Patrick Deneen points to an upside-down view evident, as he describes it in his book Regime Change, in the current meritocratic elite: the very ones who hold power insist that they have none.

How are we to make sense of this statement?

First, Deneen suggests that Western history can be understood in terms of commoners and elites, with different configurations obtaining at different formative moments (e.g., in the Roman Republic, under medieval feudalism, etc.). The present commoners are multi-ethnic working-class people living, by and large, in the middle parts of the United States while the current elites are university-educated, coastal meritocrats (again, by and large).

Second, “the laptop class” or the current “power elite” operate, in my words, through soft power and this in two senses–ideological and institutional. As for ideology, there is (a) the commonly held view according to which the powerful are, by their mistaken lights, being victimized (think of “microaggressions” and so on) and (b) the belief that they’re working on behalf of the worst off, especially as far as what’s now termed “identity” goes. Finally, (c) the way to overcome injustice is, it’s often asserted, through “progress”–that is, by having more and more of the disadvantaged become the meritocratic few. Deneen points out that neither (a) nor (b) is actually true and that (c) is totally infeasible.

As far as institutions are concerned, the new elite occupies the “creative” institutions–Big Tech, advertising, Hollywood, the universities–and in this sense really do make up what Richard Florida famously termed “the creative class.”

Finally, Deneen claims, with good reason, that the new elite are geographically (and politically) separated from commoners to an extent not hitherto known in history. In lieu of a “mixed constitution” which would enable a virtuous elite to respond to virtuous commoners and vice versa, a great divide separates two broken, or hollowed-out, worlds.

If, indeed, all were going well in the United States thanks to the playing out of liberalism over the course of the past couple hundred years both in its classical form and in its socially progressive version, then why are ordinary people spiraling into chaos? Why are our universities increasingly out of touch? Why are our best and brightest going into finance and consulting? Why is religious participation precipitously falling off? And why are face-to-face communities falling apart?

We’re reaching a critical historical moment, an opportune moment (“kairos”) even. Since fascism and communism are long dead and since classical and progressive liberalism is dying, to which political philosophy are we going to turn with the hope of reviving civic and cultural life?