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A Dialog on Elites Between By Sam Vaknin and Roberto Calvo Macias - Part I

Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. - 11/11/2007

Roberto,

"No bird soars too high, if it soars with its own wings"
Proverbs of Hell
William Blake

Elite. A terrible world. A select minority, that assumes leadership. All elites have been hated in all epochs, or so claimed "well -informed historians".

A lot has been written about elites, perhaps more than is necessary. As it seems, there is no agreement between historians. Someone said that elites are a bad thing, others said the opposite. We cannot adopt a position, these matters belong to "the world of eternal truths". Of its morale we cannot say nothing. Of its real existence we can say everything.

Wanted or not by idealists, elites do exist and have always existed. This is a fact and it is hitherto unremovable. Either one accepts it or not.

All of history, if we exclude some moments - the first minutes of a revolution, for example - has been created by a few select minorities. Of course a soldier can decided a battle, by its direction - that irreversible direction of Time takes personal forms. The battle´s form is decided and created in General Headquarters. This is true in military history, it is true in physics, in music, in art, in all parts of life. It is especially true in our Faustic-Western culture. It is our "pathos".

The decision-making power of the elites is true in our democracy though all democrats deny it. I can hear them now: "’elite’ is a past, death word", "there are no more elites, only rational decisions taken by common people". Beautiful worlds. It would be nice to believe in them. But reality is as it is. The more universal a suffrage the less power the suffragists have.

There are few moments in History as delicate and marvellous as the Paris Assembly in 1798, or the reunion in Frankfurt. A soft breeze of liberty and fraternity smoothes the atmosphere. A marvellous, fragile, aroma falls like angels over the heads. But its nothing more than an instant. It's just like a rose. It's the ecstasy of the second.

Yes, soon thorns appear. Reality, with its debts and ugly deserts knocks at the door. Soon, the party metamorphoses into an organization, and after that into a mere cortege - "cohorts amicorum"- at the service of one man. This action-man is the caesar type. This appears at the end of cultures: civilizations. It appears when the battle between money and politics is untenable, and tilts the game in favour of politics. Because between politics and economy, politics is always, in absolutum, first.

The fall of culture has always been attributed to famine, to the rebellion of the poor and to other minor matters. This is not reality. It is time to say it. It is time for the nobility to assume responsibility for its own errors. Only the damage inflicted internally by the nobility prepares a country for the coming of a revolution. When officers start to cowardly remain in the rear, that army is just dead. If "le noblesse" loses its inner force, soon another elite, younger and more violent, takes over its position. But this new elite lacks diplomacy, character, tradition, experience. The time comes for the "despotism of liberty". “Terror” appears beside universal truths and human rights.

With the arrival of Caesarism, politics is just a hazard. A hazard of individuals. All possible directions depend on the appearance of great conductors instead of the performance of fools and madmen. In Caesarism , power is so infinite, so irresistible, that only great men can stand up to it without dissolving into narcissistic children: Neron is an extreme example.

Too much hazard. It lacks the existence of an elite. A select minority with a long view, with diplomatic skills, knowledgeable men, contrasted values, a planetary sense. A minority which can weigh the whole situation. This nobility breed its own springs and attracts, like a magnet does metal, new forces to it. Such an Elite can lead with great success a nation for centuries. England is a good example.

So, where can we find such an elite in our "strange days"? Well, history provides us with some clues. Let's start the quest.

Power and money. These rule the world.

Some say the newly rich are " le elite". Not to me. They are only mad little kings, which aspire to convert the world into an immense market dominated by their firms. The sweet dreams of castrated men.

The other side of the coin: military power. War is ended, it is dead. Only massacres remain, committed by mercenaries, by professional soldiers. Only a few of the "vieux combatants" actually survive in armies. That is what saves us from bigger destructions. The rest are only technicians and technocrats, not generals.

We think that the latter examples do not correspond to previous manifestations of elites. Where are they? Let's continue the quest.

It is a fact that money and military power are the mainstream of today. A future elite must dominate these two. So, what do these two disciplines have in common?

Don't you know yet? Do you wanna get more clues?

Another specific characteristic of all elites is their excessive pride, a disproportional haughtiness towards others, towards "common people". There is such a distance between the respective responsibilities that the elite feels alone in its leadership and more than often translates this solitude and incomprehension to contempt to "common people".

Don't know yet? Another clue?

Historically, the elite calls itself by its proper name: elite. Which members of world's million tribes call themselves elite? Of course: hackers. They are the one and only elite. Both power and economy use computers. Radar systems, military and economic communications, strategic plans, nuclear weapons control all are managed by computers. Economic communications, markets, transactions, commerce, credits, big fortunes, and finally, pure Faustic money, rest in computers. They are the keepers of the seven keys.

There, in the seven seas of the fourth dimension, in the vast, infinite, space of internet, a new race of vikings surfs the microcosmic ocean of virtual reality, in search of new lands to conquer. Gliding like eagles over the mountains of Mandelbrot´s Continent in searching of new paradises to discover.

(continued)