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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.
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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