For those in low status groups, they provide a sense of superiority: ‘I possess important information most people do not have’. Much like Weimar Germany, warns Die Zeit journalist Jochen Bittner (New York Times, “1918 Germany Has a Warning for America”). “You have a situation now where there are many more elites fighting for the same position, and some portion of them will convert to counter-elites,” Turchin argues. While Marxists have seen class struggle as the engine of history, Turchin sees it in the struggle between sections of the ruling class elite. And it is precisely in this now-divided elite that we find the manufacturers and guardians of the once-unchallengeable constitution of knowledge.

Source: The Irish Times December 03, 2020 19:52 UTC