Peter Thiel is the Western Version of China
Projection of ‘fault’ is indeed a sad psychological phenomenon.
I respect Mr. Thiel, if I didn’t, he wouldn’t be worth the mention at all.
Thing is, he started to “rub me” the wrong way when I saw that his disdain for China, comes from his “double speak” on monopolistic companies like Facebook.
I must, before proceeding, remain clear and firm that I will be forever grateful to Thiel for introducing me to Rene Girard, the power of “innovation”, and exposing the “lie” of competition and “small business”.
Competition, is the “fallen” state of man. Competition is, truly, the mimetic state of self-destruction. To make matters worse, “even if you win, you are still a rat!”.
Thinking “small” is equally unhelpful. Acting locally works, always. But only the true globalist can defend his local activity.
Now, we shall proceed. Thiel, like a true German, is a “power man”. I struggle, at times, to tell if he is Marxian or a Kantian. Same thing!
The problem, naturally, with power men is that they tend to be “fatalistic” in their enterprise. It is not so much that fatalists cannot think; Xi Jinping, Marx, and Thiel, clearly, are, thinkers; it is, perhaps then, purely by “accident” that most of these thinkers see “benevolent dictatorship” as the only means of goodness in the universe.
Nietzsche was at least honest! But Peter Thiel dismisses Nietzsche only for having “went mad”, and not for the fact that he could see “right through” people like him and Karl Marx!
Peter Thiel is wrong about the “source” of benevolence, it doesn’t come from monopolies, technology, and least of all, it will never come from dictators!
We could try bring up Thiel’s obsession with Trump, Xi Jinping or even his megalomaniac business partner, Mark Zuckerberg; but it is clear that the man is in love with dictatorship!
Question: is Peter Thiel a believer in dictatorship?
Answer: well, given his “authority” obsession, yes.
Question: is Peter Thiel wrong about everything?
Answer: no. He has only seen what doesn’t work. This includes his concerns about the American (foreign) policy of free trade; the failures of modern capitalism (in relation to promoting the morals of competitive “sports” in business); and the broken social tendencies of “copying” what works, instead of venturing into paths of self-knowledge and self-discovery.
Question: what is the better alternative to Thiel?
Answer: me. I tried Peter Thiel’s “method”. It doesn’t work when you don’t have tangible power, politically or economically. His “ethical system” is essentially bankrupt when one considers the reality of him not really having a “good case” for why his American system of monopolies and dictators is better than, say, the Chinese system of monopolies and dictators.
This is what I would suggest to Thiel: enjoy your “pension”; keep quiet from now on; give the “children” the chance to speak now.
Peter Thiel is an odd Gen X’er in that he found ways to “game the system” that was designed to screw many people of his generation over. He became successful while many of his generation remained stuck in the same cubicles; with zero or little prospect of moving up the corporate ladder. Sadly, most of them are still stuck in corporate, with the vain hope of finding “salvation” once they have fully paid up their mortgages.
That notwithstanding, it must be noted that the “zeitgeist” he carries is still that of his generation. It is the zeitgeist of skepticism, unhappiness, brutality, disappointment, “formalism”, rules, and the general fear or suspicion of success. Being “successful” then, in his mind, became associated with becoming a dictator, a monopoly, and the one and only “zero to one”.
It must be “tough” being the “good friend”of Elon Musk after essentially staging a coup for him to be removed as CEO of Paypal; but it is clear that even his recent commentary of Elon Musk “being hard”to emulate stems from Thiel’s suspicion of power, beauty and intellect.
In my poetic essay RULED by the Evils, Part II, I demonstrate the quintessential problem with this “power-based” outlook of the world.
Intellect, beauty and power, are, in the Christian sense “democratic”. But that is not the same thing as to say “everyone” has them! They are all “accessible”, but they are consistently apprehended by the few.
The “accessibility” part of this power-dynamic is what most Gen X’érs were denied of apprehending, at least socially.
The dilemma they had, and still have, concerns whether power can be accessed outside of the phenomenal realm, to borrow from Kant and Marx.
While Marx may preach that “religion is the opium of the poor”; it is religion, in fact, which is the great equalizing “innovator”; the greatest liberator from competition and dictatorship. Beware this most damaging suspicion of religion by Peter Thiel and his generation! We must believe!
