In fact, in the West there has been a collusion between individualism, subjectivism, and 'personality' that goes back to the Renaissance period and which developed in the light of that 'discovery of man' exalted by antitraditional historiography. Historians have carefully ignored, or considered as positive, the counterpart, that is, the more or less conscious and complete separation from transcendence. All the splendor and power of 'creativity' of that period should not blind us to this basic tendency. Schuon has clarified the true state of affairs regarding the artistic realm as follows: 'Speaking in human terms, certain Renaissance artists are without a doubt great, but their grandeur becomes insignificant when faced with the grandeur of the sacred. In the sacred, it is as if the genius is concealed; what predominates is an impersonal, vast, mysterious intelligence. The sacred work of art has a perfume of infinitude, the imprint of the absolute. The individual talent is there disciplined; it mingles with the creative function of the entire tradition, which cannot be substituted, much less surpassed by the mere resources of man.' One can say the same regarding self-affirmation on other levels of the 'personality' in that epoch: from the Machiavellian Prince type, with its more or less perfect historical incarnations, to the condottieri and demagogues and, in general, all those who received Nietzsche's approbation for their prodigious yet unformed accumulation of power. \n Later, the emphasis on the human and individual I, the basis of humanism, would survive only in the by-products of the nineteenth- century bourgeois cult of the I, associated with a certain aesthetic cult of heroes, geniuses, and 'nobility of spirit,' But to meet many of the current defenders of 'personality' one must descend yet another degree, to where all the vanity of the I predominates: its exhibitionism, worship of one's own ' interiority,' the craze of originality, the boastfulness of brilliant literati and ambitious belletrists. Even with regard to art alone, this 'personalism' almost always appears joined to an inner impoverishment. Lukacs, though generally opposed to our position, made this legitimate remark: 'The present-day practice of overestimating and exaggerating the importance of creative subjectivity actually betrays the weakness and poverty of the writers' individuality. They distinguish themselves merely by 'eccentricity,' either spontaneous or painstakingly cultivated; their worldview is at such a low level that any attempt they make to go beyond subjective immediacy threatens to leave their 'personality completely flat. The more that this is the case, the more weight is placed on pure, immediate subjectivity, which sometimes is in fact identified with literary talent,' The character of 'normative objectivity' that was proper to true, traditional art is altogether lacking. The category that Schuon has effectively characterized as 'intelligent stupidity' includes almost all the intellectual efforts in this area. But I will not dwell further on considerations at this level — I will return to the subject later — beyond pointing out that in contemporary celebrity worship we can see the popular, updated edition that takes the former 'cult of the personality' to ridiculous lengths.

• renaissance
• false personality
• creativity
• art
• tradition
• power
• subjectivity
• dualism
• objectivity
• humanism
• literature
• celebrities

Stars—spectacular representations of living human beings—project this general banality into images of permitted roles. As specialists of apparent life, stars serve as superficial objects that people can identify with in order to compensate for the fragmented productive specializations that they actually live. The function of these celebrities is to act out various lifestyles or sociopolitical viewpoints in a full, totally free manner. They embody the inaccessible results of social labor by dramatizing the by-products of that labor which are magically projected above it as its ultimate goals: power and vacations—the decision making and consumption that are at the beginning and the end of a process that is never questioned. On one hand, a governmental power may personalize itself as a pseudostar; on the other, a star of consumption may campaign for recognition as a pseudopower over life. But the activities of these stars are not really free, and they offer no real choices. \n\nThe agent of the spectacle who is put on stage as a star is the opposite of an individual; he is as clearly the enemy of his own individuality as of the individuality of others. Entering the spectacle as a model to be identified with, he renounces all autonomous qualities in order to identify himself with the general law of obedience to the succession of things. The stars of consumption, though outwardly representing different personality types, actually show each of these types enjoying equal access to, and deriving equal happiness from, the entire realm of consumption. The stars of decision making must possess the full range of admired human qualities: official differences between them are thus canceled out by the official similarity implied by their supposed excellence in every field of endeavor. As head of state, Khrushchev retrospectively became a general so as to take credit for the victory of the battle of Kursk twenty years after it happened. And Kennedy survived as an orator to the point of delivering his own funeral oration, since Theodore Sorenson continued to write speeches for his successor in the same style that had contributed so much toward the dead man’s public persona. The admirable people who personify the system are well known for not being what they seem; they attain greatness by stooping below the reality of the most insignificant individual life, and everyone knows it.

• life
• other
• power
• roles
• happiness
• public
• reality
• the spectacle
• model
• obedience
• labor
• personality
• law
• recognition
• celebrities