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Reform Is Driven by Rising Elites

palladiummag.com · 3,219 words · saved by 1 readers

America’s failures, like those of any society, have deep roots. They can be traced to some fundamental misunderstanding of reality. In our society, one of these is a dissonant evaluation of elites. America’s elites are seen to be simultaneously all powerful and completely incompetent. When great and terrible events come—natural or man-made—politicians, social media magnates, university presidents, billionaires, and others are ascribed agency over events, and we expect that they should use it. Why haven’t they done everything in their power to prevent crisis? Yet when elites gather together to discuss how best to act, their forums become synonymous with malice and conspiracy. Blame assigned, the “realist” then proposes the elites be replaced, and the “idealist” that we shouldn’t have elites at all. The root misconception unchallenged by either. The term “elites” has many connotations today, but early sociologists such as Max Weber or Vilfredo Pareto used it in a technical sense: the gro

Angello Pro/Roatan, Honduras America’s failures, like those of any society, have deep roots. They can be traced to some fundamental misunderstanding of reality. In our society, one of these is a dissonant evaluation of elites. America’s elites are seen to be simultaneously all powerful and completely incompetent. When great and terrible events come—natural or man-made—politicians, social media magnates, university presidents, billionaires, and others are ascribed agency over events, and we expect that they should use it. Why haven’t they done everything in their power to prevent crisis? Yet wh

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