The Anti-Enlightenment in Popular Culture

Popular Culture and the Anti-Enlightenment

My analysis of the long 20th century is rooted in idealism. Karl Marx (1818–1883) was/is correct in analyzing the inherent instability of the capitalist economy—the decline of the rate of profit, the social disruption of the replacement of labor with capital (technology, equipment), accelerated natural resource depletion, etc.²¹ Elsewhere I hold that the idealism of the Enlightenment has been under-theorized. In other words, the ideation at the center of social/political progress. I aver that unless humanity adopts the proper political values the economic/political instability of capitalism (as explained by Marx) will result in barbarism—the anti-Enlightenment.²² (We have already witnessed the barbarism of the long 20th century noted above.)

In this monograph I argue that the causes of the barbarism (anti- Enlightenment) of the 20th century have been under-theorized. Through several volumes, I have relied on popular culture (movies, television) to analyze modern/contemporary political theory.²³ Most notably, my contention is that the Star Trek text (its broadcast iterations) is an accrual to the Hegel and Marx vector of the Enlightenment canon. The series Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an accrual to the anti-Enlightenment canon—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) being its most salient fount.²⁴

By analyzing the Star Trek and Clone Wars texts it becomes evident that the Enlightenment/anti-Enlightenment schism comes down to what should be the prime economic motive of modern society: greed or justice. From the (economic) dyad of greed/justice follows the politics of hate versus reason. Thus, the unreason of the anti-Enlightenment is the position that a modern, global economy can only be predicated on greed—material acquisitiveness.

Adam Smith famously argued that individual self-interest (defined as personal material acquisitiveness) is the basis of economic progress.²⁵ In 1776, when Smith’s Wealth of Nations was published, greed (capitalism) played a progressive role in the advancement of the economy. By 1914 industrialization (the means of production) was global in character. This creates international friction, conflict, and instability, as the world system was/is divided via sovereign nation-states.²⁶ World War One resulted from the fact that the German economy was technologically advancing (requiring natural resources and markets). Great Britain viewed Germany as a threat to its global empire, and the Germans perceived Britain as seeking to limit its access to natural resources and markets. The destructiveness created by the mismatch between the contemporary means of production and the nation-state system is also saliently manifest with the Great Depression (1929 to the 1940s)—the prime cause of World War Two (1939–1945).²⁷ The greed at the center of contemporary neoliberalism is prompting a socially, politically, as well as an environmentally destabilizing global race to the bottom—as nation-states compete for capital investment by offering the cheapest production platforms (low wages, low regulations, inexpensive energy, etc.).²⁸

The character Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street put it most stridently when he argued that “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” Gekko went on to explain that “Greed, in all of its forms … greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge … has marked the upward surge of mankind.” Closer to Smith’s argument and ethos, the character Quark (a Ferengi) from the Star Trek series Deep Space Nine (1993–1999) held that “Greed is the purest … of emotions … Greed is Eternal” (“Prophet Motive” 1995). Thus, while Smith would seemingly not agree that greed in all spheres of life is appropriate, his argument was that greed (individual material acquisitiveness) was the only (or minimally the most) reliable emotion to base a global economy.

Certainly, many emotions and motives are the basis of modernity and the modern global economy—e.g., democracy, new knowledge (technology), adventure, the desire for interesting work. (It’s no accident that the modern global economy embedded and expanded the Enlightenment.) Additionally, Smith did acknowledge that there may be times when the profit-motive does not serve the community, nation and in those instances it should be curbed. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a reaction against the profit-motive as a guiding social principle. The Great Depression in the 1930s also prompted even in the advanced capitalist world sustained efforts to check and regulate the greed underlying the profit-motive (e.g., the U.S. New Deal).²⁹

Gekko’s famous lines and Quark’s vaunting of greed are reflective of the politics of neoliberalism. Gekko’s defense of greed is made as part of his proposal to dismantle a unionized work force to maximize shareholder profit. Such an assault on unions and unionized work were hallmarks of the American economy in the 1980s and the 1990s, as the New Deal ended with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the accompanying Reagan Revolution.³⁰ The Reagan Revolution accelerated the process where the profit-motive (greed) became the highest political value for the U.S. and (for the first time in history) the entire world (in other words, global neoliberalism). This extended to the formerly state socialist societies of China and the Soviet Union (now Russia and other new nation-states carved out of what was the Soviet Union). Neoliberalism is the idea that capital, goods, and services should be allowed to find their most profitable outlets—on a worldwide scale. Hence, what profoundly, decisively shapes the world economy today is the quest for profit and profit-maximizing (i.e., greed).³¹ In the case of Quark he asserted the superiority of greed as a social force in response to an effort to shift Ferengi values to a foundation of “benevolence”—altruism, charity.

Wealth Addiction and Star Trek

Ferengi (introduced in The Next Generation series [1987–1994]) are an alien species that elevate capitalist ideology to a religion—with their heaven being known as the Divine Treasury, and only those with sufficient profit can enter. The bible of the Ferengi is the “Rules of Acquisition”—a guide in the pursuit of wealth. Examples of the rules: “Exploitation begins at home”; “Expand or die.” Therefore, Ferengi take the ontology of love, charity, piety that are the ostensive moral/ethical basis of religions like Christianity and Islam and replace these with a moral/ethical ontology of profit maximizing.³²