 Fallout The philosopher Sam Harris was friends with Elon Musk. Now he is not. “I didn’t set out to become an enemy of the world’s richest man,” he wrote, “but I seem to have managed it all the same.” When they first met, “Elon wasn’t especially rich or famous,” but teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, risking his last dollars to make Tesla work. He also “did not seem to hunger for public attention” in the way that he does now: “His engagement with Twitter/X transformed him.” The pair fell out in 2020 over COVID-19: Harris thought Musk’s public skepticism was ill-founded and would exacerbate the problem. They made a bet over its spread: Harris says that Musk reneged on the bet and then started abusing him online. It is, says Harris, indicative of Musk’s broader evolution into an “avatar of chaos.” He remains “the greatest entrepreneur of our generation,” but “there is something seriously wrong with his moral compass, if not his perception of reality.” Diggin’ the scene The second half of the 20th century in the US saw an incredible range of artistic and cultural revolutions: Beat poetry, pop art, conceptualism, rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop, punk, postmodern dance. “It is unlikely we will see such an interconnected series of efflorescences ever again,” writes Ian Leslie in The Ruffian. “We are living, by comparison, in an age of cultural stagnation.” No doubt there are many such reasons, but one big one is that “artists no longer gather in cities.” Brian Eno used the term “scenius” to describe “the collective genius” that emerges from a geographically small, tight-knit community of talents, hanging out in bars, theaters, music clubs, thriving on “physical, serendipitous interactions.” But that happens much less now: “In post-war New York, artists colonised buildings that few others wanted to live in,” but skyrocketing real-estate prices across the Western world leave “fewer and fewer affordable pockets of the city for artists to flee to.” The hero’s path Who should we learn about at school? We teach schoolchildren about certain figures: In the past, depending on your country, it might have been Elizabeth I or Napoleon, Shakespeare or Mozart, Florence Nightingale or MLK. In recent years, “other names have entered — or attempted to enter — this canon,” writes the pseudonymous writer Edrith: Mary Seacole, Ada Lovelace. What are we trying to achieve with these names? There are two main types, says Edrith: “Giants and Heroes.” Giants are those who had a huge impact on the world: Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Einstein. They “need not be virtuous, admirable or otherwise endearing,” although they can be. With Heroes, by contrast, “we wish to be inspired by their character”: Perhaps Edmund Hillary or Rosa Parks. The list of Heroes changes, as society’s mores shift — we value physical courage less; we value diversity more. But the list of Giants is more static, because whatever happens, “the Wright Brothers still built the first plane.” “It is right that we should seek our Heroes to suit our age,” says Edrith. “Our only mistake is if we confuse them with Giants.” |
