Sound familiar?
#nostr #bitcoin #quote #philosophy
“Many are surprised that this management elite continues to expand and prosper at a time when society as a whole is clearly blocked by a long-term economic crisis. There is no reason to be surprised. The reaction of sophisticated elites, when confronted by their own failure to lead society, is almost invariably the same. They set about building a wall between themselves and reality by creating an artificial sense of well-being on the inside.
The French aristocracy, gentry and business leadership were never more satisfied with themselves than in the few decades before their collapse during the French Revolution. The elites of the late Roman Empire were in constant expansion and filled with a sense of their own importance, as emperor after emperor was assassinated and provinces were lost. The Russian elites of the two decades preceding 1914—both the traditional leadership and the new, rapidly expanding business class—were in a constant state of effervescence. One of the tricks which makes this sort of closet delusion possible is that the very size and prosperity of the elite permits it to interiorize an artificial vision of civilization as a whole.
Thus, ours takes seriously only what comes from its own hundreds—indeed, thousands—of specialized sectors. Everything turns on internal reference. Everything is carefully measured, so that heartening “body counts” of growth or job creation or whatever can be produced. Truth is not in the world, it is the measurements made by professionals.”
-John Ralston Saul, from The Unconscious Civilization
