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Wonder how much of it is explained by a) elite ugliness exposed in harsh light of digital scrutiny b) growing non-elite misery from relative deprivation c) previously examples being unchallenged myths (ie rocket scientists etc were never actually admired like we assumed)
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Hard to go pre-ww2, since mass culture was less of a thing and life was more local while mass media was emerging, but best guess... 1890s: robber barons (Horatio Alger stories?) 1900s: Edwardian bourgeoisie 1910s: military 1920s: artists/writers? 1930s: socialist politicians
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Replying to @vgr
you started in the 40s but I wonder about say, the 20s and 30s? elites can't have been too popular during the depression... tho maybe "titans of industry" like henry ford etc might've still been cool, especially without social media to expose ugly stuff
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The developing world used to be much simpler (dunno about now) because there’s not enough literacy to admire knowledge-based elites. India was pretty much cricket players, charismatic politicians like Indira Gandhi and religious leaders (guru types with national appeal)
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Very real possibility. “Elite” may be an impossible sort of mythology to sustain now. Nietzsche declared god dead in the 19th century. Barthes declared the author (a specific kind of elite) dead in the 20th century. Maybe 21st century is death of the elite in general.
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Replying to @vgr
Elites have outlived their usefulness. All the information they've gathered, about building various storage, analytical and distribution systems, has been internalized by the surrounding structure. Now all that remains is to move on.
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Socialist eras keep trying to install a humble non-elite role in the admired role (farmer, ordinary conscript anonymous soldier as opposed to elite decorated officer hero like Patton) but it never quite works. People want names to celebrate and actual airbrushed stories.
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And speaking of airbrushing, I don’t think what I call cosmetic elites (actors, musicians, comedians, artists, writers, academics) ever rise to top-tier elite status because they are seen as only reflecting and showcasing the real doer elites at best, and bought-off at worst.
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There was an interesting shift in his cosmetic elites were seen as compromised in the 40s or so. “Selling out” meant selling out to true-elite patrons before mass media. Now it means selling out to normie crowds. Pandering to client values rather than modeling intrinsic ones.
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Admired elites typically are seen as embodiments of specific universally admirable virtues (eg: soldiers = courage). Cosmetic elites embody derived virtues at best (eg acting or writing about courage). Pursuit of “artistic truth” itself is never admired as a virtue.
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So a very interesting possibility now is a Baudrillardian possibility: there are no true elites left because *all* elites have been revealed to be cosmetic elites. Simulations of simulations with no “virtues” at any limit points. Kardashians all the way up.
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In this view to unironically believe in an elite is to unironically believe in a virtue, and be trapped in the associated false consciousness/blue pill. Courage theater, altruism theater, compassion theater, intellect theater, etc etc.
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This is a kind of nihilism that’s always there among a subset of elites themselves (the “it’s all fake” style of condescension), but is uncommon as a mass attitude. Non-elites tend to hold at least 1-2 elite classes/embodied virtues as actually, unironically sacred.
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I didn’t leave them out. I just don’t consider them elites by any meaningful candidate definition of elites. Historically they were often slaves (eg gladiators, harem entertainers, court jesters). At best they are like divine slaves-to-society like vestal virgins, devdasis etc.
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Replying to @vgr
Somewhere you left out athletes. And movie stars. And other populist figures.
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They may become true elites if they make a ton of money and retreat from the limelight (a relatively new possibility created by mass media and royalties/residuals/advertising), but so long as they are servants of spotlights rather than masters, they aren’t elites.
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This is intriguing but I think flawed. Elite-makers are not elites because unlike monarchs of yore, journalists etc cannot guarantee anything. Their influence is unpredictably catalytic rather than determinative. Same goes for algorithms. Maybe Putin/Xi still have such power?
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Replying to @vgr
Proposed elite definition: You're elite if you get to decide who's elite. Then 1965-2015: journalists — and in particular news anchors. 2015-2019: comedians 2020- : Algorithms (which prefer no one to be elite)
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You can see the search for new elites in the efforts to install new virtues (new sincerity, trad, post-irony, epistemic hygiene, climate consciousness) that flounder because they’re like trying to ‘make fetch happen.’ Can’t install new virtues without electing new elites.
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Normally the way to model the situation would be to treat this as an emerging elites market with no clear monopolistic winners yet. But I’m no longer sure there IS a market here. It’s worse than crypto. People are only hodling shitcoin candidate-elites and there’s no bitcoin.
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Another sign: apparently everybody turned into an accredited investor in the last couple of years there’s been a glut of “small gods” trying to establish themselves as niche elites (contradiction in terms?) through special-snowflake virtue investing. It’s the new virtue signaling
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To be fair, also true of the writerly commentariat class to which I belong. Trawling for new candidate elites to pump up so we can free-ride. We just invest with words rather than dollars. But hard to do with so few candidates around.
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Nobody seems particularly eager to do the messianic sacrifice thing that would sustain a decent pumping effort with money or words.
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