Hot take: The left is right about “privilege.” It does have a tendency to protect itself. Leftists just don’t understand - or they refuse to acknowledge - that they (and their self-identified “conservative” apologists) represent the voice of the powerful. They speak for the elite — not us “MAGA-tards.” And it is their ideologies that maintain the various phenomena they insist are the features of “systemic oppression” for which we - not they - must atone.
In The Vision of the Anointed, one of his seminal books, Thomas Sowell persuasively argues that to use income brackets to carve up American society into the “rich” and the “poor” is, in fact, to embrace a fiction. The 21-year-old scion of two urban professionals who’s currently making minimum wage at his local Starbucks might be cash poor for the moment — but to say that he belongs to some rigid, identifiable underclass is to ignore both his formative experiences and the likely impermanence of his present position (assuming, of course, that he makes smart choices from here on out). Indeed, the chances that this kid will find himself in a more comfortable circumstance - or even in the top 1% - in a decade or two are still remarkably high.
Despite the fluidity of the membership for each income decile, however, I do believe there is such a thing as class. I simply believe it is better defined by sets of common experiences than by money in the bank. True: monetary wealth and life experiences aren’t independent variables. And true: even life experiences won’t give us clear boundaries between the classes. Nevertheless, I think Charles Murray had the right idea when, in creating his “How Thick Is Your Bubble?” quiz for Coming Apart, he included questions about the reader’s beer-drinking and vacationing habits.
By my personal definition, I’m a member of the coastal elite. Though I’m currently cash poor (just like that young, bourgie barista), I grew up in a comfortable middle class home in the suburbs in which education and cultural enrichment (via museum visits, trips to the theater, etc.) were stressed. I was trained (by my late father of blessed memory) in the art of gentlemanly debate and consequently developed a discomfort with ruder, more frank ways of speaking (something I’ve obviously been working to overcome for the sake of the truth as I understand it). I also graduated summa cum laude with highest honors from a top tier university and work in a job in which academic knowledge (of some sort) and verbal virtuosity are prized. I am, as Chris Arnade might put it, a quintessential “front row kid.” If not for the grace of God, I would be David French. Admittedly, up until the winter of 2017, I basically was.
So when I rail against the elites on this blog, I’m railing against folks with whom I’m intimately familiar. As for what it was that made it possible for me to become a front row dissident — to, essentially, betray my own “breeding”? One reason may be that my family was military, which was a subculture of its own during the late Cold War era in which I knew it (i.e. well before the officer corps’ recent convergence by the woke). (Sigh. I’m pretty sure Dad’s spinning in his grave right now. If he were alive, he’d be hollering like crazy over this “whiteness” poison and how it will destroy unit cohesion.) Another may be that Mom and Dad both grew up working class and I have close relatives who still are. And the last may be my inborn personality. On the Big Five, I’m extremely low on extroversion and relatively low on agreeableness; in layman's terms, that means I’m a cranky, uncompromising bitch who doesn’t care very much what other people think.
However the above-mentioned individual factors rank in importance, the result is that I have consciously cast my lot with the Other, “Deplorable” Half. And I will be eternally happy I did that because the people like me who do attempt to keep up with the hottest intellectual trends sweeping our class turn out to be awful, awful people. As I’ve said in previous posts, they’re God-damned peacocks who perform compassion instead of actively embodying it. And what’s worse, they look down on their fellow Americans with exactly the same kind of unearned, overweening pride that moved WASP’s in earlier ages to whisper that so-and-so was “simply not our kind, dear.” The one difference? Wokeness has finally given them a guilt-free means to be snobs — to fully indulge in their thinly-veiled antipathy for the hoi polloi in full confidence that they won’t be called out by their ideologically (but not practically) egalitarian peers for putting on airs.
And yet — there are definite costs to all this auto-flattery that don’t just fall on the targets of Elect opprobrium. In fact, when I hear someone like Don Lemon complain that white Americans don’t “see him as a human being,” I react with both contempt and pity. Naturally, the contempt comes in because Lemon, whose partner is white, clearly doesn’t mean all of white America when he spews crap like this. No: clearly, he means those white Americans over there who - ew - might drive pick-up trucks or - ugh - may not have gone to college. In other words, he’s absolutely using this rhetoric to announce his superior social status. Moreover, like many “POC” in the front row class, he’s openly rent-seeking. He’s learned that play-acting his “victimhood” moves his white peers to fall at his feet and give him anything he demands — and rather than react to that with self-respecting disgust, he’s chosen to take the path of least resistance because there lies tangible bennies.
But then — this is where the pity comes in. Because I think Lemon, somewhere deep down, knows how demeaning and toxic his woke milieu really is. If I were surrounded by unctuous white “allies” desperately trying to curry my favor to assuage their own guilt, I think I might feel I’d been robbed of my dignity too. Of course, that doesn’t excuse Lemon’s embrace of those who - either consciously or unconsciously - despise anyone who’s not them. Nor does it excuse his acting out his learned distaste - again, either consciously or unconsciously - by promulgating ideas that will pull up the ladder of success for all those who are Out. But there’s still a nut of something psychologically genuine in his pose of offense. Lemon, to put it bluntly, hangs out with the wrong crowd; that’s why he feels put-upon and bereft.
Authenticity does not exist among Lemon’s “friends” — and neither does deep knowledge of human nature or the roots of established social orders. That’s why the policies favored by our “betters” could very easily be collated under the following banner:
How to Boot Stomp the Poors in X Easy Steps
What are some of those steps, you may ask? Well, off the top of my head, here are two from the field of education (with which I have the most extensive contact):
Get rid of standardized tests.
Discontinue advanced placement, accelerated study, and gifted programs in tax-funded schools.
In both cases, the stated motive for the proposed change is “equity.” Because certain subpopulations are proportionally under-represented among those students who earn high test scores and/or admission to advanced programs, the claim is that these markers of excellence are racist and should be scrapped. But as I have remarked many times before, different outcomes are not sufficient evidence that an injustice has been done. Such a conclusion can only be drawn after the (probably multifaceted) causes of these discrepancies have been thoroughly, thoughtfully, and honestly examined. Bias there may be — but it is also a fact that not every subculture values and pursues an education with equal fervor, and until we can face that forthrightly, radical attempts to “balance the scales” are certain to do tremendous harm.
If we completely abandon standardized tests, for instance, we will lose a great equalizer. Yes, that’s exactly what I said: an equalizer. The first tests of this type were conceived in China as a way to identify meritorious candidates for the civil service, and they enabled Chinese from lower social classes to advance to important government positions from which they would’ve been barred if those tests did not exist. And in the American context, meanwhile, the existence of the SAT has made bias against disfavored minority groups (like Jews and Asians) both visible and incredibly difficult to justify. To abolish standardized testing, then, is to rob us of the one means of objective measurement that has a proven historical record as both an engine of upward mobility and a bigotry detector.
Yes: there is a slight association between a student’s SAT score and his SES. But the association between that same SAT score and actual undergraduate performance is stronger, indicating that, contrary to popular belief, the SAT is measuring something more than a student’s family circumstances — something that turns out to be quite relevant to predicting academic success (that thing being g, which is simultaneously the most supported thing in social science and the most often avoided). And unlike portfolios, resumes, essays, interviews, and/or student transcripts, the SAT is incredibly difficult to game (yes, even when you hire expensive tutors; take it from someone who does that for a living), which makes it a fantastic cross-check for students who don’t come from tony schools and therefore may not sparkle on those aforementioned - and comparatively easier-to-burnish - alternative assessments. Not every kid has the resources to wow an admissions committee with an account of his internship with a Washington D.C. think-tank — but every kid can log onto a computer at the public library and study for the SAT with Khan Academy without paying a cent (which is why I have a regular donation set up to support Sal Khan’s mission).
And if we destroy advanced placement programs? Again, more well-to-do kids won’t feel that lack; they will simply move to private institutions that offer what the public schools won’t. Meanwhile, the students on free and reduced lunch who are left behind by this flight will be stuck with the thin gruel that passes for a curriculum at their local politically-correct madrasa. You think the achievement gaps are bad now? Just wait until you have to pay tuition to take a calculus class in high school! Oh, I imagine that some of the most enterprising low-SES parents will still somehow find a path around that barrier — but if you want to talk about systemic obstacles to achievement, this would certainly qualify.
On just about every conceivable policy issue, these blue check bozos demonstrate an inability - or an unwillingness - to comprehend how their preferred solutions will affect flesh-and-blood people in the real world. Instead of working with human beings as they are, they continually seek some mystical “perfect” that can never be realized. And when their policies fail - which they almost always do given their manifest lack of contact with reality - those most afflicted are the supposed “beneficiaries” of their “aid.” Thus:
The elites can always hide behind their hired bodyguards and community gates — but scuttling traditional law enforcement leaves regular folks defenseless against the ensuing disorder.
The elites, protected by their affluence, can usually get away with encouraging non-traditional lifestyles — but poo-pooing marriage has saddled working class kids of every color with most of the consequences of rampant family dysfunction.
The elites benefit from the steady stream of cheap domestic labor made available by a porous border. But destitute migrants are left at the mercy of human traffickers — and less-advantaged border communities are forced to contend with depressed wages and persistent crime (including theft, vandalism, drug trafficking, and gang violence).
The elites came through the COVID lockdowns unscathed, ensconced in their cushy homes, their jobs preserved because they could be done with a lap-top and an internet connection. The yeomanry, on the other hand, were utterly crushed by our aristoi’s quixotic pursuit of absolute physical safety.
And on and on I could go down the list.
If I were a foil-hat type, the breathtaking consistency of the direction of these negative impacts would lead me to suspect a deliberate conspiracy on the part of our “privileged” to keep various outgroups down. But I’m hoping the truth is much simpler: that they just don’t know any better. Their “privilege” has effectively shielded them from the inherent tragedy and resource scarcity that defines our fallen world, so they assume that the system can be made flawless — and that we opponents must be evil, stupid, or lying when we point out the damage done by these “anointed” and their utopian schemes.
At any rate, the impact is the same: the elites maintain their advantage while the poors suffer.
