More or less by definition, decadent aristocrats and populists have more in common than they know. Both are excluded groups, doomed to watch helplessly while the military-financial powers relentessly go about their business. This accounts for Remy de Gourmont’s influence in early 20th c. America, and the European interest in blonde beasts like Sherwood Anderson and Nelson Algren. To say nothing of Louis-Ferdinand Celine.
As the university is progressively disassembled and discontinued, this will become more clear to everyone. Intellectuals had been lulled into thinking that they were upper-middle-class professionals and part of the power system, but now they’re finding out. This was a transient effect and they made a big mistake.
Hofstadter pretended to be analyzing and describing the intellectual-populist split, but actually he was working to create it and recruiting the intelligentsia into the post-WWII elite. Our present state is much like that of the 1870-1900 period, when the power was unchallenged and electoral politics was dominated by stupid cultural politics.
September 19, 2015 at 10:35 am
«Intellectuals had been lulled into thinking that they were upper-middle-class professionals and part of the power system, but now they’re finding out. This was a transient effect and they made a big mistake.»
Some of the already well paid heralds of the their master’s voice have already started to realize that they were never meant to become significantly rich and join the ranks of their sponsors as equals, and they are now disappointed, one witness statement here:
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2015/04/why-didnt-i-get-rich.html
«journalists/columnists of a certain age (meaning ones not much older than me
and younger) are coming around to the realization that the economy is screwing them, too. There was a moment when a lot of them (we’re talking ones at elite outlets, not your random small town paper) thought they’d done everything right, would become celebrities, and get Tom Friedman’s speaking
fees. The economy sure was working for them, and screw everybody else.»
January 20, 2016 at 3:29 am
I’m wondering if you’re going to write your thoughts about Sanders’ presidential campaign, and whether it’s a good omen for sane populism. I hope it is, and I think he has a real shot at going all the way. Whether you do or don’t, I can’t believe that you don’t have some valuable observations.