “analogue lives” and help us cultivate “intrinsic motivation.” Considering this, we mustn’t claim “the digital” is inherently bad, but we must also be aware how the dynamic of “influence” is not the same as “charisma,” and how the desire for “influence” is pervasive and powerful under Attentionalism. We must also be aware that our interactions online might make us “overconfident” in how good we are “working with people,” in relationships, dealing with different personalities, and the like (it is easy to overlook how contained, cultivated, and designed “online spaces” are, whereas analogue reality can prove much less curated).
Again, people in the past joined monasteries to be holy and in “holy fear” of sin; we often join and create platforms to gain connection and in fear of lacking influence (validation, being noticed, etc.). Can “networks of platforms” replace CCE? To some degree, perhaps, but “networks of platforms” might just be Legion, a chaotic cacophony that might not fall into a Mass of Nazism but might alsoprove weak to provide people a sense of “belonging.” Perhaps not, but since the logic of this “network of platforms” will be influence, this means everything will be performative and risk being that “sucking vacuum” which Rieff described. But is performance so bad? This could be a condition in which creativity flourishes, yes?
I am of the opinion that the internet opens up creative and social possibilities greater than any previously possible — but it also could prove profoundly destructive. I’m Hegelian that way, believing that the world is better in the future than the past but that there is no guarantee there will be a future. I do see how the internet, platforms, and the like could be used to unleash creativity and spread “intrinsic motivation” (topics I will need to elaborate on elsewhere), but I also see how the internet hyper-intensifies the logic of influence which concerned Rieff. It is not given that the internet will generate CCE, but I also don’t want to claim it is impossible, though how exactly the internet could generate CCE would require us to explore the precise details and functions of an online community, and this is the work of Belonging Again (Part II). For now, I simply want to make clear that I don’t think the internet or even AI necessarily prove effacing: there are possibilities for negation/sublation.
However, a critical point needs to be considered, mainly if a Nietzschean Child could spread the benefits of “Absolute Knowing” to others who aren’t Children through networks and platforms. We have discussed the critical question of its possible for “the majority” to be Children, and we have indeed suggested that this is a profoundly hard problem. But what if a minority of people could be Children who then “spread’ the benefits of Nietzsche to everyone else? Might that not address the concerns explored in Belonging Again? To put this another way, if a Child is someone who can “create a X/x” (which is “practically equivalent” to a “discovered X”), as seemingly needed today for CCE, then could such a Child use “the network of platforms” to share that “created X/x” with everyone, thus removing the need for everyone to become Children themselves? This is a compelling possibility that might address “the problem of scale and/or spread” which we have orbited throughout O.G. Rose.
Generally, this sounds like “The Philosopher King” model explored by Plato, which I admittedly find myself often sympathetic to, and indeed perhaps we can associate this with what Alexander Bard calls “Syntheism,” which suggests that humans might invent God through AI and the internet (a position which overlaps some with Quentin Meillassoux). I find Syntheos more compelling than the Philosopher King, for Syntheos seems to be a “collective consciousness” of all of us, perhaps reducing tyranny, but I’m also not sure if Syntheos can function as a “created X/x” which can make possible CCE — it may or may not (I will have to consider that in Part Two of Belonging Again). Here, to focus on the “Philosopher King”-esq notion of Children spreading “Absolute Knowing” to the majority (hence making possible “character” distinct from mere “values,” “self-forgetfulness,” etc.), even if it was possible for receivers of X/x to genuinely feel and experience X/x as authoritative over them (which might not be possible), I fear this is very risky and even devastating.
To spread their X/x, the Children would require a platform, and though they could engage in something closer to “charisma” than “influence” thanks to their X/x, it is possible that the creating and operating of a platform would change a given Child in that very process in problematic ways. Didn’t Hitler create his own X/x that he then “spread” to others? Indeed, it is possible that Children prove satanic, and it is perhaps precisely the growing of appeal and influence which causes this demonic transformation. Considering Dostoevsky and Malcolm Muggeridge, could we not interpret the temptations of Christ in the wilderness as temptations of “gaining a platform?” Must the choice be between “a grassroots movement” or hell? Hard to say. Furthermore, if a Child generated an X/x that only worked if the majority “forgot” it was created, then the Child might need to engage in practices of manipulation and deception, the very doing of which could compromise the person of the Child in dangerous ways. And that Child would still be powerful.
A Child does feel guilt in the way Rieff thought was beneficial, for a Child treats X/x as authoritative, and so if the Child fails to fully embody X/x, the Child will feel remorse, so there is reason to think a Child could entail internal resources to help him or her from being corrupted. However, there is also a danger that a Child begins rationalizing that “the means justify the ends” for X/x, and so does what needs to be done to “spread” X/x to the majority. I don’t deny it might work, but I also think it is dangerous. A Child who genuinely starts a Child could end up a Hitler by the end of the process of “spreading” X/x. And if that were to occur, since the Child creates X/x, nothing but the X/x will be able to “check and balance” the new Hitler, and this new Hitler might be able to rationalize the X/x in favor of his or her program. Might there be multiple Children who stop the Hitler? Yes, but then we are practically back to our current situation, where nations police other nations, and by what authority? God’s? If a single Child became a Hitler, this possible solution to our current plight might fail.
I do not believe we can generate a Child or small numbers of “Absolute Knowers” who then spread their X/x to others without great risk: I believe it is far better that the majority become Children themselves. Our solution shouldn’t be a “Centralized Absolute Knower,” per se, even though we will require a decentralized socioeconomic system in which people can individually and emergently arrive at “Absolute Knowing” and Childlikeness on their own. This is my focus and interest, but indeed this presents a radical challenge that might ultimately prove unworkable. If so, the great risk of a Philosopher King might be necessary. Syntheos might be our only hope and greatest danger (though God has always been both).
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Notes
¹Rieff, Philip. Charisma. New York, NY: First Vintage Books Edition, 2008: 178–179.
²Rieff, Philip. Charisma. New York, NY: First Vintage Books Edition, 2008: 216.
³Rieff, Philip. Charisma. New York, NY: First Vintage Books Edition, 2008: 216.
⁴Rieff, Philip. Charisma. New York, NY: First Vintage Books Edition, 2008: 6.
⁵Rieff, Philip. Charisma. New York, NY: First Vintage Books Edition, 2008: 242.
⁶Rieff, Philip. Charisma. New York, NY: First Vintage Books Edition, 2008: 133.
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