Asia's Cult of Intelligence versus the US' Cult of Ignorance

[Meursault]

The problem is populism. In all other societies - at least those with a history of aristocracy - the conservative impulse translates itself as an elitist, hierarchical phenomenon. Education is to be valued as a status symbol.

Not so here in America, where the Right is socially levelling. Here we have the sickening experience of right-wing class warfare, against cultural 'elites'. Which is why our Right can make a champion of so vile and inferior a specimen of humanity as, say, that bearded "man" from Duck Dynasty.

[Meursault]

Elitism is useful because it dissolves artificial hierarchies rooted in popular superstition and prejudice (homophobia and racism) in favor of a natural stratification founded on ability. This is not the false market meritocracy of Capital, but a modern reconception of the ancient sense of noblesse oblige.

The masses love Jesus and hate the Other. The masses, then, should be brought to heel.

[Meursault]

^

Observe the stupidity that attaches itself to market liberalism, in the guise of populism, at work.

[Meursault]

Not at all. I've never attended college - I never even completed high school. I do not expect to be a member of the elite, and would not warrant being one. What I advocate for I do out of contempt for the course of Western history since the eighteenth (and really since the third) century and because a vertically-structured society, done right, can accomplish progressive aims better than a democratized one ever will.

[Meursault]

I don't remotely care about economics. Being lumpen frees me to focus my attention on cultural concerns. And in that sphere you peddle the same mindless moronism as your fellow Republicans, despite the veneer of being an accultured neoliberal you've adopted.

[Meursault]

If I were dictator, the second thing I'd do (the first being to place large orders of jackboots, suspenders and peaked caps) would be to send fifty or sixty of the gendarmerie to the University of Chicago with a list of names and some streetsweepers.