Tuesday, November 17, 2015

The Revolt of the Elites

O
Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote The Revolt of the Masses in 1929. In his magnum opus, Ortega was critical of the phenomenon of "mass-man," which he saw as a harbinger of Fascism. Culture would be lowered to its lowest common denominator by the revolt of the masses, and so the achievements of civilization would be destroyed by the mob. 

The work was indeed prophetic, and Ortega had to leave Fascist Spain, living in exile in France and Argentina, until after the end of World War II. He had foreseen the earth-shaking struggle between civilization and barbarism, as in these excerpts:


When all these things are lacking there is no culture; there is in the strictest sense of the word, barbarism. And let us not deceive ourselves, this is what is beginning to appear in Europe under the progressive rebellion of the masses. The traveler knows that in the territory there are no ruling principles to which it is possible to appeal. Properly speaking, there are no barbarian standards. Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made. 


Under Fascism there appears for the first time in Europe a type of man who does not want to give reasons or to be right, but simply shows himself resolved to impose his opinions. This is the new thing: the right not to be reasonable, the "reason of unreason." Here I see the most palpable manifestation of the new mentality of the masses, due to their having decided to rule society without the capacity for doing so. In their political conduct the structure of the new mentality is revealed in the rawest, most convincing manner. The average man finds himself with "ideas" in his head, but he lacks the faculty of ideation. He has no conception even of the rare atmosphere in which ideals live. He wishes to have opinions, but is unwilling to accept the conditions and presuppositions that underlie all opinion. Hence his ideas are in effect nothing more than appetites in words. 


To have an idea means believing one is in possession of the reasons for having it, and consequently means believing that there is such a thing as reason, a world of intelligible truths. To have ideas, to form opinions, is identical with appealing to such an authority, submitting oneself to it, accepting its code and its decisions, and therefore believing that the highest form of intercommunication is the dialogue in which the reasons for our ideas are discussed. But the mass-man would feel himself lost if he accepted discussion, and instinctively repudiates the obligation of accepting that supreme authority lying outside himself. Hence the "new thing" in Europe is "to have done with discussions," and detestation is expressed for all forms of intercommunication, which imply acceptance of objective standards, ranging from conversation to Parliament, and taking in science. This means that there is a renunciation of the common life of barbarism. All the normal processes are suppressed in order to arrive directly at the imposition of what is desired. The hermeticism of the soul which, as we have seen before, urges the mass to intervene in the whole of public life.


However, today's battle between civilization and barbarism seems to have turned Ortega's analysis on its head. The threat to civilization at this moment appears to come not from "mass-man" but from the elites who govern without any commitment to civilization itself.  From enabling the recent shootings in Paris, and allowing the looting of the Bagdhad Museum in Iraq, to permitting the destruction of Palmyra in Syria, Western elites have apparently abandoned the civilizing mission which once both defined the West and fueled the "soft power" necessary to conquer the world.  


Current campus "uprisings" at Yale, Columbia, and the University of Missouri, are among the latest symptoms of elite barbarism.  Uncivilized, and indeed Fascist, attitudes are obvious to the most casual observer. 


In this lies the heart of the current problem--for if Western elites are in revolt against civilization, then either they must be replaced, asap, or civilization cannot stand.  For elite legitimacy depends upon superior culture as well as character, which justify status.

That revolt in our time comes from the top, not the bottom; from the one percent, not the 99 percent; can be seen from the Ivy League addresses of the latest campus conflicts. 


It can also be seen in the background of former officials in the Obama administration, such as Thomas Vietor, lately reported working for Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign.

Although the former National Security spokesman for the Obama administration was mocked by conservatives as a "former van driver", who said, "Dude, that was like two years ago," when confronted with charges he altered talking points about Benghazi, Vietor is no surfer dude from San Diego. 

Rather, he is a bona fide member in good standing of the American Establishment. His is, by my reckoning, Thomas Vietor, IV. The Huffington Post announced that he became engaged to Michelle Obama's press secretary, Katie McCormic Lelyveld, in Paris.  Mrs. Thomas Vietor's 1939 wedding dress by Herman Patrick Tappe is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  His father's obituary in the New York Times gives some sense of the family's social standing:

VIETOR--Thomas Frederick III, 66 of Katonah, NY died October 1st, 2010 of cancer. The son of Carolyn Raymond and Thomas F. Vietor Jr., Tom was born and raised in Manhattan, graduated from St. Paul's School, the University of Pennsylvania and served in the Air National Guard. He was a member of the New York Yacht Club and a former Board Member of the Orchestra of St. Luke's. He spent his career at Johnson & Higgins and then Marsh. He retired as Chairman of Marsh FINPRO Global. He is survived by his wife Jeanne K. Windbiel, son Tommy Vietor of Washington, DC, daughter Taylor Vietor, stepson John Cunningham, sister, the Reverend Julie (Vietor) Kelsey of Branford, CT and numerous nieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his memory to: GU Oncology Research Fund, Dr. David Nanus, 1305 York Ave., Box 403, New York, NY 10021.


Likewise, his grandfather's obituary in the Princeton Alumni Weekly:



After a long decline in health, Tom died of cancer on Jan. 14, 2001, in NYC.
Tom graduated from St. Paul's School. At Princeton he was an English major, was on the freshman crew team, the club squash team, and was a member of Ivy Club.
During WWII, Tom was a sergeant in the OSS where he served on General William Donovan's staff in Washington, DC. After the war, he joined Ruthrauff & Ryan, an advertising firm in NYC. Shortly thereafter, he joined Sullivan Stauffer Colwell & Bayless, where he specialized in radio program and television production. At various times he directed and supervised musical, drama, mystery, comedy, quiz, roundtable, and news programs until he retired from advertising. The last years of his working life were spent as the business manager of St. James Church in NYC, where he assisted the rector, Rev. John B. Coburn '36.
Tom's wife, Carolyn, predeceased him in 1995. He is survived by a daughter, Julie Kelsey, a son, Tom III, four grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, to all of whom the class extends its sincere sympathy.
The Class of 1938.

OSS was jokingly referred to as "Oh, So Social" because of the number of Social Register families represented in the precursor to the CIA. The 1905 Brooklyn Blue Book and Long Island Social Register lists one Mr. Thomas F. Vietor He married Elizabeth Bacon Allen, a descendant of Ethan Allen. His father, George Frederick Vietor, lived at 417 Park Avenue. This great-great grandfather attended Amherst and was a member of the Republican, Union League, Metropolitan, Sea View Golf, Rumson Country, Seabright Beach, and Automobile Clubs. They also had a 27-room mansion, with ten tiled bathrooms, in Rumson, New Jersey. It was designed by Harrie T. Lindeberg, who designed a home for the Rockefeller family in Pocantico, New York.

Strangely, however, Thomas Vietor, IV's hereditary membership in the One Percent Club, goes unmentioned in the official biography on the website of his current public relations firm, Fenway Strategies, which seems focused instead upon a certain alumnus of Punahou School,  Columbia, and Harvard:

Tommy Vietor worked as a spokesman for President Barack Obama for nearly a decade. Vietor served as the President's National Security Spokesman from January of 2011 through March of 2013 where he was the media's primary contact on all foreign policy and national security issues. From January 2009 through January 2011, Vietor was an Assistant White House Press Secretary responsible for foreign policy, education and labor issues.

Vietor joined Obama's senate campaign in 2004 and served as Obama's U.S. Senate spokesman. In 2007, during the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, Vietor worked as the Iowa Press Secretary, and continued his work on the campaign as a rapid response specialist in the 2008 general election. Vietor served as a Winter 2014 visiting fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, and was named one of the top ten communicators of 2014 by Campaigns and Elections magazine.


Because of the attitudes of the Tommy Vietors of this world, one may reasonably conclude that if Ortega y Gasset were alive today, he would be writing The Revolt of the Elites, for his words still ring true, just substitute "elite" for "masses":

Under Fascism there appears for the first time in Europe a type of man who does not want to give reasons or to be right, but simply shows himself resolved to impose his opinions. This is the new thing: the right not to be reasonable, the "reason of unreason." Here I see the most palpable manifestation of the new mentality of the masses, due to their having decided to rule society without the capacity for doing so. In their political conduct the structure of the new mentality is revealed in the rawest, most convincing manner. The average man finds himself with "ideas" in his head, but he lacks the faculty of ideation. He has no conception even of the rare atmosphere in which ideals live. He wishes to have opinions, but is unwilling to accept the conditions and presuppositions that underlie all opinion. Hence his ideas are in effect nothing more than appetites in words.