Why Our Elites Stink

Through most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Protestant Establishment sat atop the American power structure. A relatively small network of white Protestant men dominated the universities, the world of finance, the local country clubs and even high government service. Over the past half–century, a more diverse and meritocratic elite has replaced the Protestant Establishment. People are more likely to rise on the basis of grades, test scores, effort and performance.

There is, as others have pointed out, a rich irony in the virtues of elitism being opined in the pages of the NY Times and by the pens of David Brooks and Christopher Hayes. The latter alleges that today's elites are somehow more "meritocratic" and, by extension of the usual liberal narrative, less white and male, and by further extension (conservatives can recite this stuff in their sleep by now) stronger through diversity.

I have some bad news for Mr. Hayes - elites are no more corrupt now than they ever were, nor are they any more able. They tend to be more publicly undisciplined, yes, I'll give him that. But there was no Golden Age when those cut out of the old criteria of white and male and Protestant suddenly blossomed forth in a burst of meritocratic virtue. The elite decided to change the color of its cloak, that is all.

Neither man has followed this course of argument to a conclusion that must be exquisitely uncomfortable to the standard liberal narrative - if today's more diverse elite is more corrupt, then what is it about being white, male, and Protestant that leads to the discipline and sense of noblesse oblige that supposedly typified the old elite? We'd best not go there, at least not in the pages of the NY Times. We are told that today's elite are less self-policing, for example, but I'm not so sure. It is simply that the policing has different criteria these days. It is just as ruthless as ever it was. Look, for example, at what happens in the elite press when a Bernard Goldberg pronounces that emperor naked. Look, for example, at what happens in elite academia when Larry Summers suggests that women aren't as prominent in mathematics because, well, because not as many of them like it. Look what happens when an elite entertainer wanders from the liberal narrative, where examples are too many to enumerate.

What is being policed by the elites these days is not a code of conduct, it is adherence to a specific social narrative, and I suggest to Hayes and Brooks that it was always that way; that the only thing that has changed is the narrative, and that if today's elite stinks, the cause is likely to be found there, and not any pompous, head-scratching puzzlement over why "meritocratic" has not produced merit.

And, the takeover of academia by the left allowed them to decide who excelled in grades, test scores and performance. They were the judges of those things. Education became indoctrination.

True to a large extent, especially in the liberal arts, but it's definitely difficult for anyone to politicize the hard sciences themselves. (Of course, the "global warming" theory, e.g., would not be "hard science," since long-range climate change is still a subject reaquiring much development and clarification.)

The best the elitists can do is require political fealty to the ruling ideology as a condition for gainful employment in a hard scientific area. But even the Politburo in the Soviet Union couldn't tell their scientists how to put a cosmonaut into space, for example, nor how to build nuclear weapons. There's no way incompetents could survive long in the hard sciences, no matter who was judging grades, test scores, and performance.

Over the past half–century, a more diverse and meritocratic elite has replaced the Protestant Establishment. People are more likely to rise on the basis of grades, test scores, effort and performance.
Brooks may be right, except for those benefited by Affirmative Action!!!

It isn't just affirmative action.

The educators at every level are Liberal. And so, they promote students who display Liberal bias ahead of those who do not. Time and time again.

The Liberal academic establishment assists Liberal students at every level in making a record of achievement that will justify advance.

The record of zero in the White House is only a minor example of this kind of conduct. The clinton's, husband and wife both benefited from this kind of support--the husband with a Rhodes Scholarship which he was hopelessly unqualified to benefit from.

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