One of the lenses I have that I think is coded somewhat vaguely conservative/right-wing/alt-right is that the (Western) elites of today do not see themselves by default as elites in the powerholding sense. Like there’s a lot of active work being done to obfuscate their power and responsibilities, including from themselves. Tanner Greer’s article here makes a narrower version of the same point:
This is not an unreasonable demand on Brady’s part. In the Washington Post Daniel Dreznerdismisses Bradyas a “plutocrat …who [thinks he] must be pretty smart to get so rich, and therefore [his] ideas have merit.”9 But Brady is more than a pompous moneybag! Brady is a retired statesman of note. His most famous action as Secretary of the Treasury was developing the “Brady Plan,” which saved a dozen Latin American governments from insolvency. The Brady Plan was just as much a geopolitical move as an economic project. One might expect—and Brady certainly seems to have—that a program devoted to “grand strategy” would produce graduates capable of parsing Brady’s decisions. In other words, when Brady signed over millions of dollars to Yale, he did so in the hope that Yale would train the next generation of statesmen-officials like himself. Instead they are using his money to train the next generation of social activists.
In other words, that the elites of tomorrow (and likely today) see themselves as future activists rather than future (or current) statesmen, and are in institutions that train them in ways consistent with this self-image.
Pretty much, yeah. Though it’s especially dysfunctional when the elites/leaders are wrong here (whether a normal worker in a company sees their slightly non-capitalist actions as Establishment political orthodoxy or being an idiosyncratic Maverick matters much less).
One of the lenses I have that I think is coded somewhat vaguely conservative/right-wing/alt-right is that the (Western) elites of today do not see themselves by default as elites in the powerholding sense. Like there’s a lot of active work being done to obfuscate their power and responsibilities, including from themselves. Tanner Greer’s article here makes a narrower version of the same point:
In other words, that the elites of tomorrow (and likely today) see themselves as future activists rather than future (or current) statesmen, and are in institutions that train them in ways consistent with this self-image.
is this a faithful rephrasing?
‘~No one thinks of themselves as The Establishment.’
Pretty much, yeah. Though it’s especially dysfunctional when the elites/leaders are wrong here (whether a normal worker in a company sees their slightly non-capitalist actions as Establishment political orthodoxy or being an idiosyncratic Maverick matters much less).
‘…not even The Establishment! [Which of course causes problems because The Establishment has Responsibilities.]’