I get the sense the deeper you penetrate into elite circles, the harder it is to not become complicit in something ugly. To some extent elite cultures are almost defined by a kind of mutually assured destruction condition of collective complicity.
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Not quite - the narratives shift.
You are treated like a Titan of Industry, or a Luminary of Science, or a Patron of Sacred Arts.
The heavy weight on your shoulders is to make the *tough* calls; mere mortals don't understand. But we do. "We've all been there", "we get it".
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That’s the outer ring of self-congratulatory pageantry. The inner rings aren’t quite like that. There’s the “you can’t handle the truth” inner ring of self-righteous, self-justifying abuse of power, and a parallel inner ring of naked secretive abuse.
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It's incredible to me how much I've returned to this piece.
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Huh can’t recall reading this though it sounds very familiar-new in a deja vu way. Good breakdown. I wonder how explicitly these pacts come together among modern power elites. Are they super explicit like gang initiations or more like you’re ensnared before you know it.
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That's not my take. I think there's a sense, not just among elites, of how people are multi-dimensional and do good and bad things. The difference is that the bad can be used to attack elites in a way that it can't be used elsewhere.
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My point is elites do their bad things in networks of complicity. It’s not a “take”. It’s an observation.
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I occasionally think the same but wonder if it’s more simply a function of raw power. From one perspective every US citizen is an “elite” who benefits from US global actions, including the immoral ones.
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2/ im not sure if adding variables beyond power to the model improves its resolution.
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It’s the other way round also.
It’s harder not to get into elite circles as you start getting complicit in something ugly.
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Assuming the “old elites” have done ugly things they know others can use against them, it seems wise to not allow “new elites” into their circles until they do something ugly too. Why would “old elites” ever give up leverage?
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