The New Class: Savages Amidst a Technology They Don't Understand

[jordan179]

From Daniel Greenfield, "Government Is Magic," Sultan Knish, October 27th, 2013:

Our technocracy is detached from competence. It's not the technocracy of engineers, but of "thinkers" who read Malcolm Gladwell and Thomas Friedman and watch TED talks and savor the flavor of competence, without ever imbibing its substance.

...

The ObamaCare

Comments

Not to be missed

[marycatelli]

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Re: Not to be missed

[jordan179]

I would say that Kipling was prescient, and he did have a lot of insight, but of course it's more a matter of the fact that foolishness keeps repeating the same sorts of errors. As the poem itself says:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

Which is true whether the Fool is Saturnius, Saint-Just or Obama.

Re: Not to be missed

[galadrion]

Yup, not prescient, just observant. Obama & Krew are nowhere near as original as they think they are - substitute in (the use of) modern technology, and today's "Progressives" (hah!) are "sisters under the skin" to those White Men who assumed the Burden of Kipling's own society. And just as surprise, with much less justification, at the results of their actions.

Re: Not to be missed

[jordan179]

The funny thing about it is that Obama's policies, or ones like them, have been repeatedly tried but never worked. As Kipling pointed out, and he wrote that poem in 1919 -- probably in reaction to the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1918. To put this in perspective, the Russian Communists were only in their first year of attempting to implement Socialism, and were in the middle of the Russian Civil War -- yet the poem predicts, in broad terms, much of what was to go wrong with the experiment.

Because, of course, it had all been done before. Not just by the French Revolution of 1789, but by smaller revolutions before and after 1789, such as the various German Peasants' Revolts of early Protestantism and by various radical regimes in Latin America, most notably that of Solano of Paraguay. It never, ever worked, and Kipling was dead right in seeing how and why it would fail in his future.

Re: Not to be missed

[eric_hinkle]

Because, of course, it had all been done before. Not just by the French Revolution of 1789, but by smaller revolutions... such as the various German Peasants' Revolts of early Protestantism

Hmm, have you ever read a book by historian Norman Cohn titled "Pursuit of the Millennium"? Because it goes into a ton of well-sourced and researched details about medieval-period Utopian social revolutionary movements and heresies, and shows exactly what you've pointed out. He has a lot about the Hussites, especially their radical factions the Taborites and Adamites; the Heresy of the Free Spirit ("I am God, and all is lawful to me, for God cannot sin"); the True/Last Emperor idea; and so much more. I imagine you might find his work of vast interest.

Re: Not to be missed

[jordan179]

Yes, I probably would find that interesting. I've read about several of these movements separately, but not all together like that.