21 July 2020

The wealthy are disadvantaged in two obvious ways (and we bourgeoisie are all wealthy nowadays). Firstly their wealth inevitably protects them from the Real. This is what wealth does: it protects, which then compels those protected to purchase simulations of reality (hence tourism). For example, imagine driving somewhere and the car suddenly breaks down leaving you stranded in a thoroughly undesirable neighborhood. You are now in the midst of the Real, and if you have any balls whatsoever that encounter will rouse your spirit and turn you into something that shocks both those you may be with and yourself. After the event (that is just what it is: an event) you will look back and appreciate it as one of life's peak experiences, even though at the time you were probably both pissed off and terrified, and you will realise just how miraculously well your spirit handled the situation (or not). But such events cannot be manufactured. You can't pretend that the car has broken down because at the back of your mind you know you have an escape route. So everything the wealthy purchases is, if they're lucky, a simulation of something real, and if they're less lucky, a simulation of a simulation. 

And secondly, the wealthy are at a spiritual disadvantage because they really believe their wealth can solve all their problems – they believe that money can buy anything desirable, including health and including love. But real health always contains the possibility of unhealth, of death, and real love always contains the possibility of if not hate then at least loss and abandonment. The rich will inevitably use their wealth to reduce such possibilities to zero, not realising that in the process they rob the health and love of all risk, all spirit, all reality. They turn all they touch into a simulation, a pretend, a vulgar copy.

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