A few more comments, if I may, on the Tom Perkins business.
One of UD’s father-in-law’s friends was the architect and painter Serge Chermayeff (Les UDs have one of his paintings). UD recalls being told that, at the very end of his life, Chermayeff told Soltan he felt sure the world was, as it were, going with him – that the end of the world was close. I don’t know if he meant via nuclear warfare or what, but he clearly meant that in dying he was taking the rest of the world down with him.
UD‘s theory about old men who were very big personalities for much of their lives – people like Perkins – is that their resentment over having to die can take the form of insisting that everything else die with them. They missed nothing during their lives; they’re damned if they’re going to miss anything after their deaths.
This would explain, in part, the otherwise bizarre theory Perkin’s peddling, the belief he’s excited about, which involves a kind of armageddon in which the violent majority will French revolutionize the rich minority. In this scenario, Perkins guarantees that none of his fellow super-rich, with whom he’s been competing all of his life, will beat him in the ultimate competition. Everyone gets slaughtered.
As Michael Kinsley writes in “Mine is Longer than Yours”:
This is the game that really counts. Perhaps you imagine that, as eternity approaches, the petty ambitions and rivalries of this life melt away. Perhaps they do. That doesn’t mean that the competition is over. It means that the biggest competition of all is about to start.
At 82, Perkins – one of life’s enormous winners – is in the very thick of the biggest competition of all. He is looking for a way – any way – not to lose it.
January 28th, 2014 at 10:50PM
The opposite of that thought – the thought that the world might end with one’s own life* is of course the happy one that, after us, the world will continue in a good way for others. I think that this is intricate, partly the result of a more selfish, reflexive projection of ourselves into a world we actually will never see. And it is partly the product of naturally generous fellow feeling that runs well beyond our concerns for our friends and family who survive us. What’s interesting to me is that – the possibilities of a Bosch-like last judgment or the nuclear equivalent aside – in the past it seemed that there would always be future cycles of satisfying human lives for some. Things would renew, though they would degrade again too. In some sense we’d always have Paris or at lest the pleasure of filling our lungs and watching the changing weather. Global warming raises the possibility that that might not be a safe assumption now. I have no idea of Perkins’ views on that, but it seems to me that many of those interested mainly in amassing money do not care. So the callousness extends monstrously far into the future. Your post first raised for me the possibility that some such people – though surely not all of them — might actually welcome a much broader ending along with their own. Perhaps this is a way of saying when God no longer exists, neither should the rest of us. Which of course is a way of saying . . .
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* Whether a sad thought in the case of Chermayeff, or, as you hypothesize for some plutocrats, a desired self-aggrandizing one.
January 28th, 2014 at 11:26PM
So, what we’re all saying here is that Perkins is not really an asshole but more of a dick?
January 29th, 2014 at 10:26AM
Perhaps I got a bit carried away. But I appreciate Dr/dr’s careful choice in the synecdoche of body parts.
January 29th, 2014 at 12:14PM
However crude, such terms are capable of conveying subtle but significant semantic distinctions. Used with grace and precision, they can elucidate the complexities of our world and move us to meaningful action. This has been amply demonstrated by some of our finest orators: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32iCWzpDpKs
January 29th, 2014 at 12:34PM
Dr_Doctorstein: Not only inspiring. Clarifying.
January 29th, 2014 at 12:49PM
No, no, not crude. I meant I thought it was funny in a good sense. There’s a lot of sexual synecdoche I don’t like in various circumstances: the whole being reduced to a part, usually when aimed at women. But yours was not that. Grace, that’s funny, but perhaps right as off-label word usage. But compressed precision — absolutely. Loved the clip. Will use it myself. Enough of this. Best wishes.