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If you’ve ever wondered how we’ve come to see America’s economic, social and moral decline, Angelo Codevilla’s insightful essay, published in the American Spectator a few days ago, illustrates how the pieces fit together. It’s rather lengthy, but well worth the time to read!
A brief summary is below… do make sure to read the full article: America’s Ruling Class – And the Perils of Revolution.
In the past the upper crust was diverse, drawing its wealth and status from various sources (industrialists, financiers, landowners, oilmen, etc).
“Few had much contact with government, and “bureaucrat” was a dirty word for all. So was “social engineering.” Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday’s upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed.
Today’s ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters – speaking the “in” language – serves as a badge of identity.”
No matter what their profession or income, today’s ruling elite (progressive Democrats and Republicans alike) climbed up via government channels and public money. As the author explains, professional position, money or academic achievement do not secure a membership in the ruling class – what is essential is an absolute commitment to the progressive doctrines and willingness to fit in.
The ruling class believes in its own intellectual and moral superiority and considers the rest of Americans “retrograde, racist, and dysfunctional unless properly constrained”. As the more enlightened human beings, the elite see it as their task to improve the lesser mortals, which is where social engineering comes in.
Mr. Codevilla traces the beginnings of the progressive era to Woodrow Wilson, “the first American statesman to argue that the Founders had done badly by depriving the U.S. government of the power to reshape American society.” The progressives, while looking down on the American people, were sympathetic to Soviet Russia as well as, in many cases, to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
And the elite have demonstrated contempt for ordinary Americans ever since (see Obama’s remark of ‘clinging to God and guns’ as typical of their inferiority), and have ruled based on the presumption that they, the enlightened ones, know best what the people need.
“Americans think it justice to spend the money they earn to satisfy their private desires even though the ruling class knows that justice lies in improving the community and the planet.”
And so the political elite, via taxation and intrusive regulations, strive to ‘improve’ the American people, and redirect them to tasks more worthy than those they choose for themselves.
Naturally their solution to all matters is a larger and more powerful government, allowing them to reward political support with jobs, contracts, handouts. Hence we see the continuous drive to redistribution, regulation of every aspect of life and business, opaque laws that benefit some and ruin others (in accordance to their political support), patent disregard for the Constitution, and discretionary powers of officeholders. The ruling class has become the arbiter or wealth and poverty.
“But it surely increases the number of people dependent on the ruling class, and teaches Americans that satisfying that class is a surer way of making a living than producing goods and services that people want to buy.”
Not content with control over people’s economic lives, the elite use further lessons out of the Marxist handbook: indoctrination in schools and colleges, attack on religion and values, destruction of traditional family and marriage. All to fulfill their god-like mandate to ‘improve’ those who are beneath them.
“The ruling class is keener to reform the American people’s family and spiritual lives than their economic and civic ones. In no other areas is the ruling class’s self-definition so definite, its contempt for opposition so patent, its Kulturkampf so open. It believes that the Christian family (and the Orthodox Jewish one too) is rooted in and perpetuates the ignorance commonly called religion, divisive social prejudices, and repressive gender roles, that it is the greatest barrier to human progress because it looks to its very particular interest – often defined as mere coherence against outsiders who most often know better. Thus the family prevents its members from playing their proper roles in social reform. Worst of all, it reproduces itself.”
The war waged against marriage by the government, academia and media has produced the desired results: decline of the traditional family (and its replacement with the state), new ‘progressive’ family models, single motherhood – creating millions of faithful liberal voters largely dependent on government services.
Schools, aside from weapons of social engineering, serve as indoctrination institutes set to undermine the authority of parents and instill children with progressive ideals and statist worldview. (See also link at the bottom of this post.)
“Consensus among the right people is the only standard of truth. Facts and logic matter only insofar as proper authority acknowledges them.”
The ruling class’s main characteristic is its dislike for (the rest of) America, its condescending, patronizing attitude and dismissal of the American people’s moral, spiritual and intellectual values.
“Seldom does a Democratic official or member of the ruling class speak on public affairs without reiterating the litany of his class’s claim to authority, contrasting it with opponents who are either uninformed, stupid, racist, shills for business, violent, fundamentalist, or all of the above.”
Mr. Codevilla then goes on to describe what he, for the lack of a better word, calls the country class. They come from all walks of life, but are united in their core values and their desire to rule themselves rather than be ruled by others.
“The ruling class wears on its sleeve the view that the rest of Americans are racist, greedy, and above all stupid. The country class is ever more convinced that our rulers are corrupt, malevolent, and inept. The rulers want the ruled to shut up and obey. The ruled want self-governance.”
The clash, Mr. Codevilla recognizes, is certain to come. But what might be the outcome of this new revolution? See the full text of this must-read essay here.
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And speaking of education being misused for social engineering purposes, here are the details of a shocking recent study.