That’s gives context for who should, and what greater purpose they should quit their jobs for.
It’s gussied up a bit in the article but it’s still there in the calls for a leisure class, references to elites, “traditional” relationship values and so on. It’s not a neutral article on the value of following your dreams.
I started to think that the article _might_ have a certain political slant after coming across these phrases:
"problems of governance from beyond the established liberal democratic paradigm" ... " the lone overman" ... "Growth Through Struggle" .. "your cosmic duty and win glory only in the bold attempt" ... "our society has been so stagnant and uncreative ... We chose the path of comfort... In our cowardice, we turned away"
Not to mention the name "Wolf". Evidently, he is a "man of destiny". Oddly his linkedin profile pic has a toddler on his shoulders. I assumed the child was his own - the article does have a passing mention of finding a wife. No doubt he considers it his duty to transmit his elevated genetic legacy to future generation.
Are you really faulting a person because he has a name you don't like? BTW, how about Wolf Blitzer, is he too...?
And of course him having kids makes him some kind of a eugenicist, only those folks have kids and love to put them on their shoulders, nobody else would ever consider something like fatherhood enjoyable and worth celebrating. Sheesh.
So just to be clear - you're likening the author to Adolf Hitler?
If you think someone is a racist or a transphobe or a nazi or whatever flavour of the month punchline you prefer, you should just come out and say it, rather than being so bizarrely vague and smug about it. You think he's a nazi because he used to work with Peter Thiel - just say it!
I can't say what the author is like, as I never heard of them before today. I note what the rhetoric of this piece echoes very strongly, and no doubt deliberately.
I don't think that the "flavour of the month punchline" comment is in any way justified. It is neither.
There was a time when Godwin's law was meant to prevent people calling each other literally Hitler with no justification. Now people just use Godwin's law to call other people literally Hitler with no justification.
Yes "literally Hitler" - which you yourself admitted after some insistent prodding. And yes "no justification" - nothing in the article justified going strait into Nazi accusations.
And I don't think a person who thinks it's ok to skirt the rules every time he wants should talk too much about "bad faith". But of course it all fits into the same "it's OK when I do it" mold, doesn't it?
My guess is it reminds of Ayn Rand / Atlas Shrugged, but that’s just based on what I’ve picked up from documentaries (I haven’t read this book or anything else by her).
Yeah I went and checked out the authors Twitter after reading the article and there was a tweet praising Atlas Shrugged very near the top which was amazingly on-brand I thought after reading the article.
Having actually read the book when I was going through an ill-thought out libertarian phase I don't understand how anyone capable of engaging writing themselves can think it's anything other than turgid dross. Feels more like praising it is part of the belief system than anything else.
I wasn't thinking about Ayn Rand (although her presence is no surprise at all). Lets just say that some of the rhetoric must have sounded better in the original German. e.g. "Übermensch" is a much more evocative word than "overman".
> "Übermensch" is a much more evocative word than "overman".
Try "Superman" instead.
I'm not a historian, and I've wondered whether the historical background for the comic (conceived in the early '30s I think?) included some of the racial overtones that were more pervasive at the time. I don't know how influential Darwin and Galton were scientifically at the time, but even if they weren't current in scientific circles (which I kind of doubt), certainly it's hard to ignore that the ideas were "in the water" so to speak.
I was waiting for the blood and soil stuff but maybe that’s the next issue. I had thought the dork enlightenment stuff had died a death but apparently not.
Of course the guy who wants to find his own path and share his ideas is literally Hitler. If you ask "how ridiculous ideological bubbles can be", the answer is - this ridiculous.
Oh this is absolutely relevant as I was thinking on how that magazine/author can make a living from it. Now it makes absolute sense: it doesn't have to.
It’s gussied up a bit in the article but it’s still there in the calls for a leisure class, references to elites, “traditional” relationship values and so on. It’s not a neutral article on the value of following your dreams.