The Elite and their Marionettes

Forget the swell and heave of crowds. Like any herd, all it takes is the snap of a twig to convince them to stampede. Avoid at all costs the tastes of the many. Popularity is not a sign of quality, but of mediocrity and prosaic concerns. Disavow without presumption the opinions of the multitude, whom with a gravitation towards an Orwellian doublethink, fall easily and without resistance into hypocrisy and duplicity. Above all, remain an individual, only somewhat similar to this ever growing mass of a species but never quite the same. Don’t lose sight of the fact that crowds are composed of separate, autonomous, and distinct beings of which you are one. The claims to unity and solidarity are signs not of fact but of a yearning to belong, and the tyranny involved in making it a reality. Defend your sovereignty against the instinct to reduce yourself to whatever labels are in vogue or haphazardly thrown at you by yourself or others, as if they were in some way correct, for they most certainly are not.

Always observe the rhetoric.

Aah “the people”! Is there anything more hilarious, and at the same time, more dangerous than your average human being? How they tout themselves as deserving of life, liberty and happiness on account of them being born, which seems to me the absolute least that one can do to earn something. Perhaps it is their God-given privilege to be endowed with certain entitlements the moment they begin taking up precious space, while everything else throughout their lives they would put on the rack of their exploitation in order to maintain these privileges.

Ask “His Holiness” the Dalai Lama what most people want and he’ll give you at least an honest answer, but in practice, an insidious one. “Happiness” he will say—but he will never mention at what cost. That’s because we already know at what cost. We like to call them “resources”, which is an obscenely euphemistic term for our abuse of the Earth, that small and exhaustible planet we find ourselves upon. If that is your desire, build yourselves a happiness machine, hook yourself up to it, set it to run until the end of your life, and be done with it. I’ll make sure to turn it off when you’re finished.

So you feel yourself deviating from populism, and hence, from the newest force of nature? My friend, between you and me, beware your tongue. Speak against the multitude within distance of any crowd and you will receive their mob justice. It is the mark of a gentleman, never a gang of hoi polloi, to entertain dissent or any contrarianism. It is often good to remember that as long as one person still holds an opposite opinion, they deserve our care and diligent attention, lest we forget how to justify our own opinions. But disputation for its own sake is not a principle of the masses. Identity politics is their surreptitious modus operandi. For instance pick the ideological trend of the weak, maybe western feminism, maybe atheism, maybe anti-authoritarianism, maybe humanism, maybe western attempts at buddhism and hinduism, and remark on the holes in their doctrines. They arrive in droves at the first sniff of dissent. In cases like these silence too is a wise choice, because sometimes they actually want you to face them like that tank in Tiananmen Square, when perhaps it wouldn’t make a difference anyways. This tank, however, isn’t stopping. If all else fails, smiles, humour and irony—the weapons of the oppressed—is the only way to subvert their ever-growing desire to tear you apart, and to remain a little more than a pulpy mess beneath their treads.

Apparently, unpopular opinion causes a rabies-like response in any horde, especially to those who have far too much stake in what they believe—like the religious or political fanatics, or those who treat their labels as if they were family-crests and national flags, and other such arbitrariness. Speaking in any way unfavourably of their labels is an attack on their family or their very own person. The amusing aspect of this stupidity is that herd-people such as this likely have very little in common with others who share the exact same label, and yet they stand together as if they were brothers, and march arm in arm towards the same ideal and to sometimes catastrophic extent, with no care or concern who they are actually holding hands with because they simply have no clue who they are, but as long as they sport the same tag and share similar feelings is their measure. When standing against a majority such as this and in the direct face of such narcissistic “solidarity”, whether in argument or rebellion, refuse also to adopt the opposite label, even though it may be tempting. They too are the multitude.

Seek your escape. But upon slowly turning your back to them and sauntering to the nearest exit, it is usually at this point where the throng begin to suspect you of elitism for having lost touch with the plebs. You do not like what they and many others hold dear, and when you’ve let your dissenting voice be heard, maybe even accidentally, you’ve turned into some arrogant, haughty and egotistic snob for telling them why. Rather than put up with this sort of stupidity, which, when argued through the typical fallacy and emotion, is basically a furtive admission of one’s own inadequacies amidst a series of fatuous non-sequiturs, you might do best to seek some solitude before they seek their mob justice. Pride is not any sort of armour against a riotous horde, and it would be best for the Earth if you were to denounce your own ideas as simple foolishness before falling into line behind the crowd—lying the whole time, of course—at least until you’re well out of arms length. Never die for an idea. Never risk life and appendage for a mere concept, for you’ll be losing something infinitely greater. Martyrdom is for fools.

Of course, I’m sure you have well-thought out and rational reasons for refusing their constant attempts at your conscription into their chosen ideologies, which is all their tribalism amounts to. This is the least you can do, especially knowing that the charge of arrogance is almost certainly on its way. It is no strange irony that anyone who calls you arrogant with any sort of presumption or conjecture towards what you actually do know and actually do understand, which they have no clue of, is doing so in a display of the utmost arrogance of their own. Unlike them you prefer facts, evidence and reasons for speaking as you do; all they have is presumption, and, as per custom, the sheer arrogance to believe it and then act on it.

I actually don’t mind the charge of elitism. Perhaps by my accuser’s own admission he is inferior after all. Who am I to tell him otherwise? Of course, if their previous trifles are any indication, they don’t know what it means to be an elite. Oh, the arrogance; the snobbery. These strange and shadowy figures who sit atop their ivory towers with their fingers all up in your strings. And the populace? you are their flickering marionettes, with each subtle tug a denial of freedom, a denial of sovereignty, as they force you to jump through their fiery hoops, the whole time banking whatever power they syphon from you only to use it against you again and again and again. They laugh like fattened pigs. Isn’t that so?

This is at least what they’d like us to think. However, I fail to see any shackles. In fact, I think I see people doing exactly what they wan’t to do. Still, there are some who blame authority, institutions, government, which are for the most part ran by people like us who wake up and go to work every day, even our neighbours. Where are these puppet strings?

Even now you face a verbose diatribe, and perhaps you feel pangs of contempt and anger at the words you read right now, which basically amounts to the overuse of a few negative and pejorative verses in order to evoke emotional responses, of which I hope you’d hesitate to act upon. Maybe you imagine in your head a person or even yourself when I sweepingly generalize what can’t be generalized, and feel a need to defend this person and her honor. Do you not ask why you imagine this? And if you haven’t been led by these strings and see my rhetoric for what it is, you have already the necessary tools to disengage from and stand outside of and look down upon this monstrosity we call human history.

Human history is rhetoric. Your puppet strings. Rhetoric is what connects leaders like Jesus to Socrates to Churchill to Dr. King to Hitler. The art of convincing leads to believing, and one doesn’t believe until he is convinced to do so. It’s marketing. It’s propaganda. It’s media. It’s speeches. It’s literature. It’s philosophy. It’s religion. It’s education. It’s Twitter for Christ’s sake. Look exactly to what they’ve removed from public childhood education, and hence unavailable during the most important stages of learning for any human being, to realize what the public lacks in comparison with their so-called overlords—the Trivium, “where the three roads meet”, the education once reserved for the privileged or the lucky, conveniently left out of the public education system. Plato saw the Trivium as necessary to any education, but in its absence, the greatest danger to society, that he seemed fit to suggest philosopher kings who might defend against it. Today it is absent, and the leaders are far from philosopher kings. He noticed the danger of sophistry, how easy it is to convince entire democracies, to convince entire city states, to convince the most powerful men through rhetoric. He knew because he was a sophist himself. It isn’t that the masses are inferior, it’s that they are always convinced that they are.

And if we remove their ability to sway with words, if we disarm them, do the elite control us?

Observe also the CEOs and the ultra-rich. Can one be superior to another on account of how much money or corporate sway he has? The opposite would be closer to truth. Greed is a mark of inferiority, a mark of the rabble, who curse the rich but rarely curse their own envy in doing so. There have been plenty of instances of the self-proclaimed inferiors striking it rich, and guess how many of them continued living the way they always have, just like the rich always have. And we also might ask: would a truly elite person need an entourage? Would a superior person need someone to cook and clean for him? to do his laundry? to drive him around? to open his doors and tuck him into bed at night? Children and the infirm require the same attention.

I think it was Plato again who said that if one doesn’t concern himself with politics, he risks being governed by his inferiors. A valid point; but also indicative of another point: it is usually the inferiors that concern themselves with politics. One simple look at any politician will confirm this. Though the public whom he governs may see and even believe him to be a superior, an authority, and thus an elite, he is no such thing. Not even close. In fact, in most cases he is older, weaker, and softened by certain privileges, and is likely more feeble than most individuals of the populace he governs. Worse, he too is one of the many, a human being—except, perhaps, that he has learned the necessary tools to convince them otherwise.

Not so elite after all. I was actually expecting a lot more. And we once again walk away disappointed.

Thank you for reading,

LesMis

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Well done..very good read. .

Thanks,
blend57

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Quite elegant.

Those whose seek to control others due so out a feeling of inferiority. Believing the more followers they have the more superior they are. However, those who attempt this only seek to extenuate their own inferiority complex.

If one was truly superior he would have no desire to control others. His superiority would be obvious and people would follow without the need to be subjected to the laws of the inferior.

The superior do not follow anyone except themselves and only encourage others to do the same.

We may share group opinions, but in no way are we bound by them. Our minds are free to roam and change on a whim, despite what the popular opinion may be.

To be oneself is to be superior.

And hence why we are stretching our budget so hard to put our child in a classical curriculum school. You are right about the trivium.

Public education is more about what to think than how. Trivium is about how.

Haven't read all the way through but very well written & am enjoying it greatly. Thank You.

Plato was also against democracy for the same reason. One of the most popular (and in my opnion) best arguement against democracy is that people are generally held sway by rhetoric rather than by reason. One doesn't have to look far into history for examples of how and why people will believe things that are wildly incorrect.

This also might simply be a dissonance of values, money may be considered 'earthly' or 'unwholesome' or what have you, but in our society, it is the standard by which one becomes or is 'elite'. In another society, loyalty and service to the party may have been the ticket, in others, loyalty to a spiritual figure or system might have been it, in others, it might have been passed on from blood to blood.

Out of curiosity, LesMisanthrope, by what standard to you think an 'elite' should be judged by, if any?

To me it seems until technology advances to a certain point where material ownership becomes inconsequenial (which may be a long time from now), society will always have it elites, so while perhaps money isn't the best qualifier, and money-manipulators aren't neccesarily the best leaders, by what other standard should an elite be selected?

To me, it seems like the only other alternative would be a 'loyalty to the state' ticket to power (which has all the trappings of machiavallianism and throat-cutting of the private sector of our society) or inheritance by blood, which seems to have waned in popularity so much it would be nigh impossible for it to be installed again. (Through it wouldn't neccesarily be a bad thing.)

And by what moral standard are these elites worse than the average person? Talking to my fellow plebians, it seems that they are often just as greedy as any theoretical wealthy person. Are the victorious wicked simply for being victorious where others have failed? or do you believe that the average person also has materialistic considerations because it is what they have been manipulated into thinking?

Unfortunately rhetoric is ubiquitous in high education. Learning rhetoric might be the only result of many degrees.
The learning of rhetoric as a means to discern sophistry is a tool useful to a new young thinker. The new or young thinker has less experience and knowledge and therefore cannot disprove many cajoling and cozening assertions. But inserting rhetoric into the basic program gives it a primacy that encourages its use. Much of the schooling I received in essay writing emphasized rhetoric as the goal of good writing. Not clarity or logic or grammar, but rhetoric.

Better would be teaching the identification of truth. That would make rhetoric irrelevant.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Nice,do you see humans and their ideals the same as a monkey in nature?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Nice,do you see humans and their ideals the same as a monkey in nature?

a reply to: Semicollegiate

Unfortunately rhetoric is ubiquitous in high education. Learning rhetoric might be the only result of many degrees.
The learning of rhetoric as a means to discern sophistry is a tool useful to a new young thinker. The new or young thinker has less experience and knowledge and therefore cannot disprove many cajoling and cozening assertions. But inserting rhetoric into the basic program gives it a primacy that encourages its use. Much of the schooling I received in essay writing emphasized rhetoric as the goal of good writing. Not clarity or logic or grammar, but rhetoric.

Better would be teaching the identification of truth. That would make rhetoric irrelevant.

Rhetoric is only one aspect of the three-part trivium. But a necessary step in dismantling the rhetoric we see every day. In classical education, the trivium comes before the more specialized quadrivium, and is taught in this order: grammar, logic, rhetoric. So even if rhetoric is ubiquitous in higher-education, it is not ubiquitous when it is needed most. Grammar, logic and rhetoric need to be taught right away, in that order, in early education, when students are at their most inquisitive and innocent, rather than later in life. This sort of schooling was reserved for the elite (those who could afford it) in ancient Greece and in Medieval times. Seems it still is today.

a reply to: HeliopolisTheophilus

Out of curiosity, LesMisanthrope, by what standard to you think an 'elite' should be judged by, if any?

I think people are elite at certain things. Tiger Woods for instance is elite at golf, whereas I am probably better than him at fishing and mountaineering. Someone perhaps like a Da Vinci or Pascal or Göethe who excelled at many things in the domains of art, philosophy, science, statesmanship etc. may be closer to my idea of elite. But I would throw in the aspect of health as a necessary prerequisite to a superior person. Biological superiority—that is, both in mind and body—can be attained.

And by what moral standard are these elites worse than the average person? Talking to my fellow plebians, it seems that they are often just as greedy as any theoretical wealthy person. Are the victorious wicked simply for being victorious where others have failed? or do you believe that the average person also has materialistic considerations because it is what they have been manipulated into thinking?

They aren't any worse or any better. In fact I would say the common vernacular usage of "elite", as someone rich and powerful, is the definition of an average person, with average needs.

a reply to: Semicollegiate

A good curriculum teaches both - logic and rhetoric. Trivium does this. Students in the second stage begin to learn logic in addition to their other studies, and students in the third stage add rhetoric so they can learn to put that logic to use in formulating and deconstructing arguments.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Semicollegiate

Unfortunately rhetoric is ubiquitous in high education. Learning rhetoric might be the only result of many degrees.
The learning of rhetoric as a means to discern sophistry is a tool useful to a new young thinker. The new or young thinker has less experience and knowledge and therefore cannot disprove many cajoling and cozening assertions. But inserting rhetoric into the basic program gives it a primacy that encourages its use. Much of the schooling I received in essay writing emphasized rhetoric as the goal of good writing. Not clarity or logic or grammar, but rhetoric.

Better would be teaching the identification of truth. That would make rhetoric irrelevant.

Rhetoric is only one aspect of the three-part trivium. But a necessary step in dismantling the rhetoric we see every day. In classical education, the trivium comes before the more specialized quadrivium, and is taught in this order: grammar, logic, rhetoric. So even if rhetoric is ubiquitous in higher-education, it is not ubiquitous when it is needed most. Grammar, logic and rhetoric need to be taught right away, in that order, in early education, when students are at their most inquisitive and innocent, rather than later in life. This sort of schooling was reserved for the elite (those who could afford it) in ancient Greece and in Medieval times. Seems it still is today.

Discerning or verifying the truth seems to me the more important ability. Truth makes rhetoric irrelevant, except in politics.

My major complaint against rhetoric is that it begs the question that other people should execute your will. I prefer that other people do what is best for them and let me do the same.

Rhetoric is essentially criminal. It would have people follow your direction for no truthful reason.

a reply to: Semicollegiate

But if you know the tools of the enemy then you are equipped to see through his ploys. Do you see?

Whether or not you ever use rhetoric, learning about it trains your mind and learning to recognize it and deconstruct it makes you less susceptible to it.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Semicollegiate

A good curriculum teaches both - logic and rhetoric. Trivium does this. Students in the second stage begin to learn logic in addition to their other studies, and students in the third stage add rhetoric so they can learn to put that logic to use in formulating and deconstructing arguments.

A good argument should have no rhetoric in it. It should be a proof, or a collection of facts and reasons.

Rhetoric is de facto praise of deceit. And it is not necessary if a person stays close to what he/she knows.

a reply to: Semicollegiate

Discerning or verifying the truth seems to me the more important ability. Truth makes rhetoric irrelevant, except in politics.

My major complaint against rhetoric is that it begs the question that other people should execute your will. I prefer that other people do what is best for them and let me do the same.

Rhetoric is essentially criminal. It would have people follow your direction for no truthful reason.

How would you propose this?

a reply to: Semicollegiate

The art of communication and convincing is indeed dangerous, but only if others do not have the necessary means to defend against it. That is my point. Without a knowledge of rhetoric, others will use it against you.

But I disagree rhetoric is essentially criminal. Though it is true that one can convince others through rhetoric the opposite of truth, one can also do the same with truth. It's about effectiveness, clarity and beauty in composition.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Semicollegiate

Discerning or verifying the truth seems to me the more important ability. Truth makes rhetoric irrelevant, except in politics.

My major complaint against rhetoric is that it begs the question that other people should execute your will. I prefer that other people do what is best for them and let me do the same.

Rhetoric is essentially criminal. It would have people follow your direction for no truthful reason.

How would you propose this?

Stay close to what you know. Gambling on an assumption can be a reasonable act, but remember that you are taking a chance.

a reply to: Semicollegiate

Stay close to what you know. Gambling on an assumption can be a reasonable act, but remember that you are taking a chance.

How do you know what you know is correct? Surely there must be a set of fundamentals in place first.