Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>
> Schwarzman's need for more is shaped by American capitalism, for
> sure, but his need for more - every deal Blackstone has done has
> affected the lives of many thousands of people - shapes the world we
> live in too.
Near the end of the Odyssey Odysseus remarks that he can go raiding and easily make up for the wealth which the suitors have used up in their carousing. (This is from memory.) Let's say he will land and pillage a lot of woolen cloth from Island A. What happens if he doesn't? Not necessarily anything: that is, his leaving Island A alone will not result, necessarily, in someone else raiding it. That _could_ be the result, but there is nothing in the non-act of Odysseus to trigger another raider's act. And what will Odysseus do with that cloth he has risked his life to obtain? He will put it his storerooms until some important visitor drops by and he will give it away. Why will he give it away? Because that is what one does with wealth in the World of Odysseus if one is a bigshot. It is not clear whether giving away wealth ever increased wealth or power (or at least nothing I remember reading discussed this), and it is not even clear that giving away was _necessary_ for retaining the wealth and power one already possessed. But it is clear that for whatever reasons powerful men in the world of Odysseus did go to a lot of trouble to collect material for no other purpose than to give it away to guests.
And Achilles, knowing it meant his death, went to war for Glory, and not just ordinary Glory but what his mother, a goddess, had promised him, Glory beyond that ever achieved by any man. And what is Glory? Glory is not symbolized by Briseis, Glory IS Briseis, so in depriving him of Briseis Agamemnon has destroyed the essence of Achilles, Achilles is no longer Achilles without Briseis. Nor would the mere return of Briseis return meaning to his life, for as a mere bargaining chip for his fighting prowess she is no longer Glory but merely another woman. [Probably another billion or two would contribute at least in giving meaning to Schwarzman's life, though quite possibly neither he nor his therapist nor someone who only knows him through newspaper accounts could explain the mental state which makes that the meaning of his life. Again psychology fails.) [The substance of Glory is to kill Hector, the mightiest of opponents, whose death then seals the death of Achilles. The whole poem, of course, moves towards Achilles' recognition that the death of an enemy is also tragic, as he identifies Priam with his own father, and thus implicitly himself with Hector. The whole foundation of the poem trembles, and that is why Homer stands so far above Dante or Shakespeare.
Achilles, Schwarzman reach (at whatever sacrifice) for what _their_ world gives to them as that which gives life meaning. If we could analyze either in detail we might (but more probably would not) be able to understand the psychology involved, but understanding it we would understand more about that particular person, but nothing more about the world that made that person possible. There's a horrible mixing of categories, to the damage of each, when psychology gets mixed up with understanding the huge sea of social relations within which each individual, in his/her own (mostly unidentifiable) way lives his/her history. No materialism is more vulgar than that which fancies it can build a world from understanding individual psyches. If by some mystic intuition we were to grasp the heart of Schwarzman's psychology we would have no additional knowledge whatever of the social relations of capital. All we would know at the end of the investigation would be Gee Whiz, CApitalists act like Capitalists. Who wudda guessed it.
Carrol