I might suggest that this phenomena happens through all stratifications in society... each socioeconomic level and geographic locality set expectations for their citizenry to acquire "meaning" in their life. It is only when those social expectations cannot be met and therefore "meaning" cannot be achieved that people become dissatisfied...
I might argue that the postmodernist flip since the 1960s from socioeconomic class to race as a way to agitate the masses is a direct reflection of their inability to create Revolution in a population of otherwise prospering lower classes. It' is now only in the last twenty years with the hollowing out of the industrial base and the middle class that the second-tier elites are able to stir up discontent. That's said, it therefore requires a truly dysfunctional mismatch in opportunity among multiple levels of socioeconomic classes to create a revolution... With the extraordinary levels of wealth inequality that has been created in the last decade perhaps we are getting closer to this Tipping Point.
I think your final sentence is exactly right. One thing that follows from this is that much of the discussion of economic inequality is misplaced. Even if you were to halve whatever measure of inequality you might choose, you would still have differences in status that remained just as prominent.
This is because status is measured or ordinally (i.e. by rank) so that even if the winners win by less of a margin, the decrease in margin of victory is of little consolation to those of lower rank.
Better to focus on building an ethos of a high level of respect for everyone who lives a decent life than the mug's game of trying to equalize status by decreasing economic inequality.
Even Marx understood this concept, stating that the "lumpenproletariat" lacked (due to OPPRESSION!) the skills and resources to organize revolution, and that revolution had to come from the educated bourgeoise who would defect, like a bunch of upper-middle class white kids burning shit down for BLM, from the presumbly-evil system they had benefited from.
I have always noted that the human inclination to pursue more... more money, more things, more social status, more power, more recognition... it is both our salvation and our curse. Without it we would not advance and would suffer more as a species. With it, we kill each other in competition and suffer anyway.
This is where religion serves a purpose in regulating some basis of morality to prevent the worst of human behavior that would otherwise derive from wanting more. My secular friends on the left used to argue that no, a well run society of laws would serve that purpose. Many of those friends are silent on that argument now that they have embraced their political party abusing and ignoring laws as it supports them retaining or gaining more political power.
However, within this understanding of the Jordan Peterson "lobster" social hierarchy pursuit tendency I think we can understand how a diverse and energetic country like the US had remained so relatively class-satisfied for so long.
Thinking back to 1978 when I graduated high school, there were many more paths I could take to earn a prosperous middle class life. Ironically I had the academics to qualify for admission to Stanford, but it was not in my radar. College degrees were non-existent in my family and extended family... I ended up as the first with higher learning degrees. However, having a Stanford degree at that time was not really noted as a premier ticket to a good life. There was always the air of academic prestige, but not necessarily social and economic status to match it.
The unraveling started about this time and it was from the elite pursuit of globalism and related government policies. Frankly, it appears to me that the Stanford elite and their cohorts went out in the world to demolish these other paths of social and economic status achievement to enable them to better capture more social and economic status.
I mean look at Bill Gates. Still a nerd. Still someone that lacks the social skills that one would consider high up the chain... but he is high up the chain. Bill Gates was responsible for consolidating and monopolizing much of the early tech industry that was sold as the new jobs benefit by the previous elites that gave away our industrial manufacturing jobs.
Poof... there go the paths to a good life unless you get a Stanford degree.
And so I agree with this thesis... the elites are cannibalizing the system from within. They have destroyed so much in defense of upstarts that might challenge them, and in doing so, they have eliminated too much that they themselves could rely on to make their own good life. Ironically these elites have returned to blaming and resenting the working-class that they have destroyed for taking away THEIR opportunity.
And so yes, now the infighting begins and change is happening. We are seeing elections in Europe that provide a glimpse of the transformation beginning. However, I don't think we know what the end result will be. Because the top-elites are not going down without a fight.
I feel like there has been a huge explosion in the last 30 years of foundations and similar organizations. (I mean, you watch a pbs show and half the time is spent viewing credits to all the groups that supported it!)
Wondering if they have been created to give positions of "importance" (look at me I'm on the board of xyz foundation) to the oversupply of elites.
Great lit review on this topic. I recently did a complicated Census analysis of the American upper middle class for my next book. Using a bivariate model (college degree, $115K or more in personal income), I was stunned to see that this diagnostic group grew from 0.5% to 7% from 1962-2021. This kind explosion in the size of the elite is a key variable in what you describe, because too many people were sold a pathway to power that can’t possibly exist outside of the riskier path of entrepreneurship. More details on my Substack, if interested.
Fox News programming is a highly profitable business dedicated to laughing at the silly absurdities of progressive social science thinking and the hypocrisy of powerful people juggling the latest setbacks to their narrative. CNN and MSNBC programming are elite in-group self aggrandizement dedicated to laughing at the people who don’t understand the brilliance of progressive social science thinking and their own special duty to the right ordering of past ignorance.
Should there be a significant rebellion within the disaffected elite Fox News will provide an enormous throng of pissed off kulacs. The ascendency of woke progressive ideology within the upper ranks of the US military and civilian police command parallels the culture war seen in the media. This rebellion we are told is essential.
The lower classes are organized, clearly delineated lines are drawn. Trump intuited this and then had the temerity to pull it off, absconded with their office and mocked their presumptions.
Is it a Tinder box? I think so. Of course we are fat and satiated and apathetic, yes, but this thesis of insufficient status jobs and overproduction of disaffected aspirants begs for the right person to head it up.
Trump is brilliant, sui generis, but he was the preverbal dog chasing the car, once he caught it he was at a loss: not completely, but generally and comprehensively thwarted.
These liberals speaking in angry tones of compassion are highly vulnerable. Populism is the term that liberals used to describe the social blow back that their policies create. Their mismanagement is a patently obvious, Fox peppers us with it all day, why shouldn’t an enterprising elite cabal rise up and capture history, embrace destiny . That is sexy shit man!
Fox News programming is a highly profitable business dedicated to laughing at the silly absurdities of progressive social science thinking and the hypocrisy of powerful people juggling the latest setbacks to their narrative. CNN and MSNBC programming are elite in-group self aggrandizement dedicated to laughing at the people who don’t understand the brilliance of progressive social science thinking and their own special duty to the right ordering of past ignorance.
Should there be a significant rebellion within the disaffected elite Fox News will provide an enormous throng of pissed off kulacs. The ascendency of woke progressive ideology within the upper ranks of the US military and civilian police command parallels the culture war seen in the media. This rebellion we are told is essential.
The lower classes are organized, clearly delineated lines are drawn. Trump intuited this and then had the temerity to pull it off, absconded with their office and mocked their presumptions.
Is it a Tinder box? I think so. Of course we are fat and satiated and apathetic, yes, but this thesis of insufficient status jobs and overproduction of disaffected aspirants begs for the right person to head it up.
Trump is brilliant, sui generis, but he was the preverbal dog chasing the car, once he caught it he was at a loss: not completely, but generally and comprehensively thwarted.
These liberals speaking in angry tones of compassion are highly vulnerable. Populism is the term that liberals used to describe the social blow back that their policies create. Their mismanagement is a patently obvious, Fox peppers us with it all day, why shouldn’t an enterprising elite cabal rise up and capture history, embrace destiny . That is sexy shit man!
Fox News programming is a highly profitable business dedicated to laughing at the silly absurdities of progressive social science thinking and the hypocrisy of powerful people juggling the latest setbacks to their narrative. CNN and MSNBC programming are elite in-group self aggrandizement dedicated to laughing at the people who don’t understand the brilliance of progressive social science thinking and their own special duty to the right ordering of past ignorance.
Should there be a significant rebellion within the disaffected elite Fox News will provide an enormous throng of pissed off kulacs. The ascendency of woke progressive ideology within the upper ranks of the US military and civilian police command parallels the culture war seen in the media. This rebellion we are told is essential.
The lower classes are organized, clearly delineated lines are drawn. Trump intuited this and then had the temerity to pull it off, absconded with their office and mocked their presumptions.
Is it a Tinder box? I think so. Of course we are fat and satiated and apathetic, yes, but this thesis of insufficient status jobs and overproduction of disaffected aspirants begs for the right person to head it up.
Trump is brilliant, sui generis, but he was the preverbal dog chasing the car, once he caught it he was at a loss: not completely, but generally thwarted.
These liberals speaking in angry tones of compassion are highly vulnerable. Populism is the term that liberals used to describe the social blow back that their policies create. Their mismanagement is a patently obvious, Fox peppers us with it all day, why shouldn’t an enterprising elite cabal rise up and capture history, embrace destiny . That is sexy shit man!
All the above are manifesting. Trump looke more like Dred Scott than Abe Lincoln. The Boomer Democrats are aging out.
Ron DeSantis, Elon Muck, and lesser lights like you, Bari Weiss, Scott Adams, etc. etc. are developing the infrastructure that will provide the Schelling Point.
Thanks for the piece I really enjoyed it.
I might suggest that this phenomena happens through all stratifications in society... each socioeconomic level and geographic locality set expectations for their citizenry to acquire "meaning" in their life. It is only when those social expectations cannot be met and therefore "meaning" cannot be achieved that people become dissatisfied...
I might argue that the postmodernist flip since the 1960s from socioeconomic class to race as a way to agitate the masses is a direct reflection of their inability to create Revolution in a population of otherwise prospering lower classes. It' is now only in the last twenty years with the hollowing out of the industrial base and the middle class that the second-tier elites are able to stir up discontent. That's said, it therefore requires a truly dysfunctional mismatch in opportunity among multiple levels of socioeconomic classes to create a revolution... With the extraordinary levels of wealth inequality that has been created in the last decade perhaps we are getting closer to this Tipping Point.
I think your final sentence is exactly right. One thing that follows from this is that much of the discussion of economic inequality is misplaced. Even if you were to halve whatever measure of inequality you might choose, you would still have differences in status that remained just as prominent.
This is because status is measured or ordinally (i.e. by rank) so that even if the winners win by less of a margin, the decrease in margin of victory is of little consolation to those of lower rank.
Better to focus on building an ethos of a high level of respect for everyone who lives a decent life than the mug's game of trying to equalize status by decreasing economic inequality.
Even Marx understood this concept, stating that the "lumpenproletariat" lacked (due to OPPRESSION!) the skills and resources to organize revolution, and that revolution had to come from the educated bourgeoise who would defect, like a bunch of upper-middle class white kids burning shit down for BLM, from the presumbly-evil system they had benefited from.
Shameless plug for a related article:
https://guttermouth.substack.com/p/what-the-fuck-do-we-do-now
Great piece.
I have always noted that the human inclination to pursue more... more money, more things, more social status, more power, more recognition... it is both our salvation and our curse. Without it we would not advance and would suffer more as a species. With it, we kill each other in competition and suffer anyway.
This is where religion serves a purpose in regulating some basis of morality to prevent the worst of human behavior that would otherwise derive from wanting more. My secular friends on the left used to argue that no, a well run society of laws would serve that purpose. Many of those friends are silent on that argument now that they have embraced their political party abusing and ignoring laws as it supports them retaining or gaining more political power.
However, within this understanding of the Jordan Peterson "lobster" social hierarchy pursuit tendency I think we can understand how a diverse and energetic country like the US had remained so relatively class-satisfied for so long.
Thinking back to 1978 when I graduated high school, there were many more paths I could take to earn a prosperous middle class life. Ironically I had the academics to qualify for admission to Stanford, but it was not in my radar. College degrees were non-existent in my family and extended family... I ended up as the first with higher learning degrees. However, having a Stanford degree at that time was not really noted as a premier ticket to a good life. There was always the air of academic prestige, but not necessarily social and economic status to match it.
The unraveling started about this time and it was from the elite pursuit of globalism and related government policies. Frankly, it appears to me that the Stanford elite and their cohorts went out in the world to demolish these other paths of social and economic status achievement to enable them to better capture more social and economic status.
I mean look at Bill Gates. Still a nerd. Still someone that lacks the social skills that one would consider high up the chain... but he is high up the chain. Bill Gates was responsible for consolidating and monopolizing much of the early tech industry that was sold as the new jobs benefit by the previous elites that gave away our industrial manufacturing jobs.
Poof... there go the paths to a good life unless you get a Stanford degree.
And so I agree with this thesis... the elites are cannibalizing the system from within. They have destroyed so much in defense of upstarts that might challenge them, and in doing so, they have eliminated too much that they themselves could rely on to make their own good life. Ironically these elites have returned to blaming and resenting the working-class that they have destroyed for taking away THEIR opportunity.
And so yes, now the infighting begins and change is happening. We are seeing elections in Europe that provide a glimpse of the transformation beginning. However, I don't think we know what the end result will be. Because the top-elites are not going down without a fight.
I feel like there has been a huge explosion in the last 30 years of foundations and similar organizations. (I mean, you watch a pbs show and half the time is spent viewing credits to all the groups that supported it!)
Wondering if they have been created to give positions of "importance" (look at me I'm on the board of xyz foundation) to the oversupply of elites.
Great lit review on this topic. I recently did a complicated Census analysis of the American upper middle class for my next book. Using a bivariate model (college degree, $115K or more in personal income), I was stunned to see that this diagnostic group grew from 0.5% to 7% from 1962-2021. This kind explosion in the size of the elite is a key variable in what you describe, because too many people were sold a pathway to power that can’t possibly exist outside of the riskier path of entrepreneurship. More details on my Substack, if interested.
Fox News programming is a highly profitable business dedicated to laughing at the silly absurdities of progressive social science thinking and the hypocrisy of powerful people juggling the latest setbacks to their narrative. CNN and MSNBC programming are elite in-group self aggrandizement dedicated to laughing at the people who don’t understand the brilliance of progressive social science thinking and their own special duty to the right ordering of past ignorance.
Should there be a significant rebellion within the disaffected elite Fox News will provide an enormous throng of pissed off kulacs. The ascendency of woke progressive ideology within the upper ranks of the US military and civilian police command parallels the culture war seen in the media. This rebellion we are told is essential.
The lower classes are organized, clearly delineated lines are drawn. Trump intuited this and then had the temerity to pull it off, absconded with their office and mocked their presumptions.
Is it a Tinder box? I think so. Of course we are fat and satiated and apathetic, yes, but this thesis of insufficient status jobs and overproduction of disaffected aspirants begs for the right person to head it up.
Trump is brilliant, sui generis, but he was the preverbal dog chasing the car, once he caught it he was at a loss: not completely, but generally and comprehensively thwarted.
These liberals speaking in angry tones of compassion are highly vulnerable. Populism is the term that liberals used to describe the social blow back that their policies create. Their mismanagement is a patently obvious, Fox peppers us with it all day, why shouldn’t an enterprising elite cabal rise up and capture history, embrace destiny . That is sexy shit man!
Fox News programming is a highly profitable business dedicated to laughing at the silly absurdities of progressive social science thinking and the hypocrisy of powerful people juggling the latest setbacks to their narrative. CNN and MSNBC programming are elite in-group self aggrandizement dedicated to laughing at the people who don’t understand the brilliance of progressive social science thinking and their own special duty to the right ordering of past ignorance.
Should there be a significant rebellion within the disaffected elite Fox News will provide an enormous throng of pissed off kulacs. The ascendency of woke progressive ideology within the upper ranks of the US military and civilian police command parallels the culture war seen in the media. This rebellion we are told is essential.
The lower classes are organized, clearly delineated lines are drawn. Trump intuited this and then had the temerity to pull it off, absconded with their office and mocked their presumptions.
Is it a Tinder box? I think so. Of course we are fat and satiated and apathetic, yes, but this thesis of insufficient status jobs and overproduction of disaffected aspirants begs for the right person to head it up.
Trump is brilliant, sui generis, but he was the preverbal dog chasing the car, once he caught it he was at a loss: not completely, but generally and comprehensively thwarted.
These liberals speaking in angry tones of compassion are highly vulnerable. Populism is the term that liberals used to describe the social blow back that their policies create. Their mismanagement is a patently obvious, Fox peppers us with it all day, why shouldn’t an enterprising elite cabal rise up and capture history, embrace destiny . That is sexy shit man!
Fox News programming is a highly profitable business dedicated to laughing at the silly absurdities of progressive social science thinking and the hypocrisy of powerful people juggling the latest setbacks to their narrative. CNN and MSNBC programming are elite in-group self aggrandizement dedicated to laughing at the people who don’t understand the brilliance of progressive social science thinking and their own special duty to the right ordering of past ignorance.
Should there be a significant rebellion within the disaffected elite Fox News will provide an enormous throng of pissed off kulacs. The ascendency of woke progressive ideology within the upper ranks of the US military and civilian police command parallels the culture war seen in the media. This rebellion we are told is essential.
The lower classes are organized, clearly delineated lines are drawn. Trump intuited this and then had the temerity to pull it off, absconded with their office and mocked their presumptions.
Is it a Tinder box? I think so. Of course we are fat and satiated and apathetic, yes, but this thesis of insufficient status jobs and overproduction of disaffected aspirants begs for the right person to head it up.
Trump is brilliant, sui generis, but he was the preverbal dog chasing the car, once he caught it he was at a loss: not completely, but generally thwarted.
These liberals speaking in angry tones of compassion are highly vulnerable. Populism is the term that liberals used to describe the social blow back that their policies create. Their mismanagement is a patently obvious, Fox peppers us with it all day, why shouldn’t an enterprising elite cabal rise up and capture history, embrace destiny . That is sexy shit man!
All the above are manifesting. Trump looke more like Dred Scott than Abe Lincoln. The Boomer Democrats are aging out.
Ron DeSantis, Elon Muck, and lesser lights like you, Bari Weiss, Scott Adams, etc. etc. are developing the infrastructure that will provide the Schelling Point.
It is an interesting time to be a human being.