by Victor Davis Hanson. He winds up
In matters of deception, ostentatious vulgarity never proves as injurious as the hubris of the mannered establishment. So what I resent most about the Washington hollow men is not the sources and methods through which they parlay wealth, power, and influence, or the values they embrace to exercise and perpetuate their privilege and sense of exalted self, but the feigned outrage that they express when anyone dares suggest, by word or vote, that they are mediocrities and ethical adolescents — and really quite emotional, after all.
He leads up to it with a litany of outrages committed by Washington insiders.
Yet Victor Davis Hanson is a conservative, not some libertarian outsider. He would esteem the right sort of insider.
I did find this article quite entertaining. It’s always funny when one of the elite rants about their pet issues (that no one but someone of a particular elite group would care about), rants about corruption of those other elites (as if their group isn’t just as corrupt), and then climbs on their high horse claiming that the elite over there is out of touch with the common people but certainly not the elite group that the writer is part of.
I mean for pete sake the Republican Party is planning on nominating Donald trump, a candidate that NRO rabidly opposes, and they publish an article about corrupt out of touch elites on the other side. This is the same publication that cheer leaded for the bush the second, cheney, and the Iraq war. And they loooved Romney. Physician heal thyself.
The Tea Party, Donal Trump, and possibly even Occupy Wall Street are punishments for Republicans not adhering to conservative values. Establishment Republicans aren’t supposed to like the punishment, and the punishment isn’t even guaranteed to usher in conservative values. It is just guaranteed to be punishment.
Can a person who uses the word “catsup” complain about other people being elitist and out of touch?
Of course, VD is mostly pissed off because Obama doesn’t bomb Muslims enough and really hates him for the Iran nuclear deal. Also, give it in 20 years, who knows the population might say Obama years were golden! Notice Reagan’s popularity really only grew once the 1988 Presidential election was in full swing.
Agree with commenter Joseph. Ted Cruz went to Princeton undergrad and Harvard law school, and his wife works for Goldman Sachs. Mike Huckabee parlayed a governorship and presidential bid into a lucrative job at an influential media outlet (Fox), yet they were not mentioned in the article.
You need to attract better commenters.
The way to do that is to cull the bad commenters.
The problem with most good commenters is they don’t comment.
In my experience that’s wishful thinking. People with worthwhile things to say and the talent to put them to writing are usually eager to do so; at least if they can be confident that their comment won’t drown in a sea of mediocrity.
It does seem as though the tops of all the hierarchies are converging (via, inter alia, intermarriage, revolving doors, influence peddling and also aligning like dipoles in a liquid crystal instead of serving as competitive poles of power, prestige, wealth, and influence. All going to and career networking and logrolling with people from the same elite educational institutions contributes too – kind of a multi-Genghis Khan effect, to use your terminology. Instead of disparate interests, the insider elites are all starting to have the same interests, and the natural and informal social “checks and balances from separation of powers” is being eroded.
Call it The Great Establishment Alignment. Not much reason for outsiders to be optimistic about that.
It’s funny how Montesquieu never thought that this “division of power” wouldn’t work if those in power all went to the same schools and married each other.
This point needs to be developed (perhaps by Arnold?).
Plato (I think) stressed the need for different estates or classes or groups to have different virtues–or at least to develop them unequally.
This idea is probably thousands of years old–it goes way back.
It’s easy to argue that too many of our “elites” have the same virtues of the social climbing upper middle class recruited into the Ivy League. Get good grades go to Law School, meet the right people, exchange favors. and “Think the correct thoughts,” pay lip service to the right ideals.
They do not have the sorts of virtues that might be found in a NCO, a graduate of West Point, or even a street cop or parish priest.
That is one of the points Victor Davis Hanson (IMHO) actually makes with some success.
Bruce Charlton is not exactly on the same theme, but in the same direction. Read him here:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-implosion-of-mandarin-class.html
Are graduates of West Point really that different from graduates of law schools or business schools these days? I don’t see much evidence of it.
I don’t know–I’m thinking hypothetically. I know almost no grads from any of the service academies.
maybe OCS grads would be a better reference group–smart enough to be screened as “officer material”–but not smart / savvy / ambitious / organized / pushful enough to get admitted to a service academy.
Glad to see Arnold is following up on the thread.
WWMS: What Would Montesquieu Say?
The non-elite may hew to different virtues than the elite, but they have zero power, so what difference does it make?
I enjoy reading Victor Davis Hanson. He is not an unbiased observer, and often I’m not really sure what his ideal set of governing elites would look like.
Like many columnists, he repeats himself (and he does write a fair amount for a popular audience).
Occasionally he comes up with a real gem. Sometimes an entire column–sometimes just a paragraph or a few sentences, or an image (the recurrent contrast between Palo Alto and Fresno).
Paul Krugman also has noted that the increasingly incestuous elite networks (if the incestuousness is indeed increasing). He wrote about it at least 10 years ago, noting that “dynasticism is making a comeback.” Krugman’s phrasing was more elegant, and I’m quoting from memory.
Could parts of this essay have been written by Paul Krugman?
I do think when we watch the news now, to be discerning, we have start by asking “why are they lying to me on this one?”
E.g., why are they lying about the Baton Rouge police shooting? Probably mostly because the probable facts don’t give the story legs (literal legs in the opportunity to report on BLM marches). But I don’t think we can rule out that they think being pro-cop is a Republican value.
Do the elites express outrage? Or, do they calmly turn to their fellow elite and sigh and say, “well, another one for the courts.” When people defied gay marriage, I saw a little exasperated condescension, as if to say “democracy failed again,” but little more than short-term frustration at having to wait for the pre-ordained outcome from the black robes.
But OTOH, I do find it humorous how after Brexit my Facebook feed blew up with “OMG, what is science going to do?!?” Grow up. Jeez.
The insider/outsider dynamic is curious. From time to time outsiders are offended by insiders but insiders were elected by outsiders so if they want someone to blame they should look in the mirror as much as at anyone else.