Posted on 05/05/2003 6:28:01 AM PDT by Valin
Edited on 04/13/2004 3:39:16 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Before his death in 1994, the celebrated social critic Christopher Lasch finished a remarkable book, the contents and title of which I can't get out of my mind when thinking about Gov. Tim Pawlenty's brave new Minnesota. "The Revolt of the Elites" was Lasch's title. It describes roughly what's now underway in many places across the country, most palpably, perhaps, in Minnesota, where we've decided no longer to pay for the collective quality of life that for decades set us apart from the rest of flyover America.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
It was Ortega y Gassett's thesis that the rise of consumerism and the tastes of the general run of mankind would lower societal standards of taste and drive excellence from the marketplace of culture. The brilliant thesis of Lasch reviews Ortega y Gassett's work and the subsequent history and concludes that in our time the major and overwhelming threat to excellence in culture comes from a financially elite booboisie who, not satisfied with fat incomes, lovely homes and the best of material everything, crave the acceptance of New Leftists turned college professors as validation of their status as truly "cultured" societal leaders, red hot intellectuals and people wildly concerned about nearly everythng on the trendy and PC left.
If you loved Robert Mapplethorpe's lavender pervo-photography "art" such as the photo of the bullwhip sticking out of the undraped love object of half of the lavenders, you are certifiably culterati in elite terms and certifiably nuts in the terms of the "masses." The "masses" may not be infallible but they are better arbiters of taste by far than trust-fund supported Muffy and Skipper who share a well-deserved intellectual inferiority complex and an anxiety level over whether they will be discovered to be the shallow wastes of DNA that so many are. Ahhh, but how do I really feel?
What a deliberate lie this statement is. Conservatives care about their communities and give to charities in larger numbers and larger amounts than Liberals. We just dont believe that government belongs in the charity business and is not good at the redistribution distribution of wealth.
Money is poured into inner-city schools, after all, and still kids don't graduate. Many health problems of the poor (alcohol, drug abuse) are self-inflicted, so why should we pick up the tab? After 30 years of trying, the government has not won Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty and ignorance, so why continue the project? Better to rely on the personal salvation and private charity our pastors and radio commentators emphasize. Those are the arguments I hear.
Johnsons war on poverty is a complete failure. The poverty rate is higher now than before the war. If dollar spent per pupil was any measure of success for schools Washington DC schools should graduate 90% plus and send them on to Ivy League colleges. Instead they have 90% drop out rates.
Churches, community leadership and personal effort is the only hope of the poor to better themselves. It has always been so.
Second, we're less catholic than born-again in our outlook; that is, we tend to see the world not corporately over a long span of generations, but individually though our own economic and social decisions. We've convinced ourselves that we've "made it" by our own merit, not by what others have done, and we think everyone should simply do likewise. "Meritocratic elites find it difficult to imagine a community that reaches into both the past and the future and is constituted by an awareness of intergenerational obligation," Lasch wrote. Instead, we are "transients," he said, possessing a "radical ingratitude" common to meritocracy.
The only truth here (if any) is that Catholics tend to be more Liberal leaning than Protestants. The rest is unadulterated hogwash. Liberals always think that the successful are simply lucky or knew someone to get where they are. The rich either cheated someone or kissed a lot of butt to get to the top. That guy didnt work for his success. Yes we believe we worked for our success and that others should as well. Its called equality of opportunity, not equality of out comes that the left so desires.
I believe if these Liberal Elites were truly honest and looked into the habits of the transient Meritocratic Elites they would find that ate majority truly care about their adopted home towns and were active in the community where ever they go. This has been my experience.
These seem like excellent arguments to me; it would appear that he cannot refute them, since he doesn't even try.
If I was on the left, I would have to ask why our policies are such horrid failures and what we can do about it. Instead, the left makes excuses and asks for more money. We simply point out that we already tried it and it didn't work, and then the left demonizes us.
It looks to me like increasing numbers of people are figuring this out ...
D
Read socialism.
How 'bout those storms last night, huh?
Actually I believe Medicare was under Nixson
It's either Chuang-Tzu, Loa-Tzu or Mencius who writes to the effect that when a man makes something for himself, it's a work of art, but when his creation becomes coveted by, and produce for, the masses, it becomes mere merchandise.
I wish I could remember which of the three it is.
The book is kind of like Atlas Shrugged, but more shrill and didactic.
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