Anton Szandor LaVey
One of my main influences is Anton Szandor LaVey. I think he was a great man & his ideas will live on despite his tragic death. He was a genius who sought to create an atheist religion based around egoism & psychodramatic rituals. I recently finished reading his "Bible", and I must say that I am most impressed by the philosophy contained within. I would highly recommend the book to any free-thinker. Unfortunately, Dr. LaVey has suffered character attacks from Christian evangelicals whose claims range in ridiculousness from those who claim Dr, LaVey as a con man, to the laughable accusations of Satanic ritual abuse & cannibalism.
One of Dr. LaVey's most important ideas is his criticism of consumerism. This is strikingly different from one of his biggest influences, Ayn Rand, who would never have criticized anything capitalist. He considered consumerism to be evidence of the stupidity of the masses. An entire essay of his, titled Inferiorism, is dedicated to pointing out how consumerism makes an inferior product seem more desirable. For example, more chrome on a car used to be a good thing, but after the beginning of the cold war the USSR's monopoly on chrome meant that the car manufacturers had to change this. Cars were then entirely painted over, & lacked chrome trimming altogether. Chrome is shiny, attractive & doesn't rust, yet painted over car trims were now more desirable. This, as he explains, is inferiorism.
One of my main influences is Anton Szandor LaVey. I think he was a great man & his ideas will live on despite his tragic death. He was a genius who sought to create an atheist religion based around egoism & psychodramatic rituals. I recently finished reading his "Bible", and I must say that I am most impressed by the philosophy contained within. I would highly recommend the book to any free-thinker. Unfortunately, Dr. LaVey has suffered character attacks from Christian evangelicals whose claims range in ridiculousness from those who claim Dr, LaVey as a con man, to the laughable accusations of Satanic ritual abuse & cannibalism.
One of Dr. LaVey's most important ideas is his criticism of consumerism. This is strikingly different from one of his biggest influences, Ayn Rand, who would never have criticized anything capitalist. He considered consumerism to be evidence of the stupidity of the masses. An entire essay of his, titled Inferiorism, is dedicated to pointing out how consumerism makes an inferior product seem more desirable. For example, more chrome on a car used to be a good thing, but after the beginning of the cold war the USSR's monopoly on chrome meant that the car manufacturers had to change this. Cars were then entirely painted over, & lacked chrome trimming altogether. Chrome is shiny, attractive & doesn't rust, yet painted over car trims were now more desirable. This, as he explains, is inferiorism.