Darryl,
At 15:55 01/08/2012, you wrote:
Keith, you have either ignored or missed the point.
More accurately, I departed from the point of the prevalence of
fraternities/sororities/hazing in the truth-out article (which I
wouldn't dispute, except its tendency to generalise) in order to
arrive at where their members end up in the 'establishment' -- the
power layer (whether of Mike G's 1% or of my 20-class).
You are speaking of corporations, governments, faculties of thought
but the piece is of the grist that is needed to continue these
"specialized power groups" that control our world and the sources
from whence they come. I find the article to be very accurate from
my own experience in both college and university with sports being a
big contributor in my own case. Eventually each person has to
choose: "Are you a team player, or can you think for yourself"?
Consequently, my choices in later (professional) life meant lesser
salary but a clear conscience. Empathy ruled my decisions. The
article was pointing out the very lack of such that is sought by
those who would destroy for the sake of control and profit.
Once again, I'm not arguing with this. The phenomenon is nowhere near
as pronounced in the UK, except anaemic forms of it in Oxford and
Cambridge. (However, it used to be in Germany in the 18th and 19th
centuries to an advanced level,. The Germans have always taken their
universities much more seriously than UK ones, and the typical
student would spend many years there. Students' university life was
far deeper and more intensive than anywhere else, so I wonder whether
German immigrants were the source of the fraternity culture in
American universities. Their university Studentenverbindung
(equivalents to fraternities) went in for deference, submission and
extreme hazing far more than even extreme American ones, such as
Yale's Skull and Bones. Some of the German ones even used fencing
challenges as their main fear-inducing technique -- even to the point
of death sometimes [which the universities authorities would often
turn a blind eye to]. Among themselves, aristocratic German students
would "arrange" for a small sword nick to be inflicted on the cheek
during a fight. The scar that remained would be the highest possible
status symbol that a German could carry for the rest of his life.)
Keith
)
Therefore your "fallacy" comment is fallacious but only due to
misinterpretation or misunderstanding.
I was rather writing to the point that the power establishment in a
modern advanced country is no longer of a simple class-like nature.
True, most of those I call the 20-class have considerable
similarities due to their private schooling, elite universities and
general disdain of the 80-class, it is itself increasingly dividing
into specialized groups in order to maintain their power role (and
incomes!) in relation to one another and to the government
(invariably also a small group). (Once again these aren't to be
confused with lobby groups, many of which are initiated in, or at
least have close contacts with, 80-class initiatives [e.g. trade
unions seeking import tariffs, environmental groups, tea party eruptions].)
D.
On 01/08/2012 5:13 AM, Keith Hudson wrote:
The same fallacy recurs in the truth-out piece as in Mike G's 1%
elite. Mike S's 19% are no more uniform in detailed culture than
the 1% was. In any advanced country today there are anything up to
a dozen spccialized power groups which are hovering around and
influencing the main economic decisions of the formal signatories
(the government group). These, be it noted, more or less
continuously have the ear of one or more government ministers
(compared with commercial lobby groups which come and go
adventitiously according to the particular privileges they are
seeking). (Lobby groups spring from the corporate world mainly --
and their leaders come from a wide variety of early backgrounds.)
The dozen or so I'm talking about generally share the same culture
(due to private education and preferential access to elite
universities)vis-a-vis the 80-class but their specific cultures
will be distinct according to individual abilities, the specific
schools and universities they went to, their early career opportunities.
While the dozen or so groups comprising the 19% are constantly
seething in mutual competition in order to influence government
decisions, they certainly don't hold the others in contempt. At
least. most of them don't, being aware of the abilities and
expertise of the others. I can immediately think of three
specialized groups (the army chiefs, investment bankers in recent
years, politicians) which fit into the fraternities and sororities
background almost perfectly but not others which certainly didn't
when their members were at university (top civil servants, the
scientific [fast-rising in influence but which is still relatively
recent], creative artists).
Keith
At 07:58 01/08/2012, Mike wrote:
Relevant to Keith's 20/80 demographic split, here's a piece that casts
some light on where the 1% gets the other 19% needed as
well-remunerated support for the 1%'s power and life style:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10590-the-ruling-elite-and-the-perversion-of-scholarship
From the article:
Hazing, comradeship and complicity in sexual abuse, including rape,
make up the glue that holds campus sports teams and fraternity houses
together. The National Study of Student Hazing reports that 73 percent
of U.S. fraternities and sororities haze. [....] Hazing weeds out
those with enough self-esteem and independence to stand up to the
hierarchy. It ensures conformity and obedience. These groups are, in
essence, self-selected. Those who have the fortitude and courage to
oppose their own public humiliation and the public humiliation
perpetuated with each new cycle of recruits or pledges leave. Those
who remain conform.
[snip]
The corporate world sees football players, fraternity brothers and
sorority sisters as prime recruits. They have been conditioned to join
the team, to surrender moral autonomy, to accept and carry out acts of
personal humiliation, to treat with contempt those who oppose them or
who are different, to define their life by an infantile narcissism
centered on greed and self-promotion and to remain silent about crimes
they witness or take part in. It is the very ethic of corporations.
The ruling elite sees in Greek organizations and football programs the
training ground for the amoral class of speculators, bankers and
corporatists who pillage the country.
[snip]
Corporate culture, which now dominates higher education, shares the
predatory culture of the military. These cultures are about subsuming
the self into the herd. They are about the acquiring of technical,
vocational skills to serve the system. And with the increasing budget
cuts, and more craven obsequiousness to corporate donors, it will only
get worse. These forces of conformity are hostile to the humanities
that teach students to question assumptions and structures, that prod
them to seek a life of meaning and an ethical code that challenges the
blind, utilitarian obedience to power and profit that corporations and
the military instill.
I was more or less aware of this when I was in school, especially
reinforced by a happenstance encounter at an Amherst fraternity. But
I never thought clearly of it in systemic terms.
FWIW,
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
/( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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