David Brooks lately published a column in the Times, “Why Our Elites Stink,” faulting the new elite for a lack of a sense of “leadership” and “service.” He often speaks of the old WASP leadership in the column:
a more diverse and meritocratic elite has replaced the Protestant Establishment. People are more likely to rise on the basis of grades, test scores, effort and performance. Yet, as this meritocratic elite has taken over institutions, trust in them has plummeted. It’s not even clear that the brainy elite is doing a better job of running them than the old boys’ network….
The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations. They cruelly ostracized people who did not live up to their codes of gentlemanly conduct and scrupulosity. They were insular and struggled with intimacy, but they did believe in restraint, reticence and service.
Today’s elite is more talented and open but lacks a self-conscious leadership code. The language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous).
At the American Conservative, Scott McConnell notes that in an earlier book, Brooks acknowledged that Jews had played a large role in the transformation of Establishment cultural values. Brooks wrote, “the Jews were the vanguard of a social movement that over the course of the 20th century transformed the American university system and the nature of the American elite.”
McConnell adds:
Brooks doesn’t go into this in his current column. He never does. Perhaps there’s no need to: in a way, his key criticism of the new elite–that its members insist on perceiving themselves as outsiders even though they are insiders–stands as implicit acknowledgment of a sociological fact best left, most of the time anyway, unspoken.
Why the reticence? Perhaps somewhere there is a fear of awakening a slumbering beast of heartland anti-Semitism. There has never been much anti-Semitism in America, but given the global historical record, this is, to say the least, an understandable concern.
I would surmise the greater reason is connected to the one area where Brooks most sympathizes with the prejudices of the current elite and most favors their prejudices over those of the old one. American foreign policy is very different under the new meritocracy. The generation of Harrimans, Lovetts, Achesons, Marshalls, and Kennans would have no difficulty imagining a corrupt and self-serving Wall Street class — they had lived through the 1929 crash, when WASPs ran the show and ran it badly. But I doubt they could imagine an America which so completely perceived its foreign-policy interests–its choice of enemies, its choice of wars–as so congruent to those of Israel. The old WASP elite were, almost to a man, opposed to the creation of Israel and to American recognition of the state; they saw nothing but trouble arising from America’s support for Israel. They can be faulted, certainly–none of them lobbied for America to make room for the hundreds of thousands of Jewish war refugees (displaced persons, in the jargon of the time) languishing in refugee camps in 1947, many in Germany of all places.
They made their peace with President Truman’s decision, and went on to serve their country in important ways. And for a generation at least, it could be fairly argued that their fears were much overwrought.
It’s no secret that, in contrast to the OLD WASP Establishment, the current Establishment is much more disproportionately Jewish, and it’s more than arguable that is why there’s a conflation of US and Israeli interests that has brought the reputation of the USA down in the eyes of the world. It follows that “the language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous).” This extends to American governmental activities both abroad (under the guise of “national defense” and overseas “nation-building, “and domestically, under the guise of “homeland security.” The distinctions in values, process, and procedures, and war equipment, between local police and our soldiers abroad– has been fading fast. Most Americans do not seem to have noticed. Or they want more of the same. Indeed the “old boy” WASP network has vanished, but by this juncture in time, it appears there’s a new “old boy” network and the most influential in it do not seem to me to be mostly put in place via merit, but rather by replacement legacy selection and methods that are even more hypocritical because they are allowed to be so.
Ummm, Phil – not for nothin, but you could have written Brooks’ column, in fact, his line about not changing the social order, only its ethos, is right outta the phil weiss playbook. good luck to both of you on that, by the way
“Brooks doesn’t go into this in his current column.”
No, I don’t suppose that … the previously undistinguished jewish guy, who openly talks about his affection for Israel, who is hired by … the New York Times to opine on things like our foreign policy vis a vis Israel, with the Times’ present and past Israeli correspondents likewise being jewish with deep Israeli connections, and with the Times general foreign affairs opinionist likewise being jewish, is ever gonna much go into how some of our “elites” got into their elite positions.
Nope nope nope; for some reason not at all surprised. Not a bit. Nor talk about the elite-making tenure-granting decisions by Harvard professors say, so regularly producing astounding demographic results. Nor ….
Brooks gets some things right and wrong.
I do have some quibbles. The WASP establishment have been maligned over and over. But they were actually worse than everyone thinks. Because WASP is a racial/cultural thing. But the phrase he uses, the ‘old boys network’ gives insight. First, it wasn’t only an establishment based on race/culture. It was also an establishment based on gender.
But perhaps most important: it was an establishment based on class. This is a key thing many people forget. The most talented WASPs were never part of the establishment. This is why I’ve commented before that one of the reasons why Jewish assimilation/intermarriage went so fast post-1960s was that when the floodgates to college opened and life in America improved dramatically, the best and the brightest of the WASPs, who were poor and excluded by the Northeastern royal families(which they in a sense were), flooded in together with the Jews and they bonded naturally with Jews.
Both were groups who were denied either for race/religion(Jews) or class(working-class WASPs who were very bright).
So the old establishment, which had class as a strong defining feature, was suddenly overthrown. If the establishment was based on race/gender alone, as is often the conversation, then I think that there would be much more bad blood and Jewish assimilation/intermarriage would be far lower for far longer.
The new establishment was really a WASP/Jewish hybrid. But the WASP part was mostly new, it was overwhelmingly working-class whites like Bill Clinton. Bright, hungry and very energetic.
Can the new elite be faulted for their culture?
I disagree. The culture of the new elite is actually kind of conservative. The way they marry, how they raise their children and so forth.
The problem with the new elite is what they are pushing on everyone else. They say a father in the household isn’t a big deal. But it’s a huge deal. Sexual child abuse is much more common with a stepfather involved, something of a magnitude of 5.
Of course, immigration did it’s part too to diversify the elite as well as the nation, thereby weakning the cultural and ethnic homogenity that persisted before. As Milton Friedman put it: “you can’t have open immigration policies and a welfare state”. Putnam, the Harvard professor, has done research in this area too.
So in this sense it’s less of a direct culture within the elites themselves and more of the policies that they promote to the nation and the attack on what can loosely be called ‘burgeous values’. Namely; work hard, be thrifty and value your family. This was considered outmoded and stiff by the 1960s wannabe-revolutionaries. Well, go into the black community today and ask them about how good it feels without a family structure.
Of course, economic forces have ripped apart the family too. Perhaps even more. But culture does, indeed, play a role.
Another thing:
While college entrances may have been opened up, in some ways we have had the reversed quota system. Today, if we went by SAT scores alone, whites would take up about 70 % of all students at Ivy’s. Jews would be overrepresented, by about 1/7 th of the population, but not by about 1/4 th as it is now.
Brooks does not want to talk about this, for obvious reasons, but while the U.S. had a far less meritocratic system in the 1950s, the system today isn’t that much fair either. It favours you if you have a certain religion or skincolor. The exception to this rule are Asians, who are now excluded even more than whites from college, which is part of the reason why most U.S. Asians have mixed feelings, at best, about college admissions(even if their official organizations all support affirmative action, the concept of an unrepresantative group of leaders should not be unfamilliar with Jews here).
So I do think Brooks misses the point slightly on his attack on the current elites. Their values are just fine, it’s that they don’t export them to the rest of the nation.
My pet peeve about the fact that everyone misses that the old-time WASPs were held together more by family structure(class) and gender than race is missed in his column, but then again everyone seems to miss that.
Also, stuff like immigration naturally weakens the foundation of a strong welfare state which America in many ways actually had up until the 1960s. The more diverse a society becomes, the more ‘estranged’ people become from each other. It isn’t doom and gloom but a welfare state requires people in some sense to self-sacrifice for the better good. It helps a lot if everyone can relate to each other in racial/cultural terms.
And finally, Brooks is slightly wrong on the college admissions thing. The system is better than it was in 1950s, but it favours Jews especially, because we have a privileged position in America but can also use our minority status for AA admissions. Blacks and hispanics get AA too, but I don’t think anyone can say that they are privileged. Asians are losers, and (gentile) whites are too.
So although I think the topic is fascinating, I still think many aspects are underreported from the past as well the here and now. The reason why he doesn’t mention the current unequalities in college admissions(I’m exluding AA for blacks/hispanics as I think a good case can be made for that), or in other words, how a lot of Jewish students get places at Ivy’s on behalf of more talented working-class whites and asians is also probably something he does not want to talk about, for obvious reasons(again, fear of anti-semitism etc).
Also, with the rise of so-called ‘legacy students’ the less-than-gifted offspring(whether WASP or Jewish) of very rich donors are more or less guaranteed a place. So in this sense, maybe admission to college today are not that different? The difference, perhaps, is that this time it’s Jews, and not WASPs, that are disproportionately benefitting, which I guess is a major factor why Brooks omits the topic alltogether.
(Phew! That was long!)
Here is an interview by Jonathan Miller of Arthur Miller on the subject of atheism. While that might seem irrelevant to the issue, Arthur Miller discusses the pervasive climate of Antisemitism in prewar American, one example being the popularity of the notorious Father Coughlin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwk8F3UUZ-c&feature=related