New class, new “culture”

Honestly don’t recall how I was sent to this essay earlier in the week, but I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. Though it’s from ’97, the words ring just as true today, if not truer than, the year they were written. The essay isn’t entirely political in nature, and readers who’ve been keeping up with my posts about cultural purging (beginning here, and a little bit here, too) over the last couple of weeks will probably find David Gerlernter’s thoughts to be especially interesting.

Some bits ‘n pieces:

Contemplate a couple of interesting intellectual crowds: the poets, painters, writers, and salon-keepers around the young Picasso in 1905 Paris, say–some of them bohemians but some true-blue intellectuals, with theories to sell and ideas to put over. Or the Trotskyists around Partisan Review in 1930′s New York. There is scant love lost in either group for organized religion, the military, social constraints on sexual behavior, traditional sex roles and family structures, formality or fancy dress or good manners, authority in general. Intellectuals have had these tendencies throughout the 20th century, and back to the 19th and into the 18th. But illegitimacy did not zoom up in 1905 Paris. No legal assault on public displays of religion took place in 1930′s America; nor did divorce rates explode or sexual constraints crack wide open. None of these things happened until the intelligentsia took over. And then they happened. It would be absurd to claim that intellectuals have imposed their tastes universally. But it is impossible to miss the obvious trend–the translucent, overlaying tint that is thinner in some places, deeper in others.

Gerlertiner then discusses the Ivy League schools, the increase in college graduates, and the shift of the elite schools from “polishing” institutions (a combination of teaching and “socializing, domesticating, and attitude-inculcating”) to intellectually-focused organizations “mak(ing) room for a new elite”; remember, we now have more elites than there are positions for them to fill, so to speak. Honestly, you need to read the whole essay, it’s fascinating, and I hate to carve it up like this, but…

Let us say there was a coup at the top: that, after the war, intellectuals took the helm at the prestige colleges; that a new breed of intellectualized graduates duly emerged to claim (as these graduates always had) a large share of the nation’s elite positions; that the character of the elite changed radically in consequence. Today’s elite is intellectualized, the old elite was not. Why should that matter? What differences does it make?

The difference is this: the old elite used to get on fairly well with the country it was set over. Members of the old social upper-crust elite were richer and better educated than the public at large, but approached life on basically the same terms. The public went to church and so did they. The public went into the army and so did they. The public staged simpler weddings and the elite put on fancier ones, but they mostly all used the same dignified words and no one self-expressed. They agreed (this being America) that art was a waste, scientists were questionable, engineering and machines and progress and nature were good. Some of the old-time attitudes made sense, some did not; but the staff and their bosses basically concurred. (George Bush was elected in part, Brookhiser suggests, because of public interest in restoring these arrangements.)

Relations between the elite and the nation are very different today. The enmity between Intellectual and Bourgeois is sheepman against cattleman, farm against city, Army versus Navy: a cliche but real. Ever since there was a middle class, intellectuals have despised it. When intellectuals were outsiders, their loves and hates never mattered much. Today they are the bosses and their tastes matter greatly.

Indeed, it seems that their intent is cramming the rest of us into their mold; for all their talk about “diversity”, they’re not interested in real diversity of thought, faith, or ideals at all. This is extremely obvious in all spheres. Do you think Norman Rockwell would be considered a national treasure today? Would Lucy and Desi, dysfunctional as they were, ever end up on television, affectionately regarded by fans? Could the great musicals of Rodgers, Hammerstein, Hart, Kern be produced without previous familiarity, much less lauded and adored? I’m not so sure.

Instead, we get Americana-hating “artistic” diatribes like Sam Mendes’ American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, shrewish but brilliant women and perpetually dumb, powerless men, and dystopian, depressing “art” so devoid of life or real thought they make a Coca-Cola cap glued onto the wall look remarkable by comparison. Broadway’s latest hit, Wicked, is spiked with jabs at people of faith, conservative values, and middle-class Americana in general.

During the 1960′s and early 70′s, the intelligentsia’s hatred for middle-class society was something fierce. The ferocity could partly be explained, (Norman) Podhoretz wrote, by the fact that “despite all the concessions” the middle class had made, “it still refused to be ruled by the intellectuals.” Today the intelligentsia runs the show, and its hatred for class enemies has been toned down… But the hatred is still there, and comes through loud and clear on special occasions. Moreover, it has undergone a portentous change of focus. It used to be aimed at least partly upward, at the “establishment.” Now that intellectuals are the establishment, it is aimed entirely downward, at the public at large.

Today’s elite loathes the nation it rules.

Dare I suggest that even the conservative elite hates the grassroots types, or at the very least, half-despises and curls its lip at our faith, the guns, the family time stuff, the disgust with abortion and taxation, whole-hearted patriotism and love of country as well as the affection for red-blooded American hobbies like football, pizza, Elvis, greasy and cheese-laden burgers, cowboys and westerns, milkshakes, the South (!!!), and old-fashioned Broadway musicals? Heck, many of them hate Ronald Reagan, or at least wish he’d never existed. Too many of them are elitists as well, and trust me: it’s palpable. This is particularly painful for conservatives and libertarians, already out in the cold culturally and morally.

(They used to dislike gardening and composting, but that’s hip and “green”, so now it’s acceptable. Ditto handmade goods.)

(I’d also like to point out that Rush Limbaugh loves and enjoys all of the above things, from what I can tell, save perhaps gardening, though that of course might be attractive to the lizards his cat Punkin so loves to hunt and kill. Not sure about musicals, but it’s hard to imagine him watching Oklahoma! and not utterly enjoying himself.)

Anyhow. Gerlernter offers his suggestion, one I happen to like and think is vitally important

The universities are set for a long time and we cannot change them. What we could do is hire their graduates into new institutions with their own marked personalities, strong enough to counteract the powerful indoctrination engines of university and grade school and everyday life. Today’s newspapers and popular magazines, museums and TV stations, movie studios and schools mainly line up with the intellectualized elite, but no law says that it has to be this way forever.

The new institutions I have in mind would have no political agendas. They would merely promote cant-free history, apolitical art, nonfeminist news reporting for the masses, the teaching of technique and not self-esteem, moral seriousness, ideology-free language–items that today’s elite despises and is attempting to destroy.

Sound familiar? That’s because folks at the Big Hollywood blog have echoed the same warning, as did Mark Steyn:

If the non-political sphere is permanently left-of-center — the movies, the pop songs, the plays, the sitcoms, the newspapers plus the churches, schools and much else — it’s simply unreasonable to expect people to walk into a polling booth every other November and vote conservative. The culture is where the issues get framed and the boundaries set.

For whatever reason (maybe because they still think art is a waste? Lots of, if not most, Christians think this way), conservatives aren’t involved in culture as much as they ought to be, or used to be. Rather interesting for Christians especially, considering Who their inspiration is supposed to be. But I digress.

Again, maybe this is because it is just so difficult, we’ve wisely meandered into greener pastures offering greater opportunity for reward. Also, there’s just not a lot of support for conservative artists; maybe it’s because their work doesn’t mimic that of the culture at large, and even other conservatives aren’t sure it will be successful? Gelernter continues:

I have been told repeatedly that this idea might be good in principle but is doomed. The logistical and financial problems are too great, conservatives (being conservative) lack the necessary passion to change the country, the cultural forces of the Left are too strong to beat.

Do conservatives lack the passion to change the country? I don’t know; mostly, I think they’re just frustrated and don’t know what to do, turned back at every gate as they are with boiling tar and spears. Our elected “representatives” don’t even listen to us, much less represent us. I think many conservatives feel as if they’re being backed into a corner; of course, this is remarkably stupid on the part of the elites on both sides, considering how cornered creatures eventually react.

Additionally, we need to recall that the cultural changes, at least in the artistic realm, did not become overwhelming overnight. At this point, the trash and detritus seem to overwhelm the beach, but if we want it to be beautiful and usable again, each of us needs to start with our own two hands and a trash bag.

As Mom always used to say to me, “Despise not the day of small beginnings.”

I’ll close the way did Gerlernter did, because I can’t top it myself.

When I hear these arguments I am reminded of E.B. White writing to his publisher in 1958 in connection with his proposed revision of William Strunk, Jr.’s The Elements of Style:

I cannot, and will-shall not, attempt to adjust the unadjustable Mr. Strunk to the modern liberal of the English department, the anything-goes fellow. . . . I am against him, temperamentally and because I have seen the work of his disciples, and I say the hell with him.

…The chances of our repairing American society might be near zero. But I find it inspiring anyway that I can address the direct descendant of the “anything-goes fellow,” the intellectual who commands modern culture, in White’s voice. I am against him. I have seen the work of his disciples, and I say the hell with him. To me no cause is lost.

Go read it all, y’all.