How indeed did so many elites get so vulgar? There are many strands to this question. We may look at the elitism of university education these days which promotes radicalism rather than rationalism. We can go back thousands of years to see a human tendency to dominate. We can see how there always seems to be an entitled bunch who think t…
How indeed did so many elites get so vulgar? There are many strands to this question. We may look at the elitism of university education these days which promotes radicalism rather than rationalism. We can go back thousands of years to see a human tendency to dominate. We can see how there always seems to be an entitled bunch who think themselves superior beings for whatever specious reasons. Which is why it was so hard to establish a democracy in the first place since people often hold those thoughts without thinking in any reasonable and broader context. Then there is child raising itself, what constitutes the law and order of it, and when, in the child's life. Then there are the fashionable and fad movements that try out this or that new concept of everything above. As if our constitution weren't a pretty good grounding to stand on. The renegade religious factions that do cheap interpretations of moral responsibility are not holding up, as if the very idea of real democracy is somehow offensive to them, limiting the hierarchical tendencies within. We so all do need to GTFU our culture and our country.
One thing I like in Heather's today is the balanced way she looks at courts at their best.
Decorum matters in court proceedings. Rules matters because they, like the law itself, spring from experience, from a considered history in how we may keep many freedoms, that based on some modicum of respect for each other.
I think too many of our elites have lost it because they've been to schools where no one accesses humanities for seeing others.
Where none has humanities (for public use), there emerge all the scoundrels, excesses you cite.
Courts, to go on reading Heather, may keep some balance. But courts unaided by schools to keep us apprised of each other?
We've Jane Mayer and others recording the self-poisoning of our billionaires. She, Sheldon Whitehouse, Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow -- all necessary.
But can we count on these few, if our schools as a rule just succumb to the billionaires' plans to keep our schools and thus most of us dehumanized, ready for the mobs which the Clarence court, the fat orange guy, and too many Republicans succor?
Too many of our 1% are trustifarians-- where their wealth was handed to them on a silver platter. They never had to think about what they want to be when they grow up, only where I can party when I get to college.
Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and many others have worked their entire lives to build their empires and they don't consider themselves to be elites. And then there are the Betsy Devoses and the Linda Waltons who have never accomplished anything but yet they are part of the elite class.
As Warren Buffett says, "inheritance is welfare for the rich." He let his kids believe they would receive nothing from him and his wife, until they were productive citizens.
How indeed did so many elites get so vulgar? There are many strands to this question. We may look at the elitism of university education these days which promotes radicalism rather than rationalism. We can go back thousands of years to see a human tendency to dominate. We can see how there always seems to be an entitled bunch who think themselves superior beings for whatever specious reasons. Which is why it was so hard to establish a democracy in the first place since people often hold those thoughts without thinking in any reasonable and broader context. Then there is child raising itself, what constitutes the law and order of it, and when, in the child's life. Then there are the fashionable and fad movements that try out this or that new concept of everything above. As if our constitution weren't a pretty good grounding to stand on. The renegade religious factions that do cheap interpretations of moral responsibility are not holding up, as if the very idea of real democracy is somehow offensive to them, limiting the hierarchical tendencies within. We so all do need to GTFU our culture and our country.
Thank you, Robin.
One thing I like in Heather's today is the balanced way she looks at courts at their best.
Decorum matters in court proceedings. Rules matters because they, like the law itself, spring from experience, from a considered history in how we may keep many freedoms, that based on some modicum of respect for each other.
I think too many of our elites have lost it because they've been to schools where no one accesses humanities for seeing others.
Where none has humanities (for public use), there emerge all the scoundrels, excesses you cite.
Courts, to go on reading Heather, may keep some balance. But courts unaided by schools to keep us apprised of each other?
We've Jane Mayer and others recording the self-poisoning of our billionaires. She, Sheldon Whitehouse, Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow -- all necessary.
But can we count on these few, if our schools as a rule just succumb to the billionaires' plans to keep our schools and thus most of us dehumanized, ready for the mobs which the Clarence court, the fat orange guy, and too many Republicans succor?
Too many of our 1% are trustifarians-- where their wealth was handed to them on a silver platter. They never had to think about what they want to be when they grow up, only where I can party when I get to college.
Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and many others have worked their entire lives to build their empires and they don't consider themselves to be elites. And then there are the Betsy Devoses and the Linda Waltons who have never accomplished anything but yet they are part of the elite class.
As Warren Buffett says, "inheritance is welfare for the rich." He let his kids believe they would receive nothing from him and his wife, until they were productive citizens.
Being born poor was a gift, at least I knew that I would have to earn what I got.