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Elites who are out of touch with the native culture or even hostile towards it tend to cause populist reactions. Take SV elites for example. Bezos, Zuckerberg,

Elites who are out of touch with the native culture or even hostile towards it tend to cause populist reactions. Take SV elites for example. Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Dorsey seem out of touch in a way Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford did not.

charlesism 8y ago
TS Eliot: a man from old money, who went to Harvard (which CW Eliot was president of, btw). His experience of slumming it was working as a banker. Then he went on to become a celebrated poet. Hard to think of anyone further out of touch.
- programmarchy 8y ago
  That’s an ad hom, so not sure what your point is. I was responding to the content in the essay. edit: And based on what he wrote, he seems pretty in touch with American culture to me. Kind of proves his point on the distinction between class and elite.
  - charlesism 8y ago
    That’s an ad hom Pretty much. If Queen Elizabeth wrote an essay advocating a return to absolute monarchy, I'd do the same.
    - linksnapzz 8y ago
      QE2 is about as likely to start writing lurid romance novels as she is to write anything approaching that. The Mountbatten-Windsor-Saxe-Coberg-Gotha-Hanovers have been in the royal family business for 300 years precisely because they are disinclined to have exactly that opinion. The Price of Wales has stated that he'll stop having public opinions about health food and modern architecture when he accedes...nobody, least of all him, thinks he should have any thoughts at all about the Proper Role of the Monarch in Government, and if it should change.
      - charlesism 8y ago
        QE2 is about as likely to start writing lurid romance novels as she is to write anything approaching that. I didn't mean to suggest it would ever happen (Cut to Nigel Farage weeping)
  - dpwm 8y ago
    Identifying a clearly vested interest and inherent bias in a person defending the system that they personally benefited from is a fairly accepted standard part of critical discourse. Without being critical of the origin of ideas and the interests that lay behind them, you're vulnerable to all sorts of manipulation. Think of the thousands of man hours that can go into producing content you can consume in hours. Regarding the content of the essay, I stopped reading at the straw-man guilt-by-association definition of levellers -- quite clearly an attempt to manipulate.
dpwm 8y ago
> Take SV elites for example. Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Dorsey seem out of touch in a way Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford did not. You are not comparing like with like -- you even give it away in the tenses that you use. The first three are not like the last three. Rockefeller came after Ida Tarbell after she investigated his trust and exposed some of the methods used by Standard Oil. Carnegie went to extensive lengths to break worker unions. Ford allowed his name, negligently or otherwise, to be put against a series of antisemitic articles that were published in 1920s Germany. The first three have spent considerable money on philanthropic efforts that serve to bolster their names. The last three haven't yet. They've still got time. We may know what's made them unpopular now; we don't know what will make them revered in a hundred-years time when any controversies will be lost as little insignificant details in time.
- programmarchy 8y ago
  I chose those tenses to put the characters into the context of their time. Rockefeller oil, Carnegie steel, and Ford cars paved the way for the Industrial Revolution in America. They were building things in America, for Americans. Breaking worker unions and criticizing international elites were not considered anti-American activities in their time, despite our modern proclivities. They were viewed as titans who built up American might. The smear of "robber baron" didn't come until later when Matthew Josephson popularized the term. In contrast, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter are not building up American industry and making it stronger; they're mostly parasitic and toxic. Facebook has latched on to the desire of people to stay connected and become a tool to manipulate public opinion and serve advertisements. Amazon is essentially a giant middleman, which has helped demolish local mom and pops, by leveraging structural advantages granted by the state to operate at scale. Twitter has degraded public discourse to trolling and taken on the role of thought police. I could go on. Of course the Silicon Valley elites are out of touch. Their business models take advantage of the little guy, which is why they must show contempt towards the little guy. They are elites without any class. The industrialists were much more aligned with American interests. They were elites, but also had class.
bryanrasmussen 8y ago
I might accept that Ford and Carnegie were not out of touch with the popular culture, especially when they were younger. But where's the data on Rockefeller. Anyway those other two - I'd probably want to see data for how in touch they were after 10 years of wealth.

charlesism 8y ago

TS Eliot: a man from old money, who went to Harvard (which CW Eliot was president of, btw). His experience of slumming it was working as a banker. Then he went on to become a celebrated poet. Hard to think of anyone further out of touch.

programmarchy 8y ago
That’s an ad hom, so not sure what your point is. I was responding to the content in the essay. edit: And based on what he wrote, he seems pretty in touch with American culture to me. Kind of proves his point on the distinction between class and elite.
- charlesism 8y ago
  That’s an ad hom Pretty much. If Queen Elizabeth wrote an essay advocating a return to absolute monarchy, I'd do the same.
  - linksnapzz 8y ago
    QE2 is about as likely to start writing lurid romance novels as she is to write anything approaching that. The Mountbatten-Windsor-Saxe-Coberg-Gotha-Hanovers have been in the royal family business for 300 years precisely because they are disinclined to have exactly that opinion. The Price of Wales has stated that he'll stop having public opinions about health food and modern architecture when he accedes...nobody, least of all him, thinks he should have any thoughts at all about the Proper Role of the Monarch in Government, and if it should change.
    - charlesism 8y ago
      QE2 is about as likely to start writing lurid romance novels as she is to write anything approaching that. I didn't mean to suggest it would ever happen (Cut to Nigel Farage weeping)
- dpwm 8y ago
  Identifying a clearly vested interest and inherent bias in a person defending the system that they personally benefited from is a fairly accepted standard part of critical discourse. Without being critical of the origin of ideas and the interests that lay behind them, you're vulnerable to all sorts of manipulation. Think of the thousands of man hours that can go into producing content you can consume in hours. Regarding the content of the essay, I stopped reading at the straw-man guilt-by-association definition of levellers -- quite clearly an attempt to manipulate.

dpwm 8y ago

> Take SV elites for example. Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Dorsey seem out of touch in a way Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford did not. You are not comparing like with like -- you even give it away in the tenses that you use. The first three are not like the last three. Rockefeller came after Ida Tarbell after she investigated his trust and exposed some of the methods used by Standard Oil. Carnegie went to extensive lengths to break worker unions. Ford allowed his name, negligently or otherwise, to be put against a series of antisemitic articles that were published in 1920s Germany. The first three have spent considerable money on philanthropic efforts that serve to bolster their names. The last three haven't yet. They've still got time. We may know what's made them unpopular now; we don't know what will make them revered in a hundred-years time when any controversies will be lost as little insignificant details in time.

programmarchy 8y ago
I chose those tenses to put the characters into the context of their time. Rockefeller oil, Carnegie steel, and Ford cars paved the way for the Industrial Revolution in America. They were building things in America, for Americans. Breaking worker unions and criticizing international elites were not considered anti-American activities in their time, despite our modern proclivities. They were viewed as titans who built up American might. The smear of "robber baron" didn't come until later when Matthew Josephson popularized the term. In contrast, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter are not building up American industry and making it stronger; they're mostly parasitic and toxic. Facebook has latched on to the desire of people to stay connected and become a tool to manipulate public opinion and serve advertisements. Amazon is essentially a giant middleman, which has helped demolish local mom and pops, by leveraging structural advantages granted by the state to operate at scale. Twitter has degraded public discourse to trolling and taken on the role of thought police. I could go on. Of course the Silicon Valley elites are out of touch. Their business models take advantage of the little guy, which is why they must show contempt towards the little guy. They are elites without any class. The industrialists were much more aligned with American interests. They were elites, but also had class.

bryanrasmussen 8y ago

I might accept that Ford and Carnegie were not out of touch with the popular culture, especially when they were younger. But where's the data on Rockefeller. Anyway those other two - I'd probably want to see data for how in touch they were after 10 years of wealth.