Egopolitics rules. It is accompanied, everywhere, by an overwhelming digital narcissism. Everyone exhibits themselves, everyone has a (pseudo)artist in their body, an uncontrollable desire to show off and be seen. The old artistic romanticism has given way to a deformed mass-market romanticism: the ego transformed into a commodity. Also a political commodity. These are times of passionate and commodified emotionality. Modesty has given way to the most uninhibited expressiveness. The literature (and culture) of the self is expanding and has its counterpart in personalist politics. Ideologies have given way to explosive and grotesque individualisms. We live in times of inflammation of the singular being. We have all always been singular, but now we are becoming more and more so... The gregariousness of the masses of the 20th century, when what mattered was being part of the wave, has been replaced by the strong individual, supposedly brilliant, unique, superlative.
This unstoppable tendency to inflate one's personality begins at a young age, with the overprotection and adulation of children, always surrounded by a devoted audience that laughs at every joke and makes them the kings of the house. It's the first rehearsal for what comes next: the natural leap to the great theater of the screen, where the audience becomes infinite. Sociability is soon conditioned by this egocentric duality: everyone looks at you, we all look at each other continuously. We congratulate each other, we smile, we flatter each other. How can we avoid falling into the trap of believing ourselves (of believing ourselves) special?
In this endless dance of egos, there's room for everyone. But more for some than others. The competition is fierce and addictive. And the podium, extremely volatile, like a fair of ephemeral vanities. Now I'm here, now I'm not. To survive, you have to go to extremes, shout louder, bare your whole soul, reinvent yourself even if it means betraying yourself: what counts is absolute self-confidence, limitless contortion. The message is secondary; what matters is the construction of the total, emotional self, beyond coherences and reasons, a self educated from the cradle to reign with the grace of its gestures and witticisms. A volatile self.
Of course, there has always been the human, very human, drive to seek one's place in the world. Self-awareness distinguishes us from other animals. But now, in the wake of new technologies, we have elevated the ego to an absolute throne. For centuries, not to say millennia, the most skilled, intelligent, or daring stood out, a select few. Today, triumph is just a click away, a meme away, a stroke of luck that everyone strives for. Success has been democratized. Fame has been trivialized. Wise men go unnoticed, fools occupy the altars. A well-crafted bad image is worth a thousand wise words. Let them speak of me, even if it's only good.
Let's go to the king of the dance floor: Trump embodies that powerful exhibitionism. The world is his mirror. He can play both the victim and the villain. He lives pathologically like a star talk show host, spewing his histrionic opinions, using the great political and military power at his disposal with the frivolity of a rude adolescent. He perfectly encapsulates today's egocentric and insubstantial world, in which knowledge—thought, reflection, reason, dialogue...—has been banished in favor of seductive pyrotechnics based on easily manipulated and polarizing dualities: good and bad, with me or against me, love and hate, rich and poor, strong or weak. Such is the divisive dialectical motto that overwhelms us.
The insolent spirit of the times manifests itself every day in this self-satisfied super-personality who spits in the faces of those who stand up to him. Without his beloved enemies, Trump would be nothing. He needs to assert himself against the opposition—now also against Musk—because, beyond his narcissistic and contemptuous theatrics, he has little or nothing to offer. His commodity is himself, and he is a morally rotten grimace that, voraciously and lewdly, revels in the self-granted right to be rich and feel superior. This is the essence of the macro law he has just passed.
