I am quite impressed with the brilliance, wonderful articulateness, and grasp of the latest conservative thinking, captured by Chris Rufo, in all that he writes. I am older than him by at least 30 years, and my radical reclusiveness leaves me vulnerable to becoming stale and hackneyed in my thinking, because I have become severed from the marketplace of current ideas being exchanged. Following Rufo is one way for me to mitigate the effects of being isolated.
I agree with him 90% of the time, but a few months ago, I wrote how he is traditional and elitist in one respect. He worries rightly about the current cultural domination of all corporations, institutions, and government agencies by the cultural Marxists, that the ruling elite here is corrupt, totalitarian and addicted to power, a sickness that that eaten all the way through them. They are now rotten, cruel, wicked, stupid, arrogant people out to fundamentally finish the transformation/ruination of America, a most undesirable end which is imminent unless the conservative masses and a few conservative intellectuals are able to obviate the grandiose, destruction vision of the Progressives, mainly by electing Trump to a second term.
Rufo is one of the young conservative intellectuals leading the charge against the ravaging attack of the rabid Left, and he and his ilk have enjoyed some success.
Then he wrote an article that deeply offended and alarmed me: I became convinced that he is deeply mistaken and his reforms at best will restore America to its Enlightenment condition as a free market constitutional republic with a culture predicated on Judeo-Christian/Greek values,and the first principle that the sovereignty of the individual to think as he will for himself as a rational free agent.
I think Rufo believes that to restore America to its former greatness and its conservative, Western heritage, it requires the unified allegiance and joint sponsorship of that counter-revolution by a newly minted conservative, cultural, business, and political elite to run things.
I enthusiastically support the reform, but I believe in the masses, the people, the way that current elitist intellectuals like Rufo and Jordan Peterson do not.
It is my basic assumption that every human being is loaded and blessed with near infinite intelligence (regardless of the gradations of IQ difference lived by people—as individuators anyone can unlock more IQ from his mind to be smarter than he is right now), will, energy, courage and talent to self-realize as a living angel, as an individuating supercitizen, as such fit to live in America and make the laws that she will obey, and to run the country by consent and programmed fabricated and agreed to by the masses informally.
It is the masses that will complete the conservative counter-revolution, and maintain it, and they need no elite, no hierarchy, no sprawling institutions of any kind (limit all institutions in size, scope, and reach, not just going for limited government) to tell them how to live, how to conduct themselves, and give them orders.
Rufo is suggesting that a new elite be formed to run things and direct the masses once the counter-revolution is victorious, and his implication is that the masses will go back to sleep, become indifferent, drift back into a way of life dominated by hierarchies, and destructive collectivist policies. As groupist, nonindividuating, altruistic group-livers that group-identify, they are what Rufo worries that they actually are and will return to being; such naughty adult children require elites to run things for them, which is fine as long as the elite is not entrenched and corrupted by centralize power, which eventually happens, and then the masses suffer mightily as abused, enslaved, oppressed and exploited victims of the ruling elite. The nonindividuating masses, as second-handers, are always re-enslaved.
That unenlightened masses require elites to rule them is the fault of the elite nearly as much as it is the fault of each of the masses for failing to assert herself and allow none to enslave her, and none to do her thinking for her.
To be ruled by elites on the Right, eventually and inevitably leads to fascism, monarchy, or strong-man dictatorship.
To be ruled by elites on the Left eventually and inevitably leads to Communism or mob-rule.
The people always suffer needlessly when elites run things. Better morally elite citizens to run things while part-elite, and part-common person.
With this introduction finished, let me now share all of Chris Rufo’s email with the reader as I respond to it where needed.
Rufo: “
J. D. Vance and the Emerging Counter-Elite
How a second Trump administration could avoid some of the pitfalls of the first.
Jul 27, 2024
Former president Donald Trump’s selection of Ohio senator J. D. Vance as his running mate has generated much commentary. The mainstream media has tried to frame Vance as a postliberal “threat to democracy,” while Trump’s supporters have celebrated him as a bridge to a new generation.
But there is a deeper story here. The Vance selection is not a gambit to secure a particular demographic or region—white men are Trump’s base; Ohio is a safe red state—but an effort to cultivate an emerging counter-elite that could make the second Trump administration substantially more effective than the first.
This story is built into J. D. Vance’s biographical arc. He was the all-American kid who rose from humble beginnings to make his way in the world: the Marines; Yale Law; venture capital; a best-selling book. He learned the language of the prestige institutions, cultivated powerful patrons, and quickly climbed the ladder in academia, finance, and business. He had made it.”
My response: I like Vance a lot, and all that Rufo says about him is fair and accurate. Then, Rufo takes the plunge: The Vance selection is an intelligent step made by Trump to cultivate an emerging counter-elite to make the new Trump administration more effective.
Rufo is limited in his thinking in that he is reforming universities, and he is limited in his understanding and vision as he touts the new Vance-included conservative counter-elite to run the reconstituted American dream under Trump II Administration, should that come about.
The problem is always the individual, and that is the conclusion one must reach as an advocate of egoist morality, accepting that it is self-evident that the individual is sovereign over all things.
The individual must self-realize and run all institutions as well as his personal affairs if society is to survive, function and flourish. Were 85% of the masses to maverize as individuating supercitizens, and they will eventually, once they learn how to live and behave optimally under Mavellonialist ethical instruction, the each citizen thinks and acts as an elite person would, while still being a commoner so democratically dispersed power-sharing arrangements prevent elites from forming and to be corrupted by power, which they then abused to bring injustice, malevolence and suffering to bear on all society, upon all the poor, subjugated citizens.
Rufo: “Then, his story takes a turn. Having entered the ranks of America’s elite, Vance became disillusioned and disenchanted with it, correctly identifying it as a force of hypocrisy and corruption. He defected—first, by parting ways with the respectable conservatism of the Beltway, and then by embracing Donald Trump.
Some have criticized this as a cynical move, but my sense is that it is the opposite. A cynic would have continued to build an elite résumé; Vance sacrificed his respectability within a certain stratum, assumed considerable risk by moving toward Trump, and, in my view, was genuinely convinced that the establishment, both Left and Right, had exhausted itself and had to be opposed.
Now, not only has Vance been selected as a vice-presidential nominee; more significantly, he has charted the path for an emerging new conservative counter-elite.”
My response: Rufo is very, very sharp. He is right to be the first to state that Vance is emerging as a leader, perhaps the leader of the surfacing counter-elite Right, and that Vance is so standing out of principle, not an opportunistic grab for power.
What Vance and the emerging conservative counter-elite require—where will Rufo fit in as a potential political player in this new regime?—is the maverized, supercitizenized masses to direct them, and tell them how to govern—to obey or to be replaced.
Rufo: “The political balance is beginning to shift. A significant cohort of power brokers in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street have publicly moved toward Trump in this election cycle. Some of the names are familiar: Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Bill Ackman. But hundreds of other influential figures are assembling behind the scenes to support Trump’s campaign. Even some of Trump’s former adversaries, such as Mark Zuckerberg, have expressed cautious admiration for the former president.
Vance can now position himself at the center of this counter-elite. He has been in the boardrooms, made the pitches, and built the relationships. He speaks their language. They can do business together.
This could represent a sea-change. During the first Trump administration, especially following the death of George Floyd, institutional elites could neither express admiration for nor devote public support to Trump without paying a significant political price. Now the market has shifted, with a dissident elite moving along a similar path as Vance.”
My response: Again, Rufo is extremely bright to anticipate what will happen, and what should happen. I just wish Mavellonialism was better known, more popular and accepted, so we could reform our citizens, to make the wonderful American Way a permanent restoration.
Rufo: “Signals in these institutions always flow from the top down. When the All-In podcast members host a fundraiser for Trump, they give permission to others in Silicon Valley to do the same. When Bill Ackman endorses Trump without negative repercussions, he gives permission to others on Wall Street to speak their minds.
If the Trump-Vance ticket wins in November, this counter-elite support could pay significant dividends for the Trump agenda.”
My response: In my ideal constitutional republic, free marketed and brimming with feisty, organized, engaged and willful individuating supercitizens, no longer will institutional signals flow from the top down, as they always have. The maverized Americans masses will force all leaders and institutional functionaries to obey and step lively, as things will be signaled and sent from the bottom up for the first time in human history, a cultural and civilization-forging transformation of marvelous potential.
Rufo: “In his first administration, Trump led through charismatic authority, trusting his intuitions and using the force of his personality to bend policy from the White House. There were successes but also limitations. Trump endured considerable staff turnover, often lacking the institutional buy-in that would enable him to implement his agenda effectively. This is not a problem that Democrats face; their institutional strength is immense. For a Republican president, however, a supportive counter-elite has become an essential precondition for success.
This is where Vance can help with Trump’s agenda. He can serve as a translator, turning Trump’s charismatic vision into a rational-legalistic formula. And he can lead the emerging right-wing counter-elite, so that Trump’s policies, which enjoy a significant base of support among the working and middle classes, can gain greater traction within elite institutions.
We should note the irony. Trump’s childhood was gilded, while Vance’s was troubled. And yet, Trump has a magnetic attachment to the masses—think of his archetypal Rust Belt voter—while Vance holds appeal to a sector of the elite. For this reason, Trump’s picking Vance makes sense. He saw not only someone who could help advance the agenda but also a younger heir who could bring it into the future.
In this way, it is a more ambitious gesture than typical VP picks by either party, which are more commonly driven by a need for “balance” on a ticket. If Trump wins in November, and Vance is able to form a durable counter-elite, Trump’s selection of him could prove to be one of the most consequential vice presidential choices in modern history.”
My response: Yes, Trump by himself is a charismatic flash-in-the-pan which the Deep State will resist and outlast without a conservative counter-elite to give the reform depth. However, the conservative counter-elite desperately requires 225 million anarchist individuating supercitizens to set them straight and keep them on the straight and narrow politically. This is real reform, perhaps the last political reform required.
Rufo is prophetic and an original thinker. What he sees in J.D. Vance seems realistic. I just wish Rufo was versed in Mavellonialist philosophy so he could take his conservative reforms to the next and perhaps ultimate level of reform, the liberation of each citizen. I conceive of myself as a Prometheus-type, hoping to provide humans with the fire of egoist ethics, so they can stay warm and cook their food.
Rufo: “Christopher F. Rufo is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This article was originally published in City Journal.”
No comments:
Post a Comment