Thoughts on Elites
6th May 2018
ZMan pulls back the curtain.
A famous line from the movie The Usual Suspects is “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Even after all these years, it turns up in comment sections and social media. It is a good line to have in mind when thinking about who is actually ruling over us. In America, our elites have spent a very long time convincing us that there are no elites. The fact is though, every society has an elite and it is usually a stable, semi-permanent one. The people in charge tend to stay in charge.
…
Of course the real reason elites tend to get what they want is they are better than the rest of us. They are smarter, better socialized and they have greater access to the stock of knowledge relevant to being in charge. Americans despise the idea of a ruling elite, so the people in charge spend a lot of time pretending they don’t exist. It’s why our form of democracy works so well. The people keep voting for different candidates, but the people in charge never change. That’s what we are seeing with Donald Trump right now.