Passing of the Elite (I)

Two years ago, I wrote a blog entry titled, “My ‘Eureka!’ Moment.”
I had realized our national elite mostly believed in rule by “philosopher kings,” mostly worked through the Democratic Party, and mostly gathered the votes needed to retain power by co-opting special interest groups headed by leaders brought into the elite. Sort of the Ivy League freshman class that a crafty admissions office annually assembles to be acculturated, once they are all grown up to rule.

Republicans and conservatives, rejected by this elite admissions office, are now uniting with the masses, the folks who never cared to apply. Democrats—our national elite, re-enforced by favored special interest groups, the status quo. Republicans—the rest of us, interested in revolution.

History is the story of elite rule, and progress toward an elite selected by merit, not inheritance or raw power. Now with America’s “best and brightest” unable to grow jobs, the country finds itself face-to-face with two fundamental truths: 1) meritocracies don’t work that well, and 2) our failed ruling class won’t voluntarily give up.

My current “eureka!” moment comes from a recent David Brooks column lamenting the misplaced self confidence of our masses:

American self-confidence has risen of late. . . In the 1950s, 12% of high school seniors said they were a “very important person.” By the ’90s, 80% said they believed that they were. [Y]oung people are bathed in messages telling them how special they are. Often these messages are untethered to evidence of actual merit. . . Students in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan have much less self-confidence, though they actually do better on [global] tests.

I wonder if there is a link between a possible magnification of self and a declining saliency of the virtues associated with citizenship. [We need] awareness that we are not all that special but are, instead, enmeshed in a common enterprise.

What a shock to me! Brooks, a fellow conservative, is identifying with the national elite, not the masses. He likes a system where the existing elite picks its re-enforcements, where those deemed unqualified end up pulling their oars to the beat of the mallet, somehow satisfied to be “enmeshed in a common enterprise.” Rule by philosopher-kings. Eureka! By so pointedly attacking the non-elite, Brooks opened my eyes to the possible coming of. . . non-elite rule!

Yes! Look around. Isn’t America in 2011 evolving a society in which all individuals are encouraged to reach their full potential, and offered wide-ranging choices beyond academic success?

While Brooks frets, young people make money designing video games or creating pop-up stores, merging work with play, living life. Freedom not only expands opportunity, it simultaneously cuts away at our hierarchy committed to elite rule, the ruling class Brooks defends.

Our perplexing, exhilarating, growing, post-post-industrial world. “The U.S. is Flat”!