{Pascal the existential Russian blue cat has been searching somewhat aimlessly through various archives, hoping to find something to spark his interest. He found an essay based on the premise that the problem with democracy is people—the wrong sort of people, that is—and he decided to have at it. And yes, Pascal knows that today is Thursday; he just refuses to change the standard title of his post.}
Marcia Christoff Reina has (or had, as of 2014, when her essay “Why Democracy Needs Aristocracy” was first published) a bone to pick with most of us:
Today, a corrupted notion of “the Individual” has fundamentally rendered the massive problems of the United States no longer merely political but philosophical. This, in turn, has been the result of two vastly different understandings of democracy of which the country has lost sight: aristocratic democracy, which is what the Founders had intended, and egalitarian democracy, which is what we’ve created, much to our peril.
Ms. Reina begins by defining (one of) her terms: “To be clear: ‘Egalitarian’ does not mean equality; it means the lowest common denominator having the highest possible cultural and political influence, whether elite or popular.”
I’m sure Reina has her sources, but her definition of “egalitarian” is at odds with the prevailing view, as expressed by Wikipedia:
“Egalitarianism, or equalitarianism, is a political philosophy that prioritizes the concept of social equality for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or moral status. As such, all people should be accorded equal rights and treatment under the law. Egalitarian doctrines have supported many modern social movements, including the Enlightenment, feminism, civil rights, and international human rights. Egalitarianism emphasizes equal opportunities for all individuals, regardless of their background or circumstances; it aims to level the playing field and reduce disparities that result from social inequalities.”
The usual charge leveled by conservatives against egalitarianism is that it demands not just equal opportunities but equal outcomes. Ms. Reina at least avoids that trope; she focuses instead on how modern egalitarianism amounts to a coup against the aristocracy upon whom she believes democracy is dependent. For support, she cites “Thomas Jefferson’s self-admitted search for the “natural aristoi” he wanted to cultivate for public service,” and “his argument that education in a Republic must be “democratic and aristocratic”. 1 “One is also reminded,” Ms. Reina continues, “of Madison’s and Hamilton’s almost obsessive fear of “mobocracy” and their revulsion towards the idea of direct democracy. ‘When I mention the public, I mean the rational part of it; the ignorant and vulgar [are] unfit to manage its reins,’ wrote Madison.”
The Founders’ antipathy towards direct democracy is well known, which is why Americans have had to be content with representative democracy instead, including such anti-democratic features as the U.S. Senate, the Electoral College, the legislative filibuster, etc. Such existing guardrails have endured for over two hundred years, but they are not enough to suit Ms. Reina, who believes that an egalitarian citizenry, heads stuffed with drivel peddled by mass media, mass culture, and mass education, will inevitably drive our politics into a ditch:
If modern Western democracy is to survive, it must incorporate that which it has long regarded as its diametrical opposite—the aristocratic. If this democracy is to perish, it will continue to promote that which has been falsely regarded as its best element—the egalitarian (the here and now, the mass appetite). If things stay as they currently are, democracy in general will increasingly take on characteristics of the totalitarian, or what Jefferson warned of as an “elective despotism”, in which in the will of a leader will become totally responsible for the helpless whole.
Even if we escape, or at least delay, our political destruction, Reina sees egalitarianism (i.e., everything designed for the lowest common social denominator) as having a pernicious effect on, well, everything. “The egalitarian,” she explains, “is on a path of destruction. He creates for the short-term, because the past is invariably a source of evil, the future is beyond his control or care, and the present is an ordeal to get through. The short-term is the convenient, the instantaneous, the whetting of an appetite. Soon, the short-term becomes not only the economic, but the political, cultural, and social mentality of choice. This becomes the short-term in financial practices, in political expediency, in art, in education standards, the short-term in human relationships and commitments, all of it leading to the current crop of human capital we have today in the West: a population that is not really fit for democracy as it must be maintained.”
When you welcome the mob into the palace, you cannot express surprise when the silverware is stolen, the artwork vandalized, and the draperies and carpets abused. Ms. Reina holds egalitarians responsible for teaching that “The individual—his individual gain, his search for profit, his self-interest, his personal distinction or even ‘glory’—represents something distasteful at best, irretrievably criminal and inherently corrupt at worst. The egalitarian becomes the goal, while the aristocratic—the main driver of standards and of long-term planning—becomes the object of resentment.”
Aristocracy, whatever the Founders thought of it, has never been accepted by Americans. We have had our family dynasties, political and economic—e.g., Adams, Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Bush—but we have pretended to be a society without class structures or divisions, a nation where Jed Clampett could enjoy a pleasant evening with Amy Vanderbilt and where Bo and Luke Duke could date Gabor sisters. Despite that, Ms. Reina does not believe that the American experiment should be entrusted to commoners, rustics, or the lumpen proletariat; she insists that we need nobility and gallantry if we are to survive. “The aristocratic element,” she concludes, “has reverence for the past and it plans for the future. This is the necessary instinct democracy needs anew; in the US, it was the outlook of Madison, Adams and Jefferson, who refer time and again to the need of a ‘gallant citizenry’ to uphold their vast and incredible experiment. Such is the outlook of the kind of individual whom no great force—emperor, soldier, government—can replace.”
Ms. Reina implies that it is only great men who make history. She may be right; the problem, though, as James Joyce explained, is that history is a nightmare from which all of us are trying to awake. As far as I'm concerned, the less history we make, the better.
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Why Democracy Needs Aristocracy - The Imaginative Conservative
About - MARCIA A. CHRISTOFF REINA (marciachristoff.com)
1 Indeed (as Wikipedia helpfully confirms), Jefferson believed that “the best geniuses must be raked from the rubbish annually” by an education system meant to identify, and nurture, the best and the brightest. The Jeffersonian aristocracy would today be called a “meritocracy”; most people are in favor of such a thing, though they would probably avoid Jefferson’s “rubbish” metaphor.
God save the aristocracy!
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