Guest post by Bruce Charlton, of www.charltonteaching.blogspot.com.
This guy fucking nails it. I have no idea who he is; I found him via the Kakistocracy. Brilliant analysis. It is worth reading.
The Implosion of the Mandarin Class (The Establishment or ‘Cathedral’)
As I wrote in a comment yesterday – the UK Establishment is imploding before our very eyes. The ruling elite are tearing each other apart, lashing-out, panicking, venting… despairing in an escalating cycle (while repeatedly calling for calm, unity, reconciliation etc).
A post on http://booksinq.blogspot.co.uk reminded me of something I wrote 6 years ago about why we Mandarins (aka The Establishment, or ‘The Cathedral’ to use the currenly popular casually-anti-Christian neoreactionary synonym) – which I repost here for its revelance to the future:
**
It was nearly a decade ago, during the summer vacation, that I read a book which permanently changed one of my cherished beliefs.
The book was The decline of the German mandarins: the German academic community, 1890-1933, by Fritz K Ringer.
The cherished belief was that it would be best if countries were led by their intellectual elite, i.e. by ‘Mandarins’ – by the likes of Professors, senior administrators and professionals – by those whose jobs require high level formal educational certification.
In other words, I had assumed, up to that point, that if only things were run by people ‘like me’, then things would inevitably be run better.
***
Before reading the book I had not been aware that I believed this, but although unarticulated, a belief in leadership by intellectals had been a basic assumption.
It is, indeed, an assumption of the modern political elite, and has been the assumption of Dichter und Denker (poets and thinkers) for a couple of hundred years (since the Romantic era) – but it was *not* an assumption of traditional societies before this.
Indeed, as I read in Ernest Gellner at about the same time, in traditional societies the intellectual class (priests and clerks) was subordinated to the leadership – which was essentially military.
Intellectuals were – Gellner said – essentially ‘eunuchs’ – in the sense that they were not allowed to build dynastic, hereditary power – this was reserved for the military leadership.
So priests and other intellectuals with power were sometimes actual eunuchs, or servants and slaves, or celibate (legally, not sexually, celibate – i.e. they could not have legitimate heirs), or members of a legally circumscribed minority (such as Jewish merchants and money lenders), or – like the Chinese mandarins – they were prohibited from handing on their status to their children (entry to the mandarinate being controlled by competitive examinations).
The ‘natural’ leaders of human society throughout most of history are the military leaders – the ‘generals’. The aristocracy were essentially the military leaders.
***
But in modern societies, the Mandarins have progressively taken over the leadership.
People ‘like me’ run things; the military leadership (unless they are themselves mandarins – as increasingly is the case – and servile to political correctness) are officially feared, hated and despised; indeed any aspirant for power who is not ‘an intellectual’ is officially feared, hated and despised.
Fritz Ringer’s books was a revelation because he described a familiar and recent society that had indeed been a mandarinate – and this was Germany in the nineteenth century and leading up to the first and second world wars. Germany was at that time the academic intellectual centre of the West.
And ‘yet’ the mandarinate had been a disaster – leading to two world wars and National Socialism and also (ironically) to the eclipse of the German mandarins – who were purged virtually overnight in 1933 (only a few obedient Nazi mandarins were allowed to stay – like Martin Heidegger).
The German mandarins were nationalist, that was the focus of their ideology (the distinctive superiority of German culture) and that is one variety – very rare nowadays except in small nations and would-be nations like Scotland or Catalonia.
Of course the most widespread mandarinate was the Soviet Union whose ideology was (mostly) anti-nationalistic/ international communism. And international left-mandarinism is now the dominant form of government in the West.
***
Since reading Ringer, when my eyes were opened, my experience has hardened into conviction that – as a generalization – mandarins make very useful servants but very bad leaders. Good professors make bad kings.
The main problem is, I think, that mandarins are expert at ignoring common sense reality and focusing on abstraction.
Mandarins live ‘in culture’ – they are ‘Kultur’ experts. Culture is the source of their expertise and prestige – culture comes between mandarins and common sense.
When, as is normal, mandarin abstractions are substantially incomplete and significantly biased, then there is no limit to how bad mandarin leadership can be; because any feedback provided by ‘reality’ can be ignored by mandarins in ways which are impossible to normal people.
***
Mandarins can wreck an organization, a nation, with a completely clear conscience; and will then write history to show that they were correct all along.
Conversely, there is no achievement of their enemies that is so large or blatantly obvious that mandarins will not ignore, sideline, or subvert it.
(In pursuit of discrediting their enemies, mandarins are utterly unscrupulous, dishonest and coercive – they perceive this as nothing less than their duty, indeed heroic.)
Nothing that could conceivably happen would conceivably affect mandarin ideology – which explains everything in advance.
***
Mandarins are therefore unique among humans both in their perspective on life – in their evaluations of what is important; and in being immune to learning from experience.
And mandarins really are, on average, the most knowledgeable and cleverest people, and they know it and they value smartness very highly; so they will not listen to any critics who they think of as dumb.
Undeniably smart critics are labelled crazy or evil (they *must* be, obviously), so they are ignored too.
When mandarins have closed the loop between education, media and power; they are hermetically sealed from alternative perspectives – change can only arise from within the loop, and this change will tend to bolster the power of the mandarinate, and be directed against their enemies in the natural military leadership.
***
So, once they have taken-over, the mandarinate is uniquely unreformable by argument and experience.
And that is the present situation in the West.
Damn, that makes so much sense. I’ve been baffled by Washington’s ability to conduct one failed war after another while the primary culprits make steady progress in their careers, even launching presidential campaigns. I suppose those who don’t qualify as mandarins, some of the dimmer lights in Congress, at least can figure out who holds the purse strings.
Intellectuals, especially academics, have always been “useful idiots”, instantly recognizable by the crook class. They are a means not a cause of our decline.
This is good stuff. But he reaches a correct conclusion despite a fundamental misunderstanding of history.
In Bismarck’s Germany (and indeed in Austria until WWII), most professorial appointments were subject to direct State control. They went way beyond anything we have today, although you could argue that now Progressive control is de facto if not de jure. So in those days, the State created the Mandarins, not the other way around.
It’s true that many Mandarins in Germany (and Austria) attained high posts in government. But the political objectives were set by the military and business leaders. Bismarck’s strength came from his close relations with the military (see Steinberg’s magisterial biography), not professors and newspaper editors.
The disasters of post-Bismarck Germany and Weimar Germany and Imperial Austria were hardly failures of the “mandarin” class alone. Rudolph Havenstein, who presided over the Weimar hyperinflation, was the classic mandarin for sure. But he didn’t make the decision to start WWI!! Joseph Schumpeter endured misery at the Austrian Central Bank too. Was he an idiot, or was Austria seriously screwed up by politicians and war?
But the author indeed gets it correct in the main: Systems with no feedback loops are prone to catastrophic error.
Sorta sounds like how sociopaths and psychopaths rise to power in culture, business, religious, and political power when everyone is too busy being distracted by their weaknesses, duties, life in general, and raising families.
It doesn’t take long before those who have blundered into wealth and power come to think of themselves as smarter, stronger, more deserving, anything other than lucky and / or one-time astute: humans cannot admit that sheer random chance and opportunity create more wealthy families than nearly anything else. Once the mental leap from fortunate to “better than” or “entitled” is made, the disconnect from reality is already done, and only more chance and opportunity enables them to keep their wealth.
Those without inner discipline lose it quickly (sex, drugs, foolish investments); those with some trace of inner discipline lose it slowly (generational decay, ennui, eventual investment entropy). Those rare few with both inner discipline and opportunity / insight into how opportunity is made will create generational wealth (Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Carnegies) but even they are subject to generational decay (Getty). Eventually, the system changes and what worked, doesn’t now; how they solve that challenge will determine if they remain wealthy or go broke.
Leadership is rare, and not inheritable.
@james
You are correct sir. In my business, anyone that is honest with himself will admit that their success came from blind luck. The difference between those that make it in entertainmen and those that do not is how well they were prepared for that one in a million lighting strike.
Back in my producer days, I would tell “artists” that the first thing they should do is get an entertainment lawyer because if someone did take notice of them then they would have all of about 10 seconds to get their sh*t together and that isn’t the time to go hunting around for an attorney.
Opportunity waits for no man.
@Nick
The attorney advice is very good, however, I disagree with the luck portion.
If one pursues a career, other than the arts, preparation is key and hard work combined with diligence and planning can lead to the top.
It all depends on how one measures success. For some it is fame and fortune, for others (such as myself) it is creating something that will outlast them, a thing of strength and beauty. For me that’s a building, a school, a hospital, etc.
For most, just getting by is enough. For others, living well is the measure. For those like me, lasting achievement while having earned “enough” is the answer.
Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Most never understand that simple truth. Fortunate indeed is the person who is both happy and achieves at least one dreamed of success.
Those who can’t do teach; those who can’t teach, teach gym. And those who can’t even do the latter? Why of course, they masterb oops administrate.
Coulda,woulda,shoulda ! This stuff is idealistic nonsense. Libertarian freedom ain’t gonna happen. The best we can hope for is constitutional conservatism with democratic rule and minority rights. That is unlikely though. That requires a population of citizens who understand and accept the concept of minority rights. I am not sure that exists.
More realistically we must participate in the political process so that the people with the guns are ours. Then we have to be constantly vigilant so they do not turn on us. Always position yourselves to be on the side of the people with guns.
Well, it lasted for a while in the USA, but the decline into unfettered state power and rule by narcissists and psychopaths has been accelerating for a number of decades now.
Question is….. Will the 4th turning release us from their grip or simply harden their positions and increase their power????
Sociopathic thuggocrats and banksters (e.g. “Hank” Paulson, “Tiny Tim” Geithner) constituting the “mandarin” administration for the actual psychopathic “rulers” (e.g. Dick Cheney, Hilary)
A. R., dig deeper, Cheney and Hillary aren’t the actual rulers, they’re just tools of the actual rulers, the trillionaire families like the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, etc.
BB I think the 4th turning will bring more fascism and more socialism. The libertarians and conservatives will be subjugated raped and robbed. Then the murkans will get to live in west Philadelphia, East St Louis and Venezuela like they deserve. There aren’t many in this country like the crowd generally on TBP.
Many, perhaps all, of these ‘elites’ confuse memory with intelligence. Memorizing the works of intelligent men may allow an individual of middling intellect to appear intelligent. They may even come to believe that they are actually intelligent – but there is no core ability to synthesize, or for analysis.
People with good memories and average to slightly above average intelligence make good bureaucrats. They can not, and will not, cope with change without an outside force being applied. When a system, such as our, makes the application of corrective force from outside the bureaucracy impossible, the total failure of that system is probably unavoidable – because the bureaucracy will employ every resource of the state to maintain their position of power, regardless of the consequences: The system either collapses under its own incompetence, or it is violently destroyed by an outside force.
In general it was a fair attempt to understand the current paradigm, but parts of it made no sense to me-
“…being immune to learning from experience… mandarins really are, on average, the most knowledgeable and cleverest people, and they know it and they value smartness very highly…”
How can one be knowledgeable when they are immune to learning from experience? Isn’t that the polar opposite of knowledge?
I am slowly coming around to the realization that the human animal, like all others, produces both healthy and unhealthy specimens- in the physical/psychological/social/mental sense. Unlike other species that are culled by life or through benevolent husbandry humans cannot bring themselves to accept their place in the Natural order and so value all humans more or less the same. What then happens is that the best examples are weeded out through no natural weakness or infirmity, but through their selflessness, courage, bravery, altruistic sacrifice, etc while the most degenerate, corrupt, unstable and maladjusted are left to reproduce more of the same. Dysgenic propagation, if you will.
And here we are.
Great example from today’s headlines-
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/misty-snow-plowright-transgender-congress-224921
Look at the picture. Tell me that what you see is a healthy organism that ought to be placed at the head of a population.
I understand that this is a wildly unpopular opinion, but it’s how I see things.
HSF, it is how things are viewed in my neck of the woods as well. Except that people around here don’t call 9-1-1 when they feel threatened.
@Farmer
Nice post, I agree.
Inequality is natural and normal, today we have the narcissistic, malformed, degenerates and ungrateful parasites in charge. Unequal things can never be made equal, no matter how many laws are passed. We got here because the broken units outnumber the functional units by 20%. The question is, how can we reclaim autonomy without a French style revolution, complete with guillotines.
SF-
You can’t.
We had an interesting conversation going last night, a retired Fortune 500 CEO and his family were absolutely apoplectic about the way things are and when he posed the question “what can we do?” he wasn’t very happy about the answer.
Systemic failure of the greater human organism (organized society) is like stage 4 pancreatic cancer in a single human organism. It’s not treatable.
This is our time in history and it is our destiny to live through this, not much else can be said at this point. Only the flexible will survive.
PCR had a great post on this subject today. His expose’ would open eyes, if he weren’t so obscure to the masses.
http://whitenations.com/showthread.php?t=35745
HSF… Is that a notable quotable? (who remembers Reader’s Digest?) Or did you just make that up?
“Systemic failure of the greater human organism (organized society) is like stage 4 pancreatic cancer in a single human organism. It’s not treatable.”
No that’s my inner cynic going free range.