I believe that a contributing factor to the “victim” self-identification (and accompanying rage) was in how so many upper middle class parents “hovered over” and worshiped their children, protecting them from any anxiety or disappointments (hard parts of reality) that they could and fostering an internalized sense of entitlement (participation trophies!). When the “trophies” for existing quit being awarded, victims of such injustice (wokies love the term “justice”) identified the oppressors as the “fat cats” who had grabbed up all the trophies.
Really excellent piece Rob. I am on staff at a small college and I see today's youth come in aimless and unfocused but they are on a prescribed path, and college is the next level up for them. What is interesting is that for all their knowledge of technology, social media they seem to lack a spirit to make things different. I came of age during the Vietnam war and its aftermath and I watched as those who couldn't adjust to society created their own worlds, people like the two Steves of Apple, of Nolan Bushnell, of Larry Ellison of Oracle, Gates and Allen and others. They came, saw a world they did not fit into well, and created a new one, that seems to be lacking in these younger generations. Instead they have been enculturated to believe that anger is the solution, we have lost something in the intergenerational transfer.
While I think the author is onto something here, I think we have another cohort of wannabe elites who have been shut out by our nepo baby / insiders only culture: talented white boys and other intelligent strivers from flyover country who no longer want to genuflect to the current cultural class that n the coasts. Merit was once enough for entree; recently wannabe elites have been subjected to loyalty tests. Did you take a knee? Did you exhibit the correct virtue signal? Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I bet there are a whole lotta young folks who just won’t play. Instead they wanna start a new game with new rules. I think that’s what we will see coming up. The current arrangements are like a geriatric patient who rules from the deathbed holding the inheritance over everyone’s head.
I think you are correct about the dichotomy. But I think those fly-over boys and girls are the ones who defend traditional American values. The truth is that post-Civil War was when the type of elites Mr. Henderson describes were rewarded with power and prestige in a ever more over-reaching federal government. Do not misunderstand me, this is not to say that slavery was proper. Rather it is to say that these modern "elites" Mr. Henderson describes are the descendants, some literal and some figuratively, of those financiers and industrialists who promoted, prolonged, and profited from.American slavery. Their clients - southern plantation owners - took the fall while those industrialists and financiers were rewarded. Early and often. To the extent that many, many, many are now toiling away at their new plantations.
Stalin did not come from an elite background, unlike many of the other Bolsheviks. His father was a violent alcholic shoemaker who was constantly in debt. He was a good student so he recieved a scholarship to a theological college intending to be an orthodox priest but he dropped out before his final exams given he no longer believed in Christianity. He was from a cultural and social backwater in the Russian Empire.
In fact his non-elite background is precisely why he ended up at the top of Russian politics. Like Putin his early experiences of hardship and streetfighting gave him a ruthless edge that the ineffectual intellectuals he was up against just didn't have for the most part. He picked his rivals off with a cool brutality. He made originally made his name in the party for raising funds in a bank robbery in Tblisi. He generally despised the tastes of effete elite art which is why he pushed the Soviet Union away from avant garde art to more traditionalist social realism. Stalin was, like Hitler, a product of an advancement by the elites for their own purposes, with the typical arrogance of the intellectual elite. They believed they could control them but he ended up releasing the untapped demontic energies of someone who had been overlooked as a vulgar thug barely worthy of attention.
I do not understand why conservative talking heads push Musk as an avatar so much. Musk grew up in a wealthy family. Musk is like Bill Gates except edgier: the product of compounding intergenerational success and wealth. He is not a rags to riches story. Bezos would be a better avatar, but only slightly.
Are conservative talkative heads paid by Musk? Is it simping with better verbiage?
This. Yes, this. I have arrived at these same conclusions just from years of observation and debate with people from all walks of life.
There is great irony though. People that have more want more. Honest studies have proved it. The top 10% that comprise the parents and grandparents of the upset left own 80% of the stock market and 70% of all the wealth. Much of that wealth is real estate values from inflated housing costs that have put home ownership out of reach for the generations that followed them.
It is these well-off baby boomers that pushed globalism that exported all of our industry and manufacturing to other countries for the cheaper labor. They also demanded more cheap labor be pumped in from immigration. They also pushed the meme that all kids needed a college education to get a good career. Lately they came up with the ideology of climate crisis to generate a new market of green and sustainable energy technology that Wall Street would be on. The resulting increase in energy costs destroys more domestic business while the big corporations can rely on China to burn more coal. Just consider how they pull the media to push the propaganda that meat is bad so we will buy Bill Gates synthetic stuff instead... and watch all the small ranches go out of business.
The idiocy of the kids is that they are trying to kill, literally now, the same working class that has been decimated by all these policies and actions of their parents and grandparents, while they are programmed to support more of the same elite people and their policies and actions that perpetuate the economic misery of the kids.
That is the frustrating part of all of this... the tremendous ideological indoctrination and brainwashing that is happening to prevent youth from seeing the truth and actually supporting what would improve their lives.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk might be a crucible in the required mass epiphany to turn this around... except the elite establishment seems to have turned up the volume seeing the risk to keeping the kids in their camp of ignorance.
For those dealing with professional disappointment (or perhaps wanting to encourage flexibility in their children) I can recommend Wallace Stegner's "Crossing to Safety". It follows two aspiring English professors. One comes from an elite circle and can't readily accept his failure. The other happily moves on to other opportunities and has a happy life as a novelist.
When you’re astride a pinnacle for so long, changes to your painstakingly constructed mountain are almost imperceptible. Fissures slowly become fractures, erosion accelerates, but the occasional rockslide (“There goes Jimmy Kimmel!”) is the fault of that particular rock, or a necessary sacrifice to preserve your mountain’s integrity. Sure, the pinnacle gets slightly smaller, lonelier, and shakier, but none of your fellow elite mountaineers are eager to do landslide prevention since the mountain is…perfect, right? You begrudgingly tolerated claim jumpers as long as they mined the same ore and didn’t pose a danger to your claim. But for prospectors who disputed your occupancy and title? They faced the full force of the law, cancellation, and, if particularly pesky and successful, elimination. Still, the number of new Forty-Niners grew; now they manage and regulate mining activities. Their persistence introduced stress changes; now your ground is increasingly unstable and more and more susceptible to slippage. What you thought were stable faults were always under high background stress. Enjoy yourself on the way down. As the great Chris Stapleton said, "Falling feels like flying 'til you hit the ground".
I believe that a contributing factor to the “victim” self-identification (and accompanying rage) was in how so many upper middle class parents “hovered over” and worshiped their children, protecting them from any anxiety or disappointments (hard parts of reality) that they could and fostering an internalized sense of entitlement (participation trophies!). When the “trophies” for existing quit being awarded, victims of such injustice (wokies love the term “justice”) identified the oppressors as the “fat cats” who had grabbed up all the trophies.
Really excellent piece Rob. I am on staff at a small college and I see today's youth come in aimless and unfocused but they are on a prescribed path, and college is the next level up for them. What is interesting is that for all their knowledge of technology, social media they seem to lack a spirit to make things different. I came of age during the Vietnam war and its aftermath and I watched as those who couldn't adjust to society created their own worlds, people like the two Steves of Apple, of Nolan Bushnell, of Larry Ellison of Oracle, Gates and Allen and others. They came, saw a world they did not fit into well, and created a new one, that seems to be lacking in these younger generations. Instead they have been enculturated to believe that anger is the solution, we have lost something in the intergenerational transfer.
While I think the author is onto something here, I think we have another cohort of wannabe elites who have been shut out by our nepo baby / insiders only culture: talented white boys and other intelligent strivers from flyover country who no longer want to genuflect to the current cultural class that n the coasts. Merit was once enough for entree; recently wannabe elites have been subjected to loyalty tests. Did you take a knee? Did you exhibit the correct virtue signal? Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I bet there are a whole lotta young folks who just won’t play. Instead they wanna start a new game with new rules. I think that’s what we will see coming up. The current arrangements are like a geriatric patient who rules from the deathbed holding the inheritance over everyone’s head.
I think you are correct about the dichotomy. But I think those fly-over boys and girls are the ones who defend traditional American values. The truth is that post-Civil War was when the type of elites Mr. Henderson describes were rewarded with power and prestige in a ever more over-reaching federal government. Do not misunderstand me, this is not to say that slavery was proper. Rather it is to say that these modern "elites" Mr. Henderson describes are the descendants, some literal and some figuratively, of those financiers and industrialists who promoted, prolonged, and profited from.American slavery. Their clients - southern plantation owners - took the fall while those industrialists and financiers were rewarded. Early and often. To the extent that many, many, many are now toiling away at their new plantations.
Well that certainly is a big picture view
It is a goid skill to have. FWIW can see trees too.
Stalin did not come from an elite background, unlike many of the other Bolsheviks. His father was a violent alcholic shoemaker who was constantly in debt. He was a good student so he recieved a scholarship to a theological college intending to be an orthodox priest but he dropped out before his final exams given he no longer believed in Christianity. He was from a cultural and social backwater in the Russian Empire.
In fact his non-elite background is precisely why he ended up at the top of Russian politics. Like Putin his early experiences of hardship and streetfighting gave him a ruthless edge that the ineffectual intellectuals he was up against just didn't have for the most part. He picked his rivals off with a cool brutality. He made originally made his name in the party for raising funds in a bank robbery in Tblisi. He generally despised the tastes of effete elite art which is why he pushed the Soviet Union away from avant garde art to more traditionalist social realism. Stalin was, like Hitler, a product of an advancement by the elites for their own purposes, with the typical arrogance of the intellectual elite. They believed they could control them but he ended up releasing the untapped demontic energies of someone who had been overlooked as a vulgar thug barely worthy of attention.
I do not understand why conservative talking heads push Musk as an avatar so much. Musk grew up in a wealthy family. Musk is like Bill Gates except edgier: the product of compounding intergenerational success and wealth. He is not a rags to riches story. Bezos would be a better avatar, but only slightly.
Are conservative talkative heads paid by Musk? Is it simping with better verbiage?
Isaacson’s biography of Musk doesn’t portray Elon’s father as a successful businessman; more of a conman.
And I admire Musk because he’s accomplished more for space travel than anyone else in decades. Blue Origin still hasn’t reached orbit yet.
I agree. I thought Isaacson's book was a good read. Mama's modeling career sounded a little sketchy to me too.
Tremendously well-written
This. Yes, this. I have arrived at these same conclusions just from years of observation and debate with people from all walks of life.
There is great irony though. People that have more want more. Honest studies have proved it. The top 10% that comprise the parents and grandparents of the upset left own 80% of the stock market and 70% of all the wealth. Much of that wealth is real estate values from inflated housing costs that have put home ownership out of reach for the generations that followed them.
It is these well-off baby boomers that pushed globalism that exported all of our industry and manufacturing to other countries for the cheaper labor. They also demanded more cheap labor be pumped in from immigration. They also pushed the meme that all kids needed a college education to get a good career. Lately they came up with the ideology of climate crisis to generate a new market of green and sustainable energy technology that Wall Street would be on. The resulting increase in energy costs destroys more domestic business while the big corporations can rely on China to burn more coal. Just consider how they pull the media to push the propaganda that meat is bad so we will buy Bill Gates synthetic stuff instead... and watch all the small ranches go out of business.
The idiocy of the kids is that they are trying to kill, literally now, the same working class that has been decimated by all these policies and actions of their parents and grandparents, while they are programmed to support more of the same elite people and their policies and actions that perpetuate the economic misery of the kids.
That is the frustrating part of all of this... the tremendous ideological indoctrination and brainwashing that is happening to prevent youth from seeing the truth and actually supporting what would improve their lives.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk might be a crucible in the required mass epiphany to turn this around... except the elite establishment seems to have turned up the volume seeing the risk to keeping the kids in their camp of ignorance.
For those dealing with professional disappointment (or perhaps wanting to encourage flexibility in their children) I can recommend Wallace Stegner's "Crossing to Safety". It follows two aspiring English professors. One comes from an elite circle and can't readily accept his failure. The other happily moves on to other opportunities and has a happy life as a novelist.
https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Safety-Modern-Library-Classics/dp/037575931X
When you’re astride a pinnacle for so long, changes to your painstakingly constructed mountain are almost imperceptible. Fissures slowly become fractures, erosion accelerates, but the occasional rockslide (“There goes Jimmy Kimmel!”) is the fault of that particular rock, or a necessary sacrifice to preserve your mountain’s integrity. Sure, the pinnacle gets slightly smaller, lonelier, and shakier, but none of your fellow elite mountaineers are eager to do landslide prevention since the mountain is…perfect, right? You begrudgingly tolerated claim jumpers as long as they mined the same ore and didn’t pose a danger to your claim. But for prospectors who disputed your occupancy and title? They faced the full force of the law, cancellation, and, if particularly pesky and successful, elimination. Still, the number of new Forty-Niners grew; now they manage and regulate mining activities. Their persistence introduced stress changes; now your ground is increasingly unstable and more and more susceptible to slippage. What you thought were stable faults were always under high background stress. Enjoy yourself on the way down. As the great Chris Stapleton said, "Falling feels like flying 'til you hit the ground".
Rage is the flipside of shame, shame is either diminished masculinity or femininity, and is always present in legitimate trauma.
Whatever the demographic then, they feel “castrated,” “envy,” and in their “lived experience,” traumatized one would suppose.
You seem to attach great importance to the below as if it's a revelation and proof for downward mobility you think is new and noteworthy.
"According to The Pew Charitable Trusts, fewer than four in 10 children born into the richest fifth of households stay there."
That four out of ten statistic has been remarkably stable for many, many decades. It's not new.
You consistently make generalizations without backup or rigor.
You write about the wealthy without really knowing anything about us.
You have a big audience that you are misleading. I suppose it's big because you write and say what they want to hear. That is not new.
"You write about the wealthy without really knowing anything about us." What an unkind comment !