Isegoria

Foseti wonders what to do about the mandarins, who have clearly lost touch with the common people.

Charles Murray argues that the upper class needs to resume preaching what it practices, even if this isn’t likely to have much effect.

Handle remembers reading a story about Irving Kristol:

In 1942 he was in full Enquiry Radical Trotskyist Leftist “US Socialist Workers Party” mode and really believed all that idealistic nonsense about the uncorrupted virtuous purity of the proletariat, yadda yadda. Then he joined the Army (as a Private with the 12th Armored Division, though he had graduated from New York City College two years prior and could have been an officer) and met a lot Chicago underclass on the way through training and to war.

He had already met his share of working men as a machinist in the Brooklyn Navy Yard — but it was common for smart and educated men to work in such field in the Great Depression-WWII era, so that experience had not quite prepared him for the real, unfiltered exposure to the proles that the Military was about to provide him.

And upon actual having real long-term undiluted exposure to the proletariat, he realized that, in fact, a lot of them were lousy human beings you didn’t actually want to live around.

Personally, I’ve met my share of “potential elites” from white upper middle class upbringings, that, through the military, or certain other professions — social work, ghetto urban teachers, etc. — get direct exposure to the underclass for an extended stretch of time, and while there’s been a great deal of similar “delusion shattering” and “true learning and understanding about the life and problems of the underclass,” the result is burnout, contempt, and flight and struggle to live and work amongst one’s “true peers,” and not at all an enhanced sympathy or better ideas for policy.

The military is still the only semi-feudal-aristocratic type of organization I know where (at least in the idealized version) you give a smart, educated individual a group of average men and immense power to run their lives and the good incentive to run those lives well to maintain the capability and effectiveness of the overall unit purpose — all built on reciprocal loyalty.

The “power to run their lives” bit is key. Ideally, your society has a system of acculturation and social conditioning in the virtues to hand you working material that, mostly, is able to take care of itself. Otherwise, you have to act the tyrant to make the uncivilized grunts behave.

Look, I think the Mandarins are gradually coming to these realizations. They don’t like the stupid proles, and need immense power — through government — to intervene in every aspect of their lives because they are like children who can’t handle things on their own.

Anyway, the question really is, especially if you’re a mandarin yourself, “Why care about the proles anyway?” And the answer is really that all but the most successful Mandarins end up spending every dime of their disposable income bidding up the land-price of housing in scarce, low-underclass (or gentrifying that way) neighborhoods. Maybe you’re at the 85th percentile, but if your society become Brazil, and you can’t afford the gated fortress on the hilltop, then you’ve got to put up with the favela right outside your door.

If the high mixed with the low more, they’d remember their responsibility to lead and care for the low, right? Handle disagrees:

This is simply not true. Every time I’ve seen this happen I’ve witnessed precisely the opposite. See my comment above.

There are plenty of people from ruling class stock who grow up as idealistic goodie-goodies taught to really care and sympathize with the plight of the poor and the low (not so much the ordinary or the middle).

They really believe that class is a matter of accident of birth or societal oppression (racism, sexism, or some form of bigotry, almost always), and that a poor, lower class person, is just like them, or, conversely, that they themselves would be just like that poor person were the situations reversed. They really believe that, if only someone like them, pure, smart, dedicated, could bestow upon them poor people a bit of smart leadership and inspiration, they could easily lift them up from their unfortunate station in life and solve their problems. Why, the power of their example alone is supposed to civilize and turn a bunch of street hoodlums into budding Shakespeares, “Dangerous Minds”-style (and a few dozen copycats — Hollywood loves this plot, precisely because a certain audience so desperately wants to believe it could be true. “Waiting For Superman” is the real-life version.)

In short, they believe a deluded fairy tale despite all the evidence unanimously to the contrary. You see this fairy tale currently playing out with the whole universal preschool push despite the failure of Head Start to accomplish anything. Legions of upper-class youth are encouraged to go into things like social work and ghetto teaching to work their fairy-dust magic. And … nothing.

What that exposure actually does varies, but hardly creates some kind of lingering sense of loyalty, duty, and affection — which is what you seem to be claiming.

A few of these (inevitable) burn-outs switch parties and/or ideologies. But most don’t! Most just manage to maintain a state of cognitive dissonance about it while, in their own practical life, they try to isolate themselves and their children as much as possible from these “hopeless” people (and pay through the nose to do so.)

The conclusion that they inevitably come to (that The Cathedral encourages them to come to) is that, it just wasn’t enough (and it’s the fault of those greedy conservatives, naturally). There’s just too much oppression out there and not enough “investment” from a benevolent government to get the job done. Clearly, I must shift my focus to politics to “make impacts” and “generate awareness” to marshal more support to dump more resources down this black hole into this critical, life-changing area.

What nearly none of these people have is someone out there that gets past their trust-bubble filters and antibodies who can readily provide them with the ugly but true alternative.

Athlone McGinnis describes himself as “an Ivy League-trained thinker of Caribbean-American descent” — which allows him to discuss how Black America has predicted our future across racial lines:

1. Concerned about growing obesity rates? Black American women already lead the nation here. 41% of those over 18 are obese, compared to just under a quarter of White American women in the same age range. African-American women are 70% more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic white women.

You think white girls are getting fat? You’ve got a long way to go.

2. Concerned about illegitimacy and rampant out of wedlock births? Black America has already been there and done that. The illegitimacy rate within that community has long been close to 70%. The nightmare scenarios being predicted in much of the manosphere regarding increased out of wedlock births and the complete breakdown of the family have already been played out there. Everyone else is playing catch-up.

There is great concern about the potential for the young men of the future to grow up without a father in the picture. For most black men (including myself), this is simply routine.

3. Concerned about the spread unchecked hypergamy is having on the dating market? Worried that it could lead to unrestrained bad-boy worship? Want to see where all of this is going?

Once again, look no further than black America. There may be no female more hypergamous than the average black american girl and, interestingly, there is no female with a lower rate of marriage. The culture places a tremendous emphasis for men on the possession of traits matching those of urban masculine culture (read: “swag”, aggression, edgy appearance, etc).

In no culture are decent guys and more academically inclined males more marginalized and insulted than they are in Black American culture.

You think the sexual market value of the average white or asian nerd is low? Try being their black equivalent and having your entire culture essentially disown you and claim that your intellect makes you an insult to the culture/race.

Bad-boy love and the extreme form of hypergamy that comes with it has ruled the black community for a couple of generations now. That nightmare is reality there.

4. What happens when men in a certain culture are marginalized and their households become largely matriarchal?

Long Answer: Men will have high unemployment and incarceration rates, and young boys will be prone to violence, academic reticence, and poor performance in school. Nearly 70% of undergraduate and graduate degrees will be earned by females, while their men practically disappear from the higher echelons of the professional world and leave those women without suitable mates. These women will then proceed to ponder where all the good black men went.

A culture hostile to academia will arise, excessive male posturing (see modern urban gang culture and the media that imitates it) will become the norm to compensate for the lack of productive pursuits among the men and the next generation will live out a cycle characterized by generally dysfunctional behavior.

Short Answer: Black America will happen.

[...]

It wasn’t always like this. Black Americans used to have more stable families and much lower illegitimacy rates (on par with or somewhat lower than those of modern white Americans). They had thinner women and lower crime rates. Their men were valued once, less marginalized and expendable than they are now considered to be and not as frequently incarcerated either.

In other words, there was a time in which Black America was a much closer parallel to the White America we know.

(Hat tip to Foseti.)

The history of the world has been the struggle of republic and empire, Jerry Pournelle says:

Each has its champions.

It used to be fashionable to say “the Republic of the United States,” and our Pledge of Allegiance preserves that language. The name of republic holds magic no less than does the name of empire.

Some of that magic has been lost. In this enlightened time, we are all officially in favor of democracy, and we are pleased to call this the era of democracy. We are taught not only that all democracies are good, but that the worth of a government depends on how democratic it is. The notion that a government can be “good” but not democratic will strike many as bizarre.

It has not always been thus. If we believe, with Thomas Jefferson, that the purpose of government is to assure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we might do well to recall what Acton said in tracing the history of freedom in Athens:

Two men’s lives span the interval from the first admission of popular influence, under Solon, to the downfall of the State. Their history furnishes the classic example of the peril of democracy under conditions singularly favorable. For the Athenians were not only brave and patriotic and capable of generous sacrifice, but they were the most religious of the Greeks. They venerated the Constitution which had given them prosperity, and equality, and freedom, and never questioned the fundamental laws which regulated the enormous power of the Assembly. They tolerated considerable variety of opinion and great license of speech; and their humanity towards their slaves roused the indignation even of the most intelligent partisan of aristocracy. Thus they became the only people of antiquity that grew great by democratic institutions. But the possession of unlimited power, which corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding of monarchs, exercised its demoralizing influence on the illustrious democracy of Athens. It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason. The humblest and most numerous class of the Athenians united the legislative, the judicial, and, in part, the executive power. The philosophy that was then in the ascendant taught them that there is no law superior to that of the State—the lawgiver is above the law.

It followed that the sovereign people had a right to do whatever was within its power, and was bound by no rule of right or wrong but its own judgment of expediency. On a memorable occasion the assembled Athenians declared it monstrous that they should be prevented from doing whatever they chose. No force that existed could restrain them, and they resolved that no duty should restrain them, and that they would be bound by no laws that were not of their own making. In this way the emancipated people of Athens became a tyrant, and their government, the pioneer of European freedom, stands condemned with a terrible unanimity by all the wisest of the ancients.

They ruined their city by attempting to conduct war by debate in the marketplace. Like the French Republic, they put their unsuccessful commanders to death. They treated their dependencies with such injustice that they lost their maritime Empire. They plundered the rich until the rich conspired with the public enemy, and they crowned their guilt by the martyrdom of Socrates.

The repentance of the Athenians came too late to save the Republic. But the lesson of their experience endures for all time, for it teaches that government by the whole people, being the government of the most numerous and most powerful class, is an evil of the same nature as unmixed monarchy, and requires, for nearly the same reasons, institutions that shall protect it against itself, and shall uphold the permanent reign of law against arbitrary revolutions of opinion.

— John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton
“The History of Freedom in Antiquity”

Classical writers spent much time analyzing the forms of government. Machiavelli put it better than most:

I must at the beginning observe that some of the writers on politics distinguished three kinds of government, viz., the monarchical, the aristocratic, and the democratic; and maintain that the legislators of a people must choose from these three the one that seems most suitable. Other authors, wiser according to the opinion of many, count six kinds of government, three of which are very bad, and three good in themselves, but so liable to be corrupted that they become absolutely bad. The three good ones are those we just named; the three bad ones result from the degradation of the other three, and each of them resembles its corresponding original, so that the transition from the one to the other is very easy.

Thus monarchy becomes tyranny; aristocracy degenerates into oligarchy; and the popular government lapses readily into licentiousness. So that a legislator who gives to a state which he founds, either of these three forms of government, constitutes it but for a brief time; for no precautions can prevent either one of the three that are reputed good, from degenerating into its opposite kind; so great are in these attractions and resemblances between the good and the evil.

— Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses

This view of government was held universally among writers on history and politics from Aristotle to very nearly the present day.

[...]

To [the ancients], human history was no more than the endlessly sad tale of the cycle from tyranny to aristocracy, aristocracy to oligarchy, oligarchy to democracy, and democracy to a chaos ended only by the imposition of an emperor, whose successor will be a tyrant; and on, per omnia secula seculorem.

However, there might be a remedy to the tragedy of the cycles. Cicero puts it this way:

When there is a king, everybody except the king has too few rights, and too small a share in what is decided; whereas under an oligarchy, freedom scarcely extends to the populace, since they are not consulted and are excluded from power. When, on the other hand, there is thoroughgoing democracy, however fairly and moderately it is conducted, its egalitarianism is unfair since it does not make it possible for one man to rise above another.

I am speaking about these three forms of government—monarchy, oligarchy, democracy—when they retain their specific character, not when they are merged and confused with one another. In addition to their liability to the flaws I have just mentioned, each of them suffers from further ruinous defects. For in front of every one of these constitutional forms stands a headlong slippery path to another and more evil one. Thus beneath the endurable, or if you like, lovable Cyrus—to take him as an example—lurks the cruel tyrant Phalaris, influencing him towards the arbitrary transformation of his own nature: for any autocracy readily and easily changes into that sort of tyranny. Then the government of Marseille, conducted by a few leading men, is very close to that clique of the Thirty which once tyrannized Athens. And as for the Athenian democracy, its absolute power turned into rule by the masses; that is to say, into manic irresponsibility.

You may well ask which of them I like best, for I do not approve of any of them when it is by itself and unmodified: my own preference is for a form of government which is a combination of all three.

— Cicero, “Dialogues on Government”

Cicero believed that the Roman Republic had achieved that mixed form; that the Roman constitution was as near perfection as mankind could achieve. Yet even as he wrote, the Republic was falling, and Cicero was eventually murdered by agents of Octavius Caesar, later called Augustus. A single lifetime was sufficient to witness the glory of the Republic extinguished in civil war; the dictatorship of Julius Caesar; and the monarchy of Augustus.

Read the whole thing.