In Response to a Worthy Critic

“I will close here by thanking Senatore for his thoughtful critique of my review. I hope that this response convinces him that my ‘sweeping statements and feel-good-isms’ are not wholly without merit!”

Democracy thrives on debate, which is why I was very happy to see that Tony D. Senatore took issue with some of the arguments I advanced in my recent Merion West review of Joseph F. Johnston, Jr.’s book, The Decline of Nations. But to be constructive, democratic debate must not entail misrepresentation of an opponent’s argument. So let me begin by addressing Senatore’s deficient characterization of my—and Johnston’s—argument regarding the necessary social role of legitimate aristocracy.

As I noted in my review, by looking back at the decline of Rome and Britain, Johnston made some incisive points regarding the importance of a socially legitimate aristocracy. This reminded me of Ross Douthat’s 2018 New York Times column, published in the wake of former President George H. W. Bush’s death, regarding the decline of the “WASPs.” Senatore writes that I desire “a return to this sort of elite rule” by the WASPs. That is not true. I wrote that while we should not desire a return to the racially restrictive rule by the WASPs, our contemporary elite would do well to emulate the WASPs’ sense of public duty—of devotion to the common good—a bit more. The WASPs carried out those duties imperfectly, but there was at least a recognition on their part that they owed something to the wider society.

As Professor Michael Sandel writes in The Tyranny of Merit—and as I pointed out in a review of that book for Merion West—today’s elites view themselves as true meritocrats. They see themselves as having earned their elite status all on their own. This somewhat false sense of meritocratic achievement leaves today’s elites far less ready and willing to use their status and resources (like money and influence) to advance the common good. So, the withering away of a sense of public duty and devotion on the part of elites is a problem, one with historical antecedents in Rome and Britain. We ought to attend to that problem. This is not to say that we should usher in a renewed era of WASP hegemony. That is ridiculous. However, it is to say that contemporary elites would do well to remind themselves that their success was not entirely of their own making and that they have a duty to give back.