"With law our land shall rise"

From Mr. Scheuer:

Overall, the British people have given themselves a chance to again be themselves, respecters of the rule of their laws, English-speaking, self-reliant, predominately Protestant, and traders, bankers, and businessmen extraordinaire. Britons again can be quietly proud but stubborn nationalists, men and women who can now speak about their ancestors, men who were the authors of the freedom that has emanated from the precious commodity — now widely attacked and subverted – that America’s Founders called “English liberties”. These liberties graced and soundly governed life in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States until the ahistorical multiculturalists and diversity-hounds emerged from the cesspool that is the West’s academy and media to wreak havoc on commonsense, Christianity, societal cohesion, and history. Britons may well have a tough economic row to hoe for a while – and so may we, as a result — but they have acted manfully to regain their self-respect, independence, and sovereignty, as well as full control of their budget, society, and destiny. Well done. Now, it is time for Britain’s four children-nations in the English-speaking world to follow suit.

The rise of something new

From Jim's Blog:

The Altright is the Dark Enlightenment manifesting as a mob, and Trump is the altright manifesting as electoral politics. Brexit is also the altright manifesting as electoral politics.

A key point of the Dark Enlightenment is that mobs are not the solution to the problem and electoral politics are not the solution to the problem – but they are a manifestation that people are thinking about the problem and thinking of solving it. Even if Trump becomes president, his greatest accomplishment will remain that Trump set free dangerous thoughts. Ideas are far more powerful than guns, for someone has to aim the guns. The mob, and the electoral politics, are not power, but are echoes of power, they are the thunder that tells us the lightning has already struck.

Malign

Our malign institutions. How did it happen?

• The party -- malign
• The church -- malign
• The university -- malign

Fewer and fewer men are going to college, especially as college becomes more and more like school (i.e., Grades 13-16). It's much too prissy, too structured, too paternalistic, filled with Stalinist re-education (e.g., "multiculturalism"), and too damn expensive. Girls love it. Guys -- not so much.

Well, now the last shoe has fallen because It’s Becoming Too Dangerous For College Males To Date Girls On Campus:

The truth is the vast majority of men look forward to college as a place to me[e]t and bang chicks. I would honestly assess that for the majority of them, their degree is a close …. or perhaps maybe distant … second reason they attend college. Additionally, for biological and marketing reasons, women and college are hyped up to be the most important thing in every high school boy’s life. So not only do they have hormones driving them to chase tail on college campuses, but all of the movies, shows, and media point to college as one huge parentless orgy of loose women with big tatas and poor decision making skills. And while most men’s college experiences fell drastically short of this, this dream that every high school boy has, will be completely destroyed if the threat of false rape or harassment makes dating women on campus too risky.

Prognostication

From The Z Man:

On Thursday, which I think the EU requires the Brits to call quartidi, the subjects of England vote on whether or not to remain in Europe. The vote to leave, in theory, will compel the British government to negotiate an exit from the EU and paddle the island further into the Atlantic. The timing of the exit and the terms of the deal are not contemplated in the text of the referendum. There may be something in British law that determines these things, but I can find nothing to support that claim.

That’s not an unimportant bit in this discussion. It is no secret that the ruling class of England not only wants to remain in the EU, but they dream of a day when Britain is just another administrative zone of Europe, sort of like how the Romans treated Britannia. It’s not just that the idea of separate countries has become a heresy. The ruling elite seems to think the time has come to exterminate the British people entirely, at least as an identifiable tribe. As former Lord Chancellor Jack Straw put it, “the English as a race are not worth saving.”

Looking at the polling, the way to bet is that Brexit falls short. There has been a surge in support for leaving and English nationalism bubbling under the surface often goes unnoticed in polls. On the other hand, vote fixing and browbeating don’t always show up in the polls either. There’s also the fact that people perceive the status quo as the the safe choice. Humans are funny that way. Any change meets some natural resistance, even when there is no logic to resistance. Roll it all up and Remain most likely carries the day.

"Friends"

From Mr. Wood:

The Trap of Global Citizenship

Williams’ strictures on this provide a new way to look at higher education’s strange new emphasis on the imaginary category of “global citizenship.” As she points out, the term doesn’t stand for “any particular knowledge about the world,” but rather “changes in students’ attitudes” mostly in the form of rejection of “national identity.” Global citizenship “connects private feeling and qualities such as care, empathy and awareness, with the global issues of the day.” It thus “places whole areas of knowledge beyond debate.” The “homogeneity of political views” on campus is thus driven as much by efforts to manipulate the psychological vulnerabilities of students as it is by the effort of faculty members to steer away from the hard task of attempting to sort truth from opinion.

Williams herself doesn’t flinch in that effort. Academic Freedom in an Age of Conformity is a short (198 page) book written in lively English and rich with examples, but it is thick with thought-provoking arguments on exactly how the “benign institution” of the university somersaulted to the frequently malign institution we have today. She finds some of impetus in what happened in the academic disciplines, and more of it in the pernicious influence of academic feminism. These are compellingly presented, but American readers will note that Williams has next to nothing to say about “diversity,” race, and multiculturalism as the anvils on which academic freedom in our universities has frequently been crushed.

The absence of these topics from a book about enforced conformity on campus is arresting, and serves perhaps as testimony to the “exceptional” character of America’s descent into leftist intolerance. Our campuses share with Britain and the rest of the English-speaking world an invasive new hatred of intellectual freedom. But we have added to it our own homebrew of racial grievance and identity politics. Britain certainly has experienced the woeful side of multiculturalism as well, but Williams treats it as secondary thread. For us, in the Age of Click, it is primary.

Britain’s example shows that the intolerance endangering academic freedom is not tied to a particular grievance, but has become a force in its own right.

The Green Zone

Why was it impossible for orthodox Anglicans to get their act together? Why did so few bishops lead their flock out of Babylon? What should we do now? What can we do?

From Touchstone (my emphases):

For more than thirty years now I have been an observer and sometime participant in what I will here call the conservative Episcopalian mess. The departure of more orthodox Episcopalians from an apostatizing mainstream headed by weak and clownish English archbishops and astoundingly aggressive heretics in North America, contained no real surprises, for this is the predictable fruit of religious liberalism hatched upon an ignorant, passive, and venal laity, that we have seen in other major Protestant churches, and from which modern Roman Catholicism, especially under a Nice Pope, is unlikely to be much of a refuge.

What I have found somewhat surprising, I suppose because my knowledge of the ecclesial geography was not very deep early on, was what a hard time conservative Anglicans have had getting their act (literally) together. Now to be sure, my “geographical” knowledge has increased over the years, so that I understand quite well that “conservative” applies to a number of incompatible or barely compatible attitudes. It covers the traditionalist for whom a charge of heresy applies to any change from the 1928 Prayer Book (even though that Prayer Book is a liberalization of older ones—it leaves out, for example, the bride’s charge to “obey”), to the dotty eccentrics of many varieties for which this Church is so famous, to those who reject women’s ordination principally because they are homosexual misogynists, to the odd clerical ducks for whom departure from the Episcopal Church gave them the chance to become bishops (the Volo Episcoparis and their numerous episcopi vagantes), to sober, reasonable, and catholic-minded Christians who loved the beauties of the most liturgically traditional, least sectarian-minded, and most cultured of Protestant churches.

And now ... the bitter (albeit predictable) fruit.

From Mr. Esolen:

The new odium Christi is a hatred of the moral teachings of Jesus, hatred preached in the name of Jesus himself, sometimes by preachers in churches riddled with termites, and sometimes by licentious scoundrels who want what they want, and there's an end on it. A sinner with a bad conscience might glance up from his sty should he hear the Lord say, "If a man but look upon a woman with lust, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart." So instead we give him Jesus the Anti-Christ, who resolutely never said a thing about sins of the flesh.

Renaissance

We don't need a new religion; we need a new religio:

The Romans of its golden age often said that the secret of Roman success was its religio, by which they mean their piousness, how their discipline was so tight they followed the old religious practices of paganism to the letter, no matter how useless they might have seemed.

For the alternate, Houellebecqian view, follow the link.

Disinformation

From Anglican Curmudgeon:

The rifle he used was not an AR-15.

In a moment of 'wild psychoanalysis', there appear to be grounds for thinking that this may have been a crime of self-hate. (In classic paranoid fashion, I may effectively strike out at myself by going after the (horrible) others. For, I am another.)

And, besides ...

"The Most Magical Place On Earth"

... credited with igniting a national conversation on gun control and hate crimes.

A national conversation on mental illness and radical ideology (and the possible interconnections thereof)? Meh. Not so much. Move along people. Move along.

The Grammar of Assent

A longish, mixed-up miscellany, not thought through and sure to piss-off all sorts. Are any of the following remarks true? Are they even accurate? Dunno.

The problem with 'mere reaction'

From The Old Jamestown Church:

His remark about ACNA was interesting. He noted that there is a huge segment of people in that province who, if it had not been for the consecration of Vicky Gene Robinison, would have happily remained Episcopalians. Their move out of TEc to ACNA, in his estimation, wasn't so much evidence of their being traditional Anglicans as it was of their being mere anti-gay bigots (his words). He went on to say that these people really have no clue as to what it means to be a traditional Anglican, or as to just what had happened to the Church of England and her spawn throughout the globe long, long before Robinson's consecration.

This is my (unfortunate) riposte to so many of the many rainbow flavours of "Anglicanism" out there: not very Anglican. If one wanted to be a Presbyterian or a Roman Catholic, then go for it. But ... not ... Anglicanism.

No way out

From The Old Jamestown Church:

As for me, I seek full incorporation into that "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church" in which we say we believe when we recite the Creed, and I can only do so as an *English* Catholic, not a Roman one or an Orthodox one. I intend to follow the Lord's will, *whatever that may be* ... my Anglicanism can only be that of a Catholic kind, in keeping with the stated sentiments of Cranmerians and Carolines and Tractarians, however much they have missed the mark in that regard.

English Catholicism ... precisely nowhere. Which is why my only passport is stamped 'Erewhon'.

More than a feeling

From Touchstone:

Latitudinarian Conservatives ... cannot effectively resist the liberalization of their Churches. This is especially true because most liberals ... have now mastered the language of evangelicalism, and speak easily of “mission” and “spirituality” and “evangelism.” In battle Latcons have no fixed home to defend, and in fact are sometimes not even sure there is an enemy to fight.

Because their faith is mainly instinctive and emotional, they are easily fooled by those whose instincts and emotions seem the same. Liberalism almost always makes a plausible case for laudable ends—equality or reconciliation or unity or mission. Its errors lie in the way it defines these words and in the way it defends them, which is to say in its doctrine. Thus Latcons, with their unsettled attitude to dogma and tradition, cannot easily see the errors, and therefore tend to accept the sentiment.

Yeah, liberals seem harmless enough: until they come out swinging. Duuuuuuuuuuck!

Back to the future

Old Enoch had it right, as there is but one basic choice: (Catholic) Christianity or Not (Catholic) Christianity. You may take your pick. Or not.

"Their Secular Religion"

From The Z Man:

No matter what happens, the war on normal people must continue. It’s what defines them. It’s who they are.

That’s what’s important to understand about the Progressive mind. These are not people who think like normal people. Instead, they are completely immersed in their secular religion, in the same way the Muslim fanatics are consumed by Islam. No matter what happens in the world, the Left looks for a cause in the tenets of their faith. In this case, it is Magic Shape Theory that says shaping metal into a gun imbues it with the power to take possession of a human, making them into a killer.

This is why they never seem to lose focus on their causes, no matter how many times their cause has been rejected. Disarming the sinners, the bad whites they imagine are holding up the final ascent into the promised land, is a defining goal. After the Civil War, they wanted to murder all the bad whites. They still do, but they need to get the guns first. That’s what matters, not the dead gay guys lying on the dance floor or the Muslim lunatics running loose in the country ...

It’s an important lesson. There can be no deal struck with these people. There’s no truce to be had or a balance to be struck. What defines American liberalism is an unquantifiable hatred of the sinner, the bad whites they see as the reason the prophesies have not been fulfilled. When you define yourself by the moral distance between yourself and the bad people, you can never embrace the bad people. You can never accept them. You can only lie in wait, for your chance at revenge and glory. That’s why they spring to action right after these events ...

I’m fond of pointing out that civilization exists in the space between barbarians on one side and fanatics on the other. The fear of the barbarian forces civilized people to do what they must to keep the fanatics under control. America has lost control of the fanatics and they are running amok at a time when barbarians are pouring over the border, abetted by the fanatics who see an advantage. Exploding Mohameds are a symptom of a greater disease, the disease of Modern Liberalism.

The People of Walmart

From The Z Man:

Globalism is built on the concept of privatizing profits and socializing costs. Importing migrant labor, for example, allows the employer to avoid the cost of labor laws, insurance and competitive wages. At the same time, they can shovel those costs onto the public via welfare programs, crime, charity, etc. There’s nothing more expens[iv]e than cheap goods made with illegal labor.

The Big Sleep

From Mr. Hitchens:

It has been a mystery to me that these voters stayed loyal to organisations that repeatedly spat on them from a great height. Labour doesn’t love the poor. It loves the London elite. The Tories don’t love the country. They love only money. The referendum, in which the parties are split and uncertain, has freed us all from silly tribal loyalties and allowed us to vote instead according to reason. We can all vote against the heedless, arrogant snobs who inflicted mass immigration on the poor (while making sure they lived far from its consequences themselves). And nobody can call us ‘racists’ for doing so. That’s not to say that the voters are ignoring the actual issue of EU membership as a whole. As I have known for decades, this country has gained nothing from belonging to the European Union, and lost a great deal ...

England has never been more little than it is now, a subject province of someone else’s empire.

I have to say that this isn’t the way out I would have chosen, and that I hate referendums because I love our ancient Parliament. And, as I loathe anarchy and chaos, I fear the crisis that I think is coming.

I hope we produce people capable of handling it. I wouldn’t have started from here. But despite all this, it is still rather thrilling to see the British people stirring at last after a long, long sleep.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.

Sixteen Hundred and Sixty-Two

I think I now see the logic -- the dialectic -- of 1662. Cranmer was practising the art of modernist collage, or dynamic juxtaposition. The only proper response to the divinity of the Sanctus ("Holy, holy, holy, Lord")? The humanity of Humble Access: "We do not presume."

So too with the question of the oblata.

*****

The First Oblation

Then shall the Priest return to the Lord's Table, and begin the Offertory, saying one or more of these Sentences following, as he thinketh most convenient in his discretion. ...

(We begin with Dominical utterances but then ... mind-warping dialectics.)

Who goeth a warfare at any time of his own cost? Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? Or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? 1 Cor. ix.

If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we shall reap your worldly things? 1 Cor. ix.

Do ye not know, that they who minister about holy things live of the sacrifice; and they who wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord also ordained, that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel. 1 Cor. ix.

He that soweth little shall reap little; and he that soweth plenteously shall reap plenteously. Let every man do according as he is disposed in his heart, not grudging, or of necessity; for God loveth a cheerful giver. 2 Cor. ix.

Let him that is taught in the Word minister unto him that teacheth, in all good things. Be not deceived, God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap. Gal. vi.

While we have time, let us do good unto all men; and specialty unto them that are of the household of faith. Gal. vi.

Godliness is great riches, if a man be content with that he hath: for we brought nothing into the world, neither may we carry any thing out. 1 Tim. vi.

Whilst these Sentences are in reading, the Deacons, Church-wardens, or other fit person appointed for that purpose, shall receive the Alms for the Poor, and other devotions of the people, in a decent basin to be provided by the Parish for that purpose; and reverently bring it to the Priest, who shall humbly present and place it upon the holy Table.

And when there is a Communion, the Priest shall then place upon the Table so much Bread and Wine, as he shall think sufficient. After which done, the Priest shall say,

Let us pray for the whole state of Christ's Church militant here in earth.
ALMIGHTY and everliving God, who by thy holy Apostle hast taught us to make prayers, and supplications, and to give thanks for all men; We humbly beseech thee most mercifully to accept our alms and oblations, and to receive these our prayers, which we offer unto thy Divine Majesty ...

The Great Action

When the Priest, standing before the Table, hath so ordered the Bread and Wine, that he may with the more readiness and decency break the Bread before the people, and take the Cup into his hands, he shall say the Prayer of Consecration, as followeth.

Anamnesis [= the act of identification, the same sacrifice]

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death, until his coming again;

Invocation [= following in the Western tradition, a prayer addressed to the Father]

Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood:

Institution [= the moment of consecration, containing the words required for blessing additional elements]

who, in the same night that he was betrayed, (a) took Bread; and, when he had given thanks, (b) he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat, (c) this is my Body which is given for you: Do this in remembrance of me. Likewise after supper he (d) took the Cup; and, when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of this; for this (e) is my Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins: Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me.

Communion [= as we have been commanded, so we immediately respond]

THE Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.

THE Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for thee, and be thankful.

The Lord's Prayer [= praying just as we have been taught to pray]

The Second Oblation

O LORD and heavenly Father, we thy humble servants entirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humbly beseeching thee to grant, that by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion. And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee, that all we, who are partakers of this holy Communion, may be fulfilled with thy grace and heavenly benediction. And although we be unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom, and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end. Amen.

*****

The Oblations are distinct -- albeit connected -- to the Great Action. To mix them up with it would smack of nascent Pelagianism. The First Oblation is our attempted commercium as punctuated by the dialectical meditations on gift-giving. Then the Consecration and Communion, to which our ultimate response is The Second Oblation, whereby we finally render the acceptable and rational worship to God, in Spirit and in Truth.

The Wax Argument

Our thinking about the world depends upon its (relative) viscosity. Form necessarily entails a certain resistance to deformation. But the world is also characterized by fluidity and duality. Things are "in motion" ("in flux") and thought, if it is to be honest to things, needs swiftly to adapt, as possible. The quest for a 'fluid mechanics' of thought has been brief and fleeting. But the part of dialectics that can be quickly grasped is the replacement of the logic of either/or with that of both/and. In other words, Schmitt's complexio oppositorum. The challenge -- "Is it either x or y?" -- needs replacing by the acknowledgement -- "It is both x and y."

The salience of this for Anglicanism is, perforce, obvious: catholic or reformed? But partisans name those who seek consistency in a single, unsullied identity, one purged of all traces of the alternative. 'Complexity', from this perspective, seems incoherent. But all that is really required is easy: simply to give up the bugbear of consistency.

What is ... the party, the church, the nation, the union? German sociology introduced another dichotomy, that between Gemeinschaft–Gesellschaft.

According to the dichotomy, social ties can be categorized, on one hand, as belonging to personal social interactions, and the roles, values, and beliefs based on such interactions (Gemeinschaft, German, commonly translated as "community"), or on the other hand as belonging to indirect interactions, impersonal roles, formal values, and beliefs based on such interactions (Gesellschaft, German, commonly translated as "society") ... Weber ... argued that Gemeinschaft is rooted in a "subjective feeling" that may be "affectual or traditional". Gesellschaft-based relationships, according to Weber, are rooted in "rational agreement by mutual consent", the best example of which is a commercial contract. To emphasize the fluidity and amorphousness of the relationship between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, Weber modified the terms in German to Vergemeinschaftung, and Vergesellschaftung, which are the gerund forms of the German words.

As usual, we didn't need German sociology as this distinction had already been wrestled with in Roman law, by means of the (respective) concepts of societas and universitas. Per Oakeshott,

The idea societas is that of agents who, by choice or circumstance, are related to one another so as to compose an identifiable association of a certain sort. The tie which joins them, and in respect of which each recognizes himself to be socius, is not that of an engagement in an enterprise to pursue a common susbtantive purpose or to promote a common interest, but that of loyalty to one another ... [on the other hand] universitas ... is persons associated in a manner such as to constitute them a natural person, a partnership of persons which is itself a Person, or in some important respects like a person [On Human Conduct, pp. 201 & 203].

In those aforementioned organizations (party, church, nation, or union) are we societizing or universitizing? It appears that we must simultaneously be doing both, moving fluidly between these two activities, on the fly. To insist on one to the sharp detriment of the other names the only error.

With respect to what may appear to be a revival of senseless theological polemic -- what are the oblata? -- it needs bearing in mind that the "gift" we seek to yield to God (not because He needs it, but because it is a debt owed nonetheless) is turned into the "grace" that He freely gives to us. If that doesn't mess with our logic, what will?

Both/And

Cyprian

S. Cyprian has been thought to introduce a view of the sacrifice differing from that of the earlier Fathers. With Clement, Justin, and Irenaeus, the oblata are the bread and cup, offered in token of thanksgiving, with a special remembrance of the death of Christ. This we have seen is the language also of the earlier Liturgies. S. Cyprian repeats the same doctrine, but adds that the Passion itself is the sacrifice, the Body and Blood of Christ are offered; and this was afterwards amplified into Christ Himself, slain and sacrificed on the holy table. Differently as these expressions sound to modern controversialists, they will be found, on examination, to mean substantially the same. Cyprian himself explains, that by offering the Lord's Passion he means shewing forth the Lord's death; the cup is offered in commemoration of the Lord and His Passion. And S. Chrysostom, the greatest proficient in these rhetorical expressions, after saying, "we offer the same sacrifice," qualifies the words by immediately adding, "or rather, we celebrate the remembrance of the sacrifice." Less than this could not have been intended by Justin or Irenseus. To offer bread and wine in remembrance of the Passion, is to offer the Passion itself in the only way that a thing past can be offered. The Fathers did not suppose these gifts to be literally delivered into God's possession, or that any event could be literally recalled to His memory. By "offering" and "presenting" they meant, pleading the sacrifice before God;—objectively (as Mede writes) to the Divine contemplation and acceptance. When the bread and wine were offered in visible symbol, the things signified by them — the Body and Blood or Passion of Jesus Christ—were offered in faith and prayer, as the propitiation through which pardon and acceptance were besought.

In the later Liturgies, the expressions point more to the things signified than to the signs; still, in all the actual oblata are the elements, not the Person of Christ, nor even His Death. For of neither of these could the Church implore God that "they might be carried by the angels to the altar in heaven." This petition, retained in the Roman Missal to the present day, is a standing protest against the Tridentine sacrifice. It is the worship of the Church below, that the angels are to bear up to heaven, for a memorial before God; indeed, the earliest Liturgy of all prays for the reception of the gift, "through the mediation of Christ," without mentioning the angelic ministry. The offering of Christ's death, or of Christ slain, means the presentation of the appointed symbols of His Body and Blood, to commemorate and plead the Sacrifice once for all made on the cross.

The Catholic Doctrine

Peritus

More Sam Francis on James Burnham (from The Social Pathologist):

The twentieth century, for the United States as well as for the rest of the world, has been an age of revolution of far more profound transformational effect than any the modern world has ever experienced. Perhaps not since neolithic times has mankind undergone simultaneous changes in economic, social, political, and intellectual relationships of such far-reaching consequences ... Just as in the mass corporations a new elite of professional managers emerged that replaced the traditional entrepreneurial or bourgeois elite of businessmen, so in the state also a new elite of professionally trained managers or bureaucrats developed that challenged and generally became dominant over the older political elites of aristocrats and amateur politicians who occupied the formal offices of government. Both in the economy and the state, organizations began to undertake functions for which a smaller scale of organization was not prepared and which the traditional elites of aristocratic and bourgeois society were unable to perform. A similar process occurred in labor unions, professional associations, churches, educational institutions, military organizations, and the organs of mass communication and cultural expression. In all sectors of twentieth-century industrial society, the growth of mass organizations brought with it an expansion of functions and power, a new elite wedded by its material interests and psychic and intellectual preparation to continuing expansion, and a metamorphosis of the organizations themselves as well as of the social and political orders they dominated.

The bane of my existence are "experts," consultants, administrators, petty bureaucrats. They have ruined the university, the church, and politics. This is why I don't put Vatican II down to individual popes: if anything it showed the complete inability of one person to manage a process that proceeded inexorably by its own rules and own logic. Just when infallible tyrants were actually required, they caved. They have been replaced by slick hucksters, who combine a firm belief in the inerrancy of their own judgement with an uncanny ability to bend in the wind. Think Tony Blair, who would be my candidate for Anti-Christ, should someone need to be named on the spot.

The New Elite