Today's Elites

In recent times, commentators like offhandedly to compare America to Rome or to Athens, often with some vague implied notion that we must beware of our own "decline" and potential "fall." These statements are generally vague and historically uninformed, but they show an acute awareness that our own nation should look to the past to help steer our course for the future. It is peculiar, then, that pundits rarely critique the vices of modern America, as those in antiquity were so ready to do. Livy, for instance, observes of his own time that "we are able to endure neither our vices nor their remedies." Ammianus Marcellinus comments upon the depravity of the city of Rome as a major reason for its decline. In the past those wishing to critique their own societies tended to focus on moral as well as economic and political weaknesses.

I was somewhat refreshed then when I, while staying up late into the morning, read the following article by a conservative military historian. It is essentially a critique of what he sees as a "postmodern cultural elite" which he believes permeates academia, government, Hollywood, and corporate America. While we can easily dismiss Hanson's complaints as unsubstantiated generalizations, he brings up a number of interesting contradictions which may be important to consider:

- Those progressives obsessed with a green revolution tend to live very "ungreen" lives, favoring jets, boats, large homes, and countless electronic devices, yet they are the same public figures who denigrate those less fortunate for ecologically harmful activity.

- Although elites tend to romanticise nature, they are far removed from it and have little experience with the mechanics of agrarian society.

- Rich Americans like to go to the gym and exercise so as to appear muscular and healthy, but most intentionally avoid manual labor. In other words, today's elites exercise out of vanity and distance themselves from those who actually do work.

As many of our readers are attending universities and moving into careers in government and academia, I believe that it is important for us to consider some of Hanson's critiques of today's elites. It is possible, I think, that we can lose sight of the values and plights of common people. We should be quick to check our own excesses and shortcomings lest we suffer the same fate as Athens and Rome.