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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Another interesting proposition. But then I’ve never seen a meme hero like “Chad” either leak out of subcultural zone or clearly map to any real group. Imaginary elites, like wizards?
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Replying to @vgr
If I wanted "generally unqualified positive societal regard," I'd be the good guy in a new meme format.
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🤔 yeah...
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Replying to @vgr
I think an important variant of c) is the history of “mass culture” being written from within the dominant but far from universal culture; it’s much clearer now that there is no coherent “mass” that covers everyone.
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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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Cute, but no. Every generation has a vanguard ‘cool’ that rides a new medium to assert cultural presence, but it basically has nothing to do with elite roles in society, even if a few get rich. twitter.com/farmer_rho/sta
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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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How to lose a bunch of friends with a single tweet 🤣
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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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