THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 19, 1995 TAG: 9502160336
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER LEE PHILIPS
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
THE REVOLT OF THE ELITES
And the Betrayal of Democracy
CHRISTOPHER LASCH
W.W. Norton & Co. 276 pp. $22.
HISTORIAN CHRISTOPHER LASCH died of cancer last February, leaving a powerful and enduring body of critical works that presents a perceptive analysis of 20th century American liberalism. In The Revolt of the Elites, Lasch rebukes liberals and conservatives alike for their self-sustaining insularity from the fundamental issues of public life and their trivializing of democratic discourse in the age of mass communications.
Lasch's title is in contradistinction to Spanish metaphysician Jose Ortega y Gasset's The Revolt of the Masses, published in 1930, which decried the dumbing-down of government, the arts and other social institutions at the hands of mass society. Where Ortega y Gasset was critical of the mob, Lasch criticizes an emerging minority of late 20th-century elites, a ``meritocracy'' of ``talking classes'' whose upward mobility and socio-political transience are eroding once-positive and acceptable societal concepts such as civic and personal responsibility, democratic debate and honest political participation.
These elites are members of the educated and empowered class that controls the flow of money, information, political discourse and educational imperatives in society. Both left and right in this class have their ``talking heads,'' those pundits and politicians whose arguments are merely a clash of symbols, and therein, Lasch argues, lies ``the betrayal of democracy.''
Lasch berates the left for its past several decades of liberal political and economic philosophy, engendered by 1960s idealists thought to represent ``the best and the brightest'' in America. Evolution of the left's political ideology has led a generation to embrace the pseudo-social engineering of multiculturalism and its politics-of-the-victim agenda - not to be confused with the equally ill-considered tradition of blaming the victim.
The political right gets no less critical ink from Lasch for its abandonment of the poor, the disadvantaged, the hungry and the helpless. Lasch's observations of new American social distinctions expose an upper class with no sense of civic responsibility, no attachment to the traditional values of property and social identity, and no real sense of leadership, political or otherwise.
The subjects of today's political rhetoric, Lasch points out, are typically those voiced by an interest or minority group or a government agency suddenly swept up with the euphoria of the latest fad in social awareness. Lasch considers and dispenses with two key aspects of America's politics of social conscience: tolerance and respect. ``Tolerance,'' he writes, ``is a fine thing, but it is only the beginning of democracy, not its destination.'' And ``respect,'' he notes, ``is what we experience in the presence of admirable achievements. . . . It entails the exercise of discriminating judgement, not indiscriminate acceptance.''
In considering the failures of both ends of the political spectrum, Lasch poses a challenging and daring question: ``Does democracy deserve to survive?'' According to the author, the question ``requires us to speak of impersonal virtues like fortitude, workmanship, moral courage, and respect for adversaries.''
If indeed we are to believe in this thing called democracy and work within its embrace as a nation, we must be willing to recommend it to others, and we must not cower in the face of our responsibilities to protect and preserve it. We must be willing, as Lasch is willing, to debate its very existence. The Revolt of the Elites makes an important contribution to what has become in political literature an ongoing debate. MEMO: Christopher Lee Phillips, a graduate of Old Dominion University, is a
special-projects editor at United Press International in Washington. by CNB