Any commentary on an entire class will stumble in the way all generalizations stumble, yet this culture is most distinct at the highest tiers, and the fuzzy edges often emulate those on the top.
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It may be possible to separate the professional managerial class from the ruling elite, or plutocracy, but there is no cultural distinction. This professional managerial class has a distinct culture that often sets the tone for all of American culture. Eliot predicted this when he critiqued elites selected through education: “Any educational system aiming at a complete adjustment between education and society will tend to restrict education to what will lead to success in the world, and to restrict success in the world to those persons who have been good pupils of the system.” In a fundamental way, our culture only exists to serve a certain class. Eliot insisted that it’s impossible to easily define such a broad concept, yet smack in the middle of the book he slips in a succinct explanation: “Culture may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living.” This highlights why the increase in “deaths of despair” is such a strong condemnation of our dysfunction. Eliot charted the vastness of this word in his Notes towards the Definition of Culture, and he warned that technocratic rule narrowed our view of culture. It encompasses class, architecture, cuisine, education, manners, philosophy, politics, religion, and more. Our leaders would be fundamentally different types of people than they are today, and culture would transform based upon the selection criteria, just as America’s present culture has been shaped by the sorting mechanisms in place over the past century.Ĭulture is larger than pop culture, or even just art. CEOs would start applying war paint, and suburban mothers would teach children battle cries.
Imagine if tomorrow a law passed declaring that henceforth all leaders will be selected through hand-to-hand combat: college admissions, job interviews, even Senate seats will be determined in the Thunderdome. Our leaders go through a selection process that has benefits, drawbacks, and larger cultural implications, all of which shape the character of our nation. Culture inevitably reflects the selection process that sorts people into the upper class, and today’s insipid stories suggest a profound failure of this sorting mechanism. Storytelling is central to any civilization, so its sudden failure across society should set off alarm bells. Even foundational stories like liberalism, equality, and meritocracy are failing the resulting woke phenomenon is the greatest shark jump in history. Across TV, movies, and novels it is increasingly difficult to find a compelling story that doesn’t rely on gimmicks. The so-called second golden era of television was a decade ago, and many of those shows relied on cliff-hangers and gratuitous nudity to hold audience attention. Journalists are supposed to hunt for good scoops, but in January, as the coronavirus spread, they focused on the impeachment reality show instead of a real story. The Kavanaugh hearings were a sequel to the Clarence Thomas hearings, and Russian collusion was rebooted as Ukrainian impeachment. The dominant stories all resembled the scripts of bad movies-sequels and reboots. Something strange happened to the news over the past four years.
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