I keep telling you I will write a review on Goodreads sooner or later @Mark_Jabbour. Here is a snippit of what I gleaned one day while reading. Keep prodding me for more!
Written January 1st, 2019 + some edits (personal “you” changed to Mark Jabbour for the review)
I am digging this book.
I have conflict with the authors thought process.
Mark Jabbour waxes philosophically upon power,…the alpha male and the decline of society that does not accept the alpha male, the political and legal factors that prevent the alpha male from becoming a success story.
The self-made man, the American Dream and the lost cause
On Trump, pg. xx: “His triumph was unprecedented and historic, and he should be given credit. (But thats not the case, is it?) He embodies that frontier spirit — the can-do attitude and confidence that forged this country.”
Mark uses his own business experience as case in point. He has written books; he has woodworking skills; he has built his own (or could have built his own) bookstore, he owned said bookstore and managed the activity of the bookstore…in short: he was a self-made man. He did everything by himself, on his own (to the extent that is possible…thoughHome Depot had the material ready, others produced goods to help you along your journey, etc.) yet something along the way prevented access. Perhaps laws made him fork out too much money. Rent or taxes caused him to second guess the business. The mass produced, over-populated world brought his business down to a reduced meaning. Why buy or participate in a bookstore’s offerings when you can just not read, sit at home and read on the internet, buy other forms of entertainment…
I am attempting to arrive at the same conclusions as Mark. Is this a good summary? We have our natural evolution. We have ape mentality. The alpha male, along with the others (beta, female, child) have their place in the family, clan, unit, tribe. To go against our evolution, to seek out different roles and structures is to invite unnecessary conflict. As humans, we have sought power. The power seeking comes from various thoughts as to how to achieve this power. Mark focuses in the book upon the political power. The power gained though the American Dream. To be at the peak of the American Dream is to seek and find the ultimate form of freedom and power. Trump is at the pinnacle of power right now. And he achieved this through negotiation skills (a form of power) and a ruthless pursuit of the American Dream through the self-made man.
Would the author say that for the woman, the beta males, the other weaker males, the ones that find their way through cheating the system (via weak means) or demanding from the system that they be included need to be reminded of their role? Wouldn’t the alpha male in the current scene be in place because they played the game right?
But isn’t this game a lost cause? Do we really need to play the game? Since we are overpopulated and overpampered, are we not needing to redefine the game? In this American Dream model of the game, we have a few winners and the remainder are wanting to be the winners or admiring the winners (well played, sir) and what then? Are they to give up? Jump back into the game for another season? Try again? Use a different strategy? Are not the highest winners the ones who know who to play the system? To bypass laws? To reap the benefits while others suffer from the system? Currently, those that play the stock market game come out as the biggest winners of the American Dream…but they do not necessarily have to work hard at anything. If they come from the bottom, they go to school, learn the system, learn about money, and get it. But is money the final determinant of success? DO we really want to be playing this game? Do you really want others to be playing this game?
In “Gods, Heroes and Men”, Mark Jabbour sums up power and the game: power is determined by the game players. The game players seek power. Trump, as Mark states, has played the game without lying, cheating or stealing. He is honest. He is smart in business. He has had successes and failures but remains on top. He did it himself, with a little help from daddy. He negotiates and this is his source of power. He wins bigly, and proves this by his current role as president. But again, is this really the peak of what we can be? If Trump truly embodies that frontier spirit, then can we not determine that something is wrong with the American system? Is this all there is? Do we really want to be in Trump’s shoes?
I think this is a personality trait, the attention seeking. Or the love of attention. Without forming any diagnosis, we can say Trump loves the attention, does not mind the conflict, thrives on the argumentative “I am right and you have nothing that will cause me to lose”…so yes, he played the game well and there he is on top of the game. He did it without the political BS and PC process. He played the game and can make a joke out of it, out of those that spent their time trying to PC pussyfoot their way into the system, seeking power through (unconscious or not) lying, cheating and stealing. He is your prime example. But do we really want to be in Trumps shoes?
Mark’s business faltered, he say, because he cared about people, cared about what others thought/think. I can say that on paper, I would really like to be you, dear author. I would love to have woodworking skills, writing skills, business know-how, etc. I would love to be able to keep a bookstore and spend my time existing within the store, providing for customers, and well…its a bookstore, the peak goal of the book reader’s American Dream. But then…there are people, there are those you care about. Maybe your faltering is from caring about people outside of your family, caring too much about the customers and the business people or something. Does Trump care about others?
Do we really wish to be in Trump’s shoes? The constant flow of hate, the constant need to win, to say I am right, to prove the rightness? Even before the bombardment of the Presidency, Would we really wish to go around negotiating, making deals, proving ourselves…is this the true peak of who we are and who we can be?
Perhaps we can agree that part of the problem is overpopulation = too many individuals seeking the AD, the AMale role, more money, more property, more women…. Or the waste of the environmental stuff…(what of Trump’s regal hotels…is this really a business move that you could support? Luxury seems outside of your model, but you seem okay to include it in the AD, in the admiration of this man.)
To be continued…
I do have an alternate title: Dreams of My Narcissist Father