Meanwhile, Back at the Fainting Couch; or, The Deadly Side of Luxury Beliefs
11th December 2025
I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.” – William F. Buckley, Jr.
For a glimpse into the timelessness of Bill Buckley’s almost 64-year-old observation, consider the different worlds inhabited by the credentialed and elite class of Americans versus working-class Americans. One tends to be more isolated from the effects of their pet policies and causes, while the other lives with the consequences of those policies every day. It’s essentially the difference between theoretical solutions to luxury problems and reality, and at the moment reality is sending the cloistered elite so far out of their minds that their last functioning brain cell just filed for unemployment.