I saw a story of two boys trashing their school library and it made me want to revisit the concept of an “establishment elite” and how and why the meaning of the term differs between conservatives and right wingers on the one hand, and liberals and other leftists on the other.
Liberals, concerned as they typically are with real economics, suppose the establishment elite are those with economic power, particularly vast economic power, who have done very well for themselves under status quo economic arrangements, so rich people, CEOs, bankers, Wall Street types. When liberals voice opposition to the establishment elite, it typically involves the notion the economically powerful are busy looking after their own interests to the detriment of others, for example, by promoting anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style and conservative fascism.
In contrast, conservatives, right wingers see the world through a different lens. They worship the “establishment elite” as the economically powerful because they follow normative arguments in anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style and suppose the rich superior and special. Following the rhetoric of bad economics in the conservative style, conservatives typically resolutely ignore issues relating to resolving interpersonal conflict of preferences, as over scarce resources, and the potential roles of economic power and democracy in that area.
No, conservatives define the “establishment elite” primarily along an intellectual axis as smart people, educated people, experts, anyone who might challenge their own hubris and ignorance. The oppression conservatives, right wingers feel, that they’re concerned about, is not economic or material oppression but a sort of perceived intellectual oppression, an underlying suggestion they should talk more sensibly, read, think, learn, respond to criticisms, stop lying, that sort.
As democracy is ideally about voters having reasonable, rational, informed conversations, conservatives tend to despise democracy as a venue, much like academia, where their oppressors, relatively glib, educated, intellectual voters wield power, so they come to despise democracy as well. Indeed, when conservatives talk about opposing the “establishment elite” they quite often mean simply opposing democratic government, that realm in which they, the simple, are savaged and put upon by the other, the clever and glib. So they support politicians who mock and play with that system. Much like any fool who feels a need to be involved in a conversation over his or her head without having anything relevant or useful to say, they randomly blurt out various whoppers, tall tales, jokes, insults, bits of rhetorical chicanery, then suppose they’re winning a “debate.”
It’s why, although I spend much time working on the rhetoric those I recognize as the establishment elite use to pursue power, which I call anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style, I recognize by doing so I mark myself as part of what conservatives see as the establishment elite. But I do it anyway because my goal is to draw attention to some tricky bits of misleading conservative economic rhetoric for those who care to know, not to appeal to conservatives by carefully ignoring it or pretending to also be confused by it. Yes, I follow the Way of Philosophy.
