4/27/2019 False Elites

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False Elites
by Brett Stevens on April 26, 2019

People love to rage against elites. It is always easier to blame someone in power, especially for things they cannot control.
That way, we maintain the fiction that no one is at fault for ongoing problems and failures in our world.

Within a human group, dynamics change. The best fight to pick is won that can never be won but never quite lost, so that
the “solution” always involves applying more effort toward that elusive victory. Careers have been made on combat against
the impossible.

In the same way, people like political systems where no one can be wrong, and nothing can be done right, but nothing will
be done strikingly wrong, either. This describes democracy: the nature of group consensus makes dynamic or effective
action unlikely.

Systems of that nature tend to reward people for plodding along a path of the safe and known. If something worked in the
last generation, and you do not do the same thing and also experience bad results, you get blamed and seen as an
incompetent for denying the obvious.

That lowercase-c conservatism causes the emergence of the human herd, which is what happens when individuals give up
on autonomous action in order to avoid offending anyone so that they can keep the group together. The herd is only a
means to more herd.

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However, the herd grants power, and whoever finds a way to inspire the herd — using a lowest common denominator
appeal like fear, safety, righteous anger, pretense, or egotism — will be able to both manipulate the crowd and have them
think that it was their choice.

That illusion of choice makes for the best control system. When an authority achieves total control, people simply stop
doing anything more than the absolute minimum, and the system collapses, as in the Soviet Union.

In democracies, we make people think that if anything goes wrong, it is their fault personally and that they are inferior,
which causes them to in a panic shop, work, fornicate, and socialize. They are driven by fear and ambition.

To achieve this end, we tell them that they are equal and then set up a meritocracy which by narrowing the task at hand
from success in reality (build a fire, run a farm, write a novel, raise a child) to what is essentially a multiple-choice test,
selects for the obedient.

Responsive to the fear and ambition on which a democracy runs, the obedient are determined to do whatever is necessary
to accomplish a task. They will ablate and erase their own personal opinions, needs, and morals in order to achieve what is
assigned to them.

Your successful democratic citizen uses themselves as a means to this success. They use their time, their personal appeal,
and even their bodies in order to become chosen by the system. This makes them both obedient and amoral.

Such a person will memorize reams of useless data, repeat it on command, and pretend it is real in order to get ahead; they
will shame others who do not bleat the same things. They will attend jobs and school for however long is required to get
that gold ring.

Even more, such a person learns to scorn their task. They are taught in school that nothing really matters in reality, since all
that matters is having the right answer according to the system.

To such a person, that Communism fails — for example — has no importance. If preaching Communism is what the
system rewards, this person will do it, just as they will endorse consumerism, diversity, atheism, or any other dogma.

They do not care if it is accurate or not. In their minds, it is simply what you do to be successful, and that is more important
than it being true, because all they care about is being in the upper quarter of the people in the system.

For those who have spent time in American prisons, this order will seem familiar. Whoever does what makes him powerful
has a good life, and it does not matter what it is, only that it is the right thing at the right moment.

These types of people comprise our current elites. They are experts in nothing but getting good grades, saying the right
thing in public, and making money by telling people that what they want to hear is true (and supported by the product).

If you wonder why everything is so staggeringly incompetent in ClownWorld, think about how the CEO of your tech
company is good at following trends and came up with one quirky invention, but has no other thinking process.

Or think about how your local politician specializes in knowing what issues poll highly with a plurality of voters, but
seems to never make decisions that work out well in the long term. Or even how your teachers are oblivious to real world
issues and your journalists are repeaters.

Every human civilization known to human history has self-destructed through the same mechanism: setting up a system
and rewarding those who are good at the system, which excludes those who are good at life.

The high school hedonist headbanger who hangs out with his friends in an abandoned school bus in the woods, the writer
of heresies, the antisocial but creative housewife, the grumpy small business owner, and the seemingly paranoid and
misanthropic manager are all better people.

They are good at life, or looking at their world, and finding a way to adapt in the long term. The elites, who can only adapt
to an order already provided by society, fear such people because if those are in power, no one would need our current faux
elites!

Tags: amorality, education, elites, obedience, systems

Periscope (April 25, 2019) | Why Conservatives Are Essentialists

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dianadepoitiers • 14 hours ago

One of the most poorly understood concepts of our time - elite. Most still Marx it up to the max (being in the
very top percentiles of capital ownership) or Weber it around a little bit, with sprinkles of Foucault, to show how
capable of nuance they are (got capital AND go to the opera! ). Someone needs to pull off a Foxworthy and
write "You Might Be a Faux Elite If..." , followed by a sequel "You Were an Elite and You Didn't Even Know It".
Our times beg for such clarifications.
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mobiuswolf > dianadepoitiers • 13 hours ago

Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.😋
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dianadepoitiers > mobiuswolf • 12 hours ago

Now I know what I want to be when I grow up (and free). Professional elite nudger!
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