![]() Levelers object to any kind of hierarchy, however ancient and venerable: parents over children, priests over parishes, the gentry over the lower classes. It is often a natural ally of conservatism. Populism, in contrast, can be a reasonable and wholesome reaction to the dominance of elites. Levelers seek to destroy the stratification of class, and with it the integral life of the nuclear family and local community. As Eliot argues, class is inherently conservative and provides a rich soil for literary and artistic creativity, while a society dominated by elites loses the continuity of inherited tradition and suffers from a sterile obsession with artistic novelty.Ĭorresponding to Eliot’s distinction of class and elite is a distinction between “levelers” and populists. Membership in the elite, in contrast, is acquired through the mastery of certain subjects and techniques, typically in selective cosmopolitan universities. Class is inherited from one’s ancestors and is thus tied to family and to a place. ![]() In Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, Eliot drew a fruitful distinction between the upper class and the elite. Eliot had some insights into this question nearly one hundred years ago. What defines the essence of populism? What is it for, and what is it against? T. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |