[Self Made] The strongman and the star
Reading chapters seven and eight: “I Shall Be Ruling the World from Now On” and The Power of IT.
Welcome back to the summer book club.
We’re reading Self Made: Creating Our Identities from DaVinci to the Kardashians.
Whether you’ve been reading the book or just keeping up with these posts, feel free to comment below in response to the ideas.
Chapters 7-8: “I Shall Be Ruling the World from Now On” and The Power of IT
Three Things to Notice
In chapter eight, the dandy evolves into the strongman. If the dandy shut himself off from “the crowd, the rabble, the mob” (117), the strongman “used his supreme creative powers to reshape the populace, transforming it into a reflection of his divine will” (136). With Gabriele D'Annunzio and Benito Mussolini as early examples, we see how the masses willingly give themselves up to the power of the strongman’s will, fulfilling their desire “to feel special, to feel that they, too, had joined nature’s aristocracy” (147).
The key thinker behind the strongman is the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who labeled the strongman the Übermensch (literally “overman”). Nietzsche observed that European culture was largely based on Judeo-Christian values like self-denial and humility, but that the God behind those values had functionally ceased to exist for most people. A “transvaluation of values” became necessary—and it involved “two interwoven and seemingly contradictory assumptions”: existence is meaningless, but power is best. Not simply “physical strength or social authority” but “a will to become oneself as a god” (138). The person who exercises this will is the Übermensch—and he is “the meaning of the earth” (139).
In chapter nine, Nietzsche goes to Hollywood. Take two minutes to watch the clip from Baby Face (1933) above. It shows how Nietzsche’s dream of the Übermensch subduing nations was co-opted by the American story of democratic self making to create the star. The star had it. Like sprezzatura and bon ton, it was “the presence, or at least the illusion, of authenticity” (152). As the star was born against the background of the Great Depression, the aristocratic and democratic strands of self making began to fuse: make money by working hard (democratic) to express your inner glory (aristocratic).
Notable Quote
On the assumptions that undergird modern self making as the two strands begin to fuse (140):
The democratic strain of self-making insisted that anybody, theoretically, could become a self-maker so long as they worked hard enough. The aristocratic strain posited that only certain, special people possessed the qualities of an Übermensch. But in practice the two ideologies were more alike than they were different. Those who had acquired power or prosperity—whether through hard work or New Thought-style positive thinking or some inborn quality that set them apart from the common herd—were the people who understood that reality itself was malleable, that truth was flexible, and that life was simply raw material for the magician of personality to reshape into his desired image.
Conversation starters (pick one)
Why are the two assumptions undergirding Nietzsche’s transvaluation of values “inherently contradictory”? (See 137-138.)
The Hollywood star is a garden variety figure for most modern people. Did anything surprise you about how the concept of the star was born?
See you next week for chapters nine and ten — “You Basically Just Said You Were” and “Do It Yourself”