Wednesday, October 7, 2015

The Break Between the Elite and the Citizenry

In his article entitled "The Progression Of Elite-Citizenry Relations," the author of Chateau Heartiste summarizes what he believes to be the cycle of the relationship between the elites and citizens in a nations (or, more particularly, the United States). The basic steps he sets out are:

  1. Egalitarianism of the colonial era.
  2. The rise of an informal aristocracy. I assume by this, the author has in mind the rise of the very wealthy oil, steel, and railroad "barons" on a national level, and other industrialists on a state or local level.
  3. A sense of noblesse oblige on the part of the elite. By this, I presume that the author is thinking of the rise of "Progressivism" giving rise to the great philanthropy of Carnegie, or the attempts to spread the benefits of Western civilization (while making a profit) from the likes of Rhodes.
  4. A elite pull away from the masses in wealth and cultural practices, while noblesse oblige erodes due to complacency and ingratitude. This seems to broadly coincide with the period of the 1930's through the 1970's. What we view as the growing decadence in art was merely the desire of the elites to remain aloof from the tastes of the masses--if the masses learned to appreciate the art of the great masters, then the elite would turn to Monet; when the masses learned to like Monet, then the elites turned to Picasso; and so on. 
  5. The elite are repulsed by the citizenry (and vice versa) and turn to cosmopolitanism. I don't really consider this to be a separate stage or step from (3) or (4). The desire to "improve" the common man was based on a repulsion of the common man; and when the common man became sufficiently "civilized and cultured," the race to degenerate arts and culture was to distance the elites from the new middle-class (using the American meaning of the term).
  6. The elite fall out of touch with their subjects and come to hate their subjects. The author writes: "That is when they start thinking only of themselves and do evil things like advocate for open borders so they can turn their billions into tens of billion. The citizenry learns to return the hate." This is the period when noblesse oblige completely disappears, to be replaced by a view that citizenry are merely economic units to be manipulated and exploited; and by the result of the creation of a true "upper class." The author believes that this is where Western Civilization now finds itself.
  7. War.
  8. The Happening.
  9. The Great Reset (or "rinse and repeat").

Read the whole thing.

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