This is a seriously good read….
“….An 18th Century European lord puzzling over the accelerating decline of the aristocracy only had to look in the mirror to find his answer. Chronic inbreeding ensured the degeneration of the gentry, and yet even though the nobility well knew this, they were powerless. The entire European system of class and governance rested upon the idea of hereditary rule, even as it sowed the seeds of its own demise. How The Elites Destroy Themselves
Today’s elites define themselves very differently from those gentry of old, but their justifications to take and keep power are even more obviously self-destructive. In general terms, these elites define themselves as graduates of exclusive schools of higher education, globally oriented, contemptuous of traditional Western values, and indoctrinated in the ideas such as multiculturalism and catastrophic global warming, though they would likely never put it that way. Rather, they would define their class as virtuous, that virtue residing in essentially in their resumes and worldviews.
What’s particularly frightening about today’s virtuous Western elites is how inherently destructive to society their virtues are. Indeed, pursuing elite virtue today essentially means doing things which objectively damage society, whether it is cutting off valuable energy sources, weakening conceptions of excellence and hard work, increasing public debt to perilous levels or a half-dozen other hair-brained ideas.
Angela Merkel is perhaps the optimal example of this dynamic. Not only is she totally divorced from the burdens that her open immigration policy is laying on her countrymen, who must now live cheek by jowl with hostile migrants who threaten their livelihoods and personal safety, she is voluntarily and objectively destroying her own nation. It appears baffling until one considers that, like those damaged intermarried nobility, she has no choice.
Merkel’s own conception of entitlement to power rests on perception of her own virtuousness. Other than her virtue, by the ideations of her own class (which otherwise rejects class distinctions), she must press on with the policy of open immigration from Islamic lands because open borders are a virtue, while recognizing Islamic radicalism is the epitome of the absence of virtue.
While Merkel is an exemplar of self-destructive elitist virtue, most current Western leaders, to include the current American president and the Democrat that intends to succeed him, share her basic values and view of virtuousness, meaning that Germany’s fate, however it resolves, will presage the fate of the West.
Modern democracies offer some potential remedy for the unvirtuous masses short of rebellion or submission. The British Brexit and the rise of populist political movements on both sides of the Atlantic reflect this. In America, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are imperfect tribunes of the people, but for all their flaws, they are the only noteworthy response to the dominance of these corrupt and entitled elites of “virtue.” That these elites are busily sowing the seeds of their own demise is a pretty sure thing. The big questions are how long it will be, and how much damage will be done before they fall…