The Scoundrel as an Ideal: Why Neoliberalism Rewards Those Who Despise Others
ANGLO AMERICA, 2 Jun 2025
Daniel Seara | Resumen - TRANSCEND Media Service
Dr. Alaa Al Najjar, Palestinian mother of nine children, massacred in a bombing by the Zionist army. (Resumen English)
25 May 2025 – We live in a society where being a caring person is not valued. It is suspicious. It is “soft.” And the algorithm, like the market, penalizes tenderness and rewards backstabbing. Why care if you can stand out? Why empathize if you can trample? That is the logic that has turned scoundrelism—that mixture of cynicism, selfishness, and smiling cruelty—into an aspirational identity. The scum is the new hero of late stage capitalism.
Kindness doesn’t sell. Tenderness doesn’t go viral. The system needs antagonism, noise, conflict. Because if we organized ourselves around care, if we understood that our lives are intertwined, then we would start to question everything: from poverty wages to the algorithms that decide what we see, what we desire, what we hate. That’s why the scoundrel is not an anomaly: he is the model citizen of neoliberalism. Aggressive, competitive, narcissistic. Perfectly adapted to disaster.
The serious thing is not that there are people like this. The serious thing is that they are applauded. They are voted for. They are given television sets, microphones, editorials. They are celebrated as if they were brave, when in reality they are nothing more than cowards in suits with community managers.
Education to Trample, Influencers of Cruelty and Freedom without Ethics
From an early age, we are taught that we must stand out. To be the best. To shine. To compete. To win. And of course, in a world like that, looking out for your neighbor is useless. On the contrary: it slows you down. It makes you weak. So we learn to look the other way, to justify the unjustifiable, to normalize the pain of others. We are educated to climb the ladder, not to live together. And so, the scoundrel not only survives: he thrives.
It is no coincidence that the great figures of the contemporary right—Trump, Milei, Ayuso, Bolsonaro—are perfect models of the shameless scoundrel. They have shown that you can lie, insult, steal, and still win. Because if power has taught us anything in recent years, it is that being a bad person comes at no cost. Sometimes it even pays off.
And now, on top of that, it’s fashionable. Just open TikTok. Cruelty is monetized. Empathy is not. There are influencers whose personal brand consists of mocking those who suffer, humiliating those who are different, laughing at feminism, LGBTQ, environmentalism, human rights. Turning what should be a scandal into a joke. And the worst thing is not that they do it. The worst thing is that it works.
They call it freedom of expression. But it’s not freedom: it’s impunity. It’s not personality: it’s performative violence. It’s not sincerity: it’s brutality with applause. The new emotional right has achieved something very dangerous: it has transformed a lack of ethics into authenticity. And so, the scoundrel no longer hides. He shows off. He takes pride in himself. And he reproduces himself.
Being a Good Person is Subversive. And They Know It
In this context, being a good person has become revolutionary. It means going against the grain. It means choosing solidarity in a world that rewards competition. It means stopping a sexist comment at a family dinner. It means not sharing a video that humiliates someone. It means standing up for a colleague when she is insulted. It means saying no to dehumanization, even if it comes from the most followed, the most voted for, the most influential.
Kindness is now an act of dissent. Because it goes against everything this system celebrates.
And that is why there is such a determination to ridicule it. Because they know that if we stopped competing and started caring for each other, their world as we know it would collapse. Because there would be no room for fascism if empathy were hegemonic. Because abuse could not be sustained if we all dared to name it.
The question is simple: do you want to be the part of the ones who lifts up or the one who tramples? The one who adds or the one who despises. The one who cares or the one who spits. Because that decision is not just personal: it is political. And urgent.
We don’t need more scoundrels with megaphones. We need those who, in the midst of the mud, choose not to dirty their souls.
Go to Original – resumenenglish.org
Tags: Gaza, Genocide, Israel, Neoliberalism, Palestine
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