A New Order?

Current scheming by the reactionary left to bring down the Bush presidency is only the latest chapter in a very old story. The deleterious effects of our liberal elites have long been lamented by conservatives and old-fashioned liberals. From academe, the courts, and NGOs, to the mainstream media and Congress, a class of overseers seized the moral high ground in the aftermath of WWII and, later, the Civil Rights movement and rose to unprecedented influence. So powerful did this establishment become that, by labeling conservatives as uncaring, uncouth, and uncultured, it was able to ostracize through mere admonishment any person, publication, or group that dared to challenge its near-monopoly on public power and moral suasion.

But, as we know, that has changed, and the old order’s reaction is vitriolic and self-destructive. When Monday’s New York Times shouted that American troops and their Commander in Chief were too incompetent to bother with a huge cache of deadly explosives in post-war Iraq, the Kerry campaign was only the most visible beneficiary. For the Times spoke not only for its editors and reporters: It spoke (as we now know, literally) for IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” and (most likely) U.N. chief Kofi Annan. Less directly, the Times represented the feelings and aspirations of rootless elites the world-over, whose grip on power is slipping day by day.

That’s as it should be, of course. Not only have global elites operated the U.N. for their own benefit and gain, democracy and the world’s masses be damned, but their interests are today diametrically opposed to America’s. This dissonance is most obvious on security issues, which were fumbled by ElBaradei’s minions in Iraq and Annan’s across the globe. As the recent Congressional report of Charles Duelfer and the U.N.-backed investigation of Paul Volker demonstrate beyond a doubt, the United Nations can no longer be dismissed (as many conservatives once did) as merely incompetent and ineffectual. No, it’s much worse than that: It’s a corrupt haven for terrorists, and American taxpayer dollars were used to support the infrastructure that gave cover for Saddam to bribe officials and politicians so that sanctions would be lifted and his work on WMDs could resume unfettered.

Domestically, this scheme is aided and abetted by a class that is increasingly parasitic and despised. It feeds on a contempt for bourgeois life promulgated by a spoiled professoriate and intellectual elite that enjoys all the benefits of republican rule (most notably, affluence sufficient to support this modern leisure class) while sneering at the sacrifices of those who make possible life as we know it. We can rest assured that, of all demographic groups, these effeminate snobs would be the last to embrace careerist anti-intellectual nihilism and cultural relativism if the consequences of their actions were proportional to the damage they wreak to the institutions and ideals that support a free society.

And yet, mirabile dictu, we’re witnessing a repudiation of global elites that, with or without the reelection of George Bush, has mortally harmed their interests. If ideas have consequences, actions based upon those ideas can change history. The rise of New Media – talk radio, Internet magazines, bloggers, cable news – has taken our erstwhile overseers by surprise and made them vulnerable to a degree they never thought possible. Hermetic life is a poor choice for those who would be leaders, since leadership demands that current events be viewed against the backdrop of history and within the context of unchanging human nature. The intellectual and cultural left erred when they jettisoned rigorous epistemology for ready-made conclusions in trendy fields supported by victimology and area studies. That this move exchanged earlier radical beliefs in the malleability of human nature and the perfectibility of man for a contradictory vision of humanity as both environmental plague and sociological victim mattered little. Having lost all sense of our place in creation, or of their own roles as bearers and progenitors of knowledge, they couldn’t be bothered with philosophical contradictions that many of them probably didn’t even notice.

Absent any guiding principles, even principles as malformed and harmful as those proffered by Marxism, the left abandoned all pretense to fulfilling any obligations higher than its own self-preservation. Thus, many professors today despise teaching, demand complete autonomy from the institutions and society that support them, and delight in producing vacuous books and articles read by few and comprehended by none. Elite media such as the New York Times and CBS News lie with abandon and pursue partisan agendas with a gusto that would make nineteenth century newspaper barons blush. And too many liberal Democrats hurl false charges against their opponents and turn a blind eye to thuggery against Republicans or voter fraud as they embrace an “anything goes” attitude toward winning the election.

Colluding with global interests against those of their own nation comes naturally to such folk, for on many fronts they share more with the international elite than with their fellow citizens. Dominant among these common traits is a sense of entitlement born of decades of unchallenged rule. Yet today their reign is not simply challenged, but undermined, and with this development the means for enforcing their claims of moral and intellectual superiority has been destroyed. No longer in control of the flow of information, the left has lost its ability to bully and embarrass the rest of us into submission. Absent its veto of the topic of national conversation, and with its own ranks eviscerated through intellectual sloth, it resorts to dirty tricks and adolescent demagoguery in a vain attempt to forestall its collapse.

Does this mean that the right will assume control of these hollow institutions, or that the dangers their minions pose to American security have passed? Not at all. Dying institutions, like wounded animals, are dangerous and potentially destructive. Their ongoing actions, coupled with earlier selfish decisions, will continue to cost us dearly, and ill-advised reactions by the right would only add to our troubles. What’s certain, however, is that the New Media have done Americans a great service by exposing the rotten underbelly of the global elite – a group undone first and foremost by its own perfidy. Today, we Americans have a clearer grasp of the challenges ahead, because the left no longer sets the boundaries of public morality or civic discourse. It’s up to us to use this newfound freedom wisely.