Clearcutting The Forest

The image of Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw, as a symbol for housecleaning the federal government of deadwood, is an image I’m having trouble shaking.

I don’t know how to make sense of it. How does someone who is expanding the limits in a range of human activities—space travel, electric cars, solar energy, AI, neurological technology—find common cause with the clinical narcissist who coined the phrase, “You’re fired” on national TV? In contrast with the narcissist’s gloomy resentment, Musk seems positively gleeful.

I’m reading a book by Oliver Sacks, “An Anthropologist on Mars” in which seven case studies of men and women with various neurological conditions are described. Among them are several people with autism, including Temple Grandin. Now that Musk has identified himself as someone on the autism spectrum (on Saturday Night Live and in a Ted talk interview), it feels relevant to compare him to Temple Grandin, another extraordinary person on the spectrum. Grandin exemplifies a path of accomplishment that is inspiring for anyone who cares about the evolving human species—not only for those who, like her, can’t directly share in the feelings of others.

There are indications that Musk has difficulty coming up with symbols that invite others to join him in his endeavors. A chainsaw, as an image of cleaning house, feels like the mute testimony of a man who has no experience of balanced friendship. At a time when it must be dawning on supporters that the handful of billionaires slashing government programs are the only ones who can benefit from the chaos of a collapsing economy—the chainsaw must be an unsettling image.

Awareness of the immense damage inflicted on the natural world by the clearcutting of forests appears to not be shared by the entire American population. So, perhaps the image of a chainsaw–as a symbol for the indiscriminate stripping of entire forests from the land they protect—is just business as usual. And if it is not troubling to hear denials of the human role in climate breakdown, is it also easy to believe that the jobs and services that support ordinary people in their lives can be strip mined by a band of programmers who know nothing about the content they are deleting?

As an image for the blanket elimination of the livelihood of people who rely on them and who supply services on which others rely, the chainsaw metaphor expresses more than was probably intended. It expresses with naked clarity that what is underway in this moment is a hostile takeover of the American experiment in self-governance, undertaken with no higher purpose than to break apart and loosen the commons so that what remains can be scooped up for the exclusive benefit of conglomerates. These corporate abstractions not only operate without compassion; their owners project their own lack of feeling as an alternative for the decent humanity that is the only task worth pursuing as our society undergoes this unnecessary breakdown.