I spoke with Max Read of Read Max about the Jeffrey Epstein birthday book, Trump’s humiliating tech summit, the “popping” of the A.I. bubble, the commoditization of everything, and the general terribleness of life online.
Here are some things we discussed:
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Also, my column for the October issue of The Nation is up. I consider whether the ancient words “tyrant” and “tyranny” are better terms for Trump than “fascist” or “authoritarian:”
Perhaps the better words for all this are the older terms “tyrant” and “tyranny.” Tyranny, since its first formal explication by Plato in The Republic, suggests fundamental disorder and irrationality. The totalitarian regime pursues a world of terrifying ideological consistency, destroying with ruthless logic anything that gets in its way—but the tyrant is arbitrary and incontinent, subject to unruly passions and appetites. The tyrant, according to Aristotle, rules only according to his own interests, without heeding any notion of the greater good. As such, the tyrant treats the polis, the republic, like a giant extension of his own household. That’s just what Trump, who has been justly accused of setting up a “patrimonial” system, is attempting to do. Commentators often remark that Trump is “transactional” and that he operates within a “zero-sum” world. Another way to put this is that he is completely instrumental in his relations with others: He uses them. Again, this is characteristic of a classical tyrant, who cannot have true friends with whom he shares a common goal; he sees only pawns to be moved and potential rivals to be cowed. The overriding selfishness of tyrants corrodes the communal life of the entire people: They all relate to one another as objects to be disposed of or controlled. He plays upon the hopes for private gain and the fears of private loss. The social order that bends to his will thus becomes a world of people concerned only with their own private needs, who sulk apart in fear and loneliness and are unable to act in concert—that is to say, act politically. And that suits Trump the tyrant just fine.
