How Art and Culture Expose Power Dynamics at Society's Summit
Alessandro Paolo Lombardo's essay on Artribune examines how elite power structures use symbolic capital, mysticism, and transgression to maintain dominance. The Epstein files, Pasolini's '120 Days of Sodom', and 'Eyes Wide Shut' are cited as mirrors of reality. Lombardo argues that superstition and esoteric rituals pervade Hollywood, politics, and tech elites like Peter Thiel. He contrasts the 'practical materialism' imposed on the masses with the symbolic complexity reserved for the ruling class, drawing on Bourdieu, Weber, and Adorno. The essay calls for reclaiming the symbolic to break elite monopolies on meaning.
Key facts
- The Epstein files documented opaque networks of abuse among power elites.
- Pasolini's '120 Days of Sodom' and Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut' are seen as disturbing mirrors of reality.
- Superstition is common among VIPs, politicians, and the powerful.
- Peter Thiel's Palantir blends technological power with theological categories.
- Transhumanism aims to overcome biological limits via technology, critiqued as 'TESCREAL'.
- Bourdieu's concept of symbolic capital explains how culture becomes a tool of exclusion.
- Krzysztof Pomian's 'semiofori' are objects mediating the invisible, used by power.
- The essay concludes that reclaiming the symbolic is key to challenging elite power.
Entities
Artists
- Carlotta Baldazzi
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Stanley Kubrick
- Hans Haacke
- Alessandro Paolo Lombardo
Institutions
- Artribune
- Palantir
- De Beers
- La Repubblica
- Il Giornale
- Il Sole 24 Ore
- Il Messaggero
Locations
- Versailles
- France
- Silicon Valley
- United States
- Russia
- Ukraine