Insofar as this explains what is currently happening psychologically among those plugged-in to elite circles, I really like it as a theory. However, I'm less clear about how to trace it back historically--what was the intellectual counterculture prior to progressive social beliefs and aggressive atheism? It doesn't seem like it can be environmentalism, since the two examples are hardly in opposition to it.
I feel like the economic story is clearer, in that the path from the Washington Consensus, to the protectionist-friendshoring backlash, and now back again for many people, is familiar to most.
Maybe "luxury beliefs" are a unique product of our time and you can't do this sort of deep historical tracing, but that would clash with the mention of 19th century techno-optimism. Would the theory hold up better if limited to this era, where genuine economic scarcity is just not a problem in these elite circles? I'd readily agree that material status symbols mean less now than they have throughout most of history.
Well the photo of oppie and Einstein makes me think about the 50s and 60s, where I would say the rebellious counterculture movement was Marxism, at least in the U.S.. It obviously didn’t succeed like Wokeism did, although it did have certain wins in universities. But yeah I do think this argument has less explanatory power the farther back you go. I think it might be because competition between elites is a necessary factor for rebelliousness to be incentivized, and since there is “elite overproduction” now more than ever, and this caused more competition between elites, resulting in faster and more dramatic cycles of cultural turnover as elites try to beat other elites.
Insofar as this explains what is currently happening psychologically among those plugged-in to elite circles, I really like it as a theory. However, I'm less clear about how to trace it back historically--what was the intellectual counterculture prior to progressive social beliefs and aggressive atheism? It doesn't seem like it can be environmentalism, since the two examples are hardly in opposition to it.
I feel like the economic story is clearer, in that the path from the Washington Consensus, to the protectionist-friendshoring backlash, and now back again for many people, is familiar to most.
Maybe "luxury beliefs" are a unique product of our time and you can't do this sort of deep historical tracing, but that would clash with the mention of 19th century techno-optimism. Would the theory hold up better if limited to this era, where genuine economic scarcity is just not a problem in these elite circles? I'd readily agree that material status symbols mean less now than they have throughout most of history.
Well the photo of oppie and Einstein makes me think about the 50s and 60s, where I would say the rebellious counterculture movement was Marxism, at least in the U.S.. It obviously didn’t succeed like Wokeism did, although it did have certain wins in universities. But yeah I do think this argument has less explanatory power the farther back you go. I think it might be because competition between elites is a necessary factor for rebelliousness to be incentivized, and since there is “elite overproduction” now more than ever, and this caused more competition between elites, resulting in faster and more dramatic cycles of cultural turnover as elites try to beat other elites.