RICHARD FERNANDEZ: A Government of Aliens: How the Public Guardians Betrayed the Public Trust.
The Epstein scandal was one many recent events that suggested the custodians had betrayed their stewardship. If culture is the mind of a civilization, no society can long survive the corruption of it’s own legacy and symbols. The photo of Ghislaine Maxwell and Kevin Spacey seated on the thrones of England as guests of Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton respectively seemed to do just that.
The barbarians were at the altars. Some would argue the discovery of cultural aliens in high places came about only because of the Woke exposed them. But as Michael James Coudrey pointed out, many high status sex offenders were prosecuted during the current un-Woke administration and the exposure of so many villains may have less to do with the relative morality of bureaucrats than the breakup of the defensive box formation the elites formerly sheltered in.
Like characters in a science fiction movie who discover special glasses that show the aliens among them, the public sees them now. The same insights that fueled the populist rebellion also weakened the mutually protective networks that prevented their previous detection. When the old boy system failed it did with such suddenness that many tycoons, media personalities, politicians from both parties, artists, academicians and even royalty were taken by surprise.
For much of the public the shock was no less. To many it seemed as if it were already too late. The game was afoot not only in high places but among gangs in the street. The old verities were condemned as supremacism. Criticism was now violence while physical destruction like arson was to be indulged as mere damage to property. Worst of all there was nothing to appeal to. God had been banished, symbols and statues pulled down till there was one remaining yardstick left to invoke: the inappropriate. That only survived because it meant nothing and was therefore harmless.
For a while the mantra “trust the science” was pressed into service as an expedient. But as Reason pointed out that too collapsed under abuse and political mistrust.
The ruling class’s pigeons are coming home to roost.