The War Against the Elites

The people are up in arms. They are rebelling against anyone who would tell them what to think, how to feel and what to believe. They do not identify as citizens of the world but as citizens of their nations. In truth, you cannot identify as a citizen of the world. The term contradicts itself.

Of course, the rebellion is so stoked with rage that it does not always know its target. Is it fighting the political establishment? Is it fighting the bureaucratic deep state? Is it at war against the media elite, the Hollywood moguls and academic bullies?

If you want to fight effectively, you need to know your enemy. If you are flailing at one and all you might have a couple of lucky hits, but you will eventually lose.

America’s rebellion has a great deal to do with Germany. Americans saw what Angela Merkel was doing to Germany and decided that, above all else, they did not want it happening to them.

Roger Cohen travelled to Germany to interview the leader of Germany’s radical right wing party—Alternative for Germany. Klaus Riedelsdorf told Cohen about the threat radical Islam poses for Germany (and, by extension, the West):

Islam is an ideology, he says, and an Islamic takeover of Germany is the greatest danger the country has faced since the Cold War. Not since the Cuban missile crisis has Europe been confronted with a danger as acute as the Arab Islamist threat to the West. When there are terrorist attacks by Muslims “and we say that has nothing to do with Islam, it’s a very dangerous development,” he says, because it deludes people.

Since they cannot stop the attacks and cannot take responsibility for opening their borders the elites governing and media classes force you to think of it all as they want you to think of it all. Above all else, they do not want you to hold them accountable.

Who is Riedelsdorf fighting against? Cohen summarizes the enemy in a wonderful paragraph:

In Brandenburg, as in Trump-world, there’s plenty of political energy against globalized, mealy-mouthed, quinoa-loving, inequality-fostering, immigrant-embracing elites with their gender spectra, climate doomsdays, multilateral organizations, mainstream parties and smug no-alternatives views of existence.

Again with the elites. People who think they know better and who arrogate to themselves the right to tell everyone else how to live. Better yet, these elites do not accept that they are ever wrong. They know what is best and they will not brook any disagreement or discontent. Other people will be called on to compromise, but they will never do the same. After all, they are right. Everyone else is wrong. It harkens back to the guardian class in Plato’s Republic, the best and the brightest who see more clearly and are less corrupted by the search for profit.

The people are at war against Platonic idealists and idealism, against thinkers and ideas. If there were less railing and flailing, those who are fighting against idealism would understand that in the world Plato defined there are no facts, only appearances. And they would see that the alternative to idealism is empiricism. The postmodern left, as former Evergreen State biologist Heather Heying pointed out, is at war with truth, at war with science, at war with facts. 

Yet, they are so clever that they present themselves as the champions of fact and reason. They denounce their opponents for being driven by emotion, not reason. Those who want to bring down the guardian class that is driving the civilization off a cliff should know what they stand for and should stand tall for reason, not for emotional manipulation.