People are “connected to each other in their vulnerability,” says the philosopher Jule Govrin. She advocates a “universalism from below” – as an antidote to Elon Musk’s libertarian authoritarianism.
It is difficult to imagine that Donald Trump has read many novels in his life, but his favorite novel is supposedly Ayn Rands “The Fountainhead”. The book is something like a manifesto of the rabid eGoshooterum and a Bible of the American libertarians. The novel hero, an architect and brilliant visionary, is the inbilter of the heroic individual in the fight against annoying rules and delightful mediocrity: the strongest is the most powerful alone. Interpersonal bonds, even something like compassion, altruism or solidarity are only something for weakening in Ayn Rand’s world. For the libertarian authoritarianism of tech-oligarches such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel or his pupil JD Vance, Rand’s celebration of hardcore devism delivers trivialphilosophical superstructure. Freedom becomes a different word for maximum ruthlessness.