The Disdain of The Ruling Class

Friday 3 September 2010 - Filed under Government

Angelo M. Codevill in his seminal piece “America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution” at The American Spectator describing the new American political dichotomy of the Ruling Class and the Country Class:

Its attitude is key to understanding our bipartisan ruling class. Its first tenet is that “we” are the best and brightest while the rest of Americans are retrograde, racist, and dysfunctional unless properly constrained.

This idea most precisely describes why I left academia. I have an MA in Medieval English Literature and was about 1/3 done with my PhD when, in the midst of a semester, I up and left the academy forever. I loved my work,¹ but I hated academia (the environment) and most of those in it because of their inability to admit their own intellectual limits, particularly when it came to matters outside of their expertise, and their utter need to impart that intellectual betterness to everyone else, even when they were full of shit. They are convinced that the way in which academics process information is inherently superior, and that, because of their inherent intellectual superiority, they were/are more qualified for political determination and impose that determination on everyone.

The entire piece is one of the few political writings that changed the way I think about the American polity and how, in many ways, I’ve ended up where I have in the American political spectrum. I highly recommend it for everyone.

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1. I was part of a team of academics which would analyze badly damaged manuscripts (fire, water, worms, times, etc) and use digital processes to “restore” them to readability. In my field, the research was invaluable, and personally it was interesting to bring to light what others have been unable to read for centuries.

2010-09-03  »  madlibertarianguy