“Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burnt at the stake he'd taught his brothers to light, but he left them a gift they had not conceived and he lifted darkness from the face of the Earth.”
Excuse me for saying it, maybe I am mistaken, but Elon Musk is probably better than you.
Not on account of his wealth. Not on account of his race. Not on account of his religious beliefs, his political affiliations, his childish wit, his 12 children, his six companies, nor the ceaseless storm of his high IQ mind.
Not even Musk’s accomplishments can necessarily account for his elevated rank.
No, I suspect the seed of Musk’s success and status is his willingness to fail while braving darkness.
“Sometimes it feels like he and others that are building things in this world successfully are basically confidently exploring a dark room,” podcaster Lex Fridman suggested of Musk while conversing with Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson. “They’re just walking straight into the darkness.”
In response, Isaacson had this to say (emphasis added):
There are a couple of things that are required for that. One is being adventurous. One doesn’t enter a dark room without a flashlight and a map unless you’re a risk-taker, unless you’re adventurous. The second is to have iterative brain cycles where you can process information and do a feedback loop and make it work. The third, and this is what we failed to do a lot in the United States and perhaps around the world, is when you take risks, you have to realize you’re going to blow things up.
First three rockets, the Falcon Rockets that Musk does, they blow up. Even Starship, three and a half minutes, but then it blows up the first time. So I think Boeing and NASA and others have become unwilling to enter your dark room without knowing exactly where the exit is and the lighted path to the exit.
And the people who created America, whenever they came over, whether the Mayflower, refugees from the Nazis, they took a lot of risks to get here. And now I think we have more referees than we have risk-takers, more lawyers and regulators and others saying, ‘you can’t do that, that’s too risky,’ than people willing to innovate, and you need both.
Indeed, society needs both risk-takers and referees, yet Musk’s short venture into the darkness of Washington, D.C., has already shed light on the lunacy of a supposedly free world run by too many naysayers, rule-makers, and liberal lilliputians.
The unhinged reaction from corporate media, career bureaucrats, and elected politicians to Musk’s DOGE operation only goes to show that these political creatures deserve, not only more exposure to sunlight, but a cleansing fire as well.
It’s not just that Musk is threatening to set aflame their ill-gotten gains and illiberal fiefdoms of privilege and pull – his very presence begs for unflattering comparisons that are bound to embarrass the political elite as though they are being paraded naked through the streets.
Next to Musk, most of the political class appear lesser, little men.
Whereas Musk is a manic risk-taker who is willing to brave public failure, much of the timid and “right-thinking” political class never own up to any of their failures while poo-pooing all who may take risks and go off script.
Whereas Musk hopes to inspire through intrepid innovation (while even cheering on his competitors), most of the cynical political class only knows how to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt – all while never creating or believing in much of anything other than their nominally liberal systems of control built to perpetually manage one miserable human problem after another.
Whereas Musk isn’t above rude, sophomoric humor and ironic memes, the political class is full of those who humorlessly preach equality while acting as though they are better than everyone else because of their egalitarian beliefs.
Whereas Musk is the type of man who would first discover how to make fire, the political class is full of men who wouldn’t hesitate to burn him at the stake.
Maybe Musk will crash and burn. Maybe his projects will fall back to earth. Maybe his vision of humanity as a multi-planetary species will prove itself to be yet another blind alley. Maybe, in the name of rule-making and the referees, his DOGE will be chained and muzzled by lesser men with lesser dreams.
Maybe, Musk isn’t better than you. Maybe, you are superior in your doubts of him, in your doubts that some men really are better, greater than others.
Yet, at least Musk has the audacity to dream and to act upon his dreams even when they seem full of madness, artifice and faults. Indeed, he is but a man, nothing more – and much of the darkness he braves seems to be his own within as much as it is without.
In that same interview with Fridman, Isaacson alludes to a line from Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” to suggest how even Elon’s crazy side, his “demon mode,” serves to make him the man he is:
They say best men are molded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad.
Maybe, just maybe, some men are better than others even if they are still a little bad – and though they are still men and should never be worshiped or trusted as anything more – maybe, just maybe, we would all be better men ourselves to follow those whose fire first lights us new ways through the darkness rather than burn them at the stake.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback, please email joeyclarklive@gmail.com. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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