Elon Musk versus Taylor Swift: Who Will Win This Global Fight?

They are not just stars, they are icons. This clash of titans affects us all.

The Noongar Aboriginal tribes of southwestern Australia fall into two iconic groups: the white cockatoo and the black crow. In native languages, the first bird is called “the catcher,” and the second “the watcher.” From these nicknames, we can already infer a “community of moods and temperaments,” as anthropologist Philippe Descola said, that binds not only humans, but also landscapes, objects and animals. Symbolism is a powerful thing.

Today, given the declining hegemony of the United States, our two great icons are Elon Musk and Taylor Swift. The televised debate this week between the U.S. presidential candidates was nothing more than ritualized fight between the two tribes. It was on Elon’s advice that Donald Trump entrusted Musk with auditing the federal government if Trump wins. Swift announced she would endorse the Democratic candidate because she considers Harris to be the “warrior who can defend those causes that are dear to her. It is not the entrepreneur and singer who support the politicians; it’s the other way around: Trump and Harris descend into the arena, while Musk and Swift point their thumbs up or down.

People have already pointed out that these two figures embody what sociologists call the electoral “gender gap.” For several years, young women in the West have been voting for the left while young men have been voting right. This movement is not simply a question of morals. Of course, Swift defends “LGBTQ+ rights, IVF and women’s right to their own bodies” while Elon Musk declares war on the “woke mind virus.” Of course Swift plays with the image of “cat lady,” while Musk boasts about spreading his sperm all over the planet. But above all, this movement involves two relationships in the world; the whole principle of symbolism. If you look around, you’ll be able to say this is Musk and this is Swift. If the two communities -– Swifties and Muskians -– are so powerful, it is because they are both meta-narratives of the modern world.

Tweets for Friendship Bracelets

Consider the foundation of humanity: the ability to communicate. Musk has often expressed his immense frustration. While the flood of information in our heads is abundant, we can only introduce it drop by drop through speech and writing. Hence the neutral chip that he would like to implant inside us to widen this bottleneck. Swift, on the other hand, showcases the slowness and permanence of words. In the video “Fortnight,” she types in front of file cabinets, and at the end of the song “Closure,” she informs the man who hurt her that yes, she is doing better, yes, she got his letter. One wants to speed up, the other to decant. Another example: Muskian speech spreads from post to post, through the false horizontality of cyberspace, while Swifties forge bonds through “friendship bracelets,” made and exchanged by hand. In the first case, there is only relay, in the second, reappropriation.

It has often been said that Musk is a techno-utopian, bent on electric cars and space conquest. Thinking about it, his aesthetic is tinged with a color that is more ochre, more twilight, more cyberpunk: If we must colonize space, it will be to prevent us, the “little candle of consciousness” in the universe, from going out; if we must regulate artificial intelligence, it is because this new life form could crush us. Conversely, Swift leans toward the cottage core, with its wood fire and rain on the windows; where technology is friendly, appropriate, and less worrisome (some would say “unthinking”). Do Swift and Musk embody the clash of the titans, as identified by Philosopher Tristan Garcia, between “the metaphysics of results,” which clings to frameworks, hierarchies, and the logic of power and the “metaphysics of flow,” which aims to blur categories, soften edges and promote benevolence?

The Time of Myth

Not quite. While Swift’s feminism undermines conservative codes -– the white country girl — it takes on the fairly classic codes of success through hard work, personal genius and financial standing (the singer burns as much jet fuel as the Tesla boss). As for Musk, he still sometimes refers to the science fiction writer Iain Banks, who imagined a world without money, property or hierarchy (perhaps he did not fully grasp the political substratum of the “Cultural Cycle”). To put it simply, the former was stolen by the Democrats from the Republicans, while the latter was stolen by the Republicans from the Democrats. This is a typical case of chimera multiplication, as identified by anthropologist Natassja Martin, who asserts that the world periodically transforms: Havoc is wreaked on all landmarks, humans have no defined status and they are searching for one another. The Gwich’in of North America calls this the “Time of Myth.” Perhaps we are already there, or maybe it will take a few years until we know who will win this cosmogonic battle.