Country of Lords

Just finished reading Country of Lords, a brilliant account of, well, so many things.

First of all, shoutout to Kim Phillips-Fein, the history professor at Columbia University, who wrote it.

I learned so much from Country of Lords that I went right out and ordered a copy of her previous book, Fear City, which is about the bankruptcy of New York City in the 1970s...

Hold it! I haven't even told you what Country of Lords is about. Focus, Benny, focus--one Kim Phillips-Fein book at a time.  

Okay, back to Country of Lords.

The subhead reads: Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long Fight Against Equality in America.

Which sorta sums it up. Basically, she's picking apart the "ideas" that form the foundation of the ideology that justifies the inequities of our time. An ideology currently championed by Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Marc Andreeson and other gazillionaires and wannabe gazillionaires. Like JD Vance. 

Phillips-Fein dedicates one chapter after another to analyzing the "thought," if that's what you want to call it, of public "intellectuals," if that's what you want to call them.

She deserves a medal for plowing through pages and pages of bullshit written by the antecedents of today’s influencers. We’re talk about racists, antisemites, eugenicists and assorted other hustlers, who figured they could make big bucks telling rich people what they wanted to hear.

And what do rich people want to hear?  A bunch of mumbo jumbo dressed up as science and dedicated to the theme that the rich deserve every penny they've got cause they're smarter than everyone else. Otherwise, they wouldn't be rich.

And everyone else is stupid, or at least not very bright. Otherwise, they'd be rich.

And if you don't give the rich what they want, we're swapping mediocrity for meritocracy.

Hear that? If you pass laws that punish the poor and make the rich even richer, that's good. Cause it's promoting a meritocracy, rewarding only those who've earned their rewards. Like rich people.

And if you pass laws that benefit people who are poor that's bad. Cause you're rewarding losers. Cause only those who got deserve to get more. 

That more or less sums up their philosophy.

Great job, Professor Phillips-Fein—gonna read Fear City real soon…

This bunch views life as a swim meet in which competitors are rewarded strictly by swim times. Only the winners get medals.

Unless, of course, you're Riley Gaines and you finish tied for fifth in a college race of women. And then you make a career out of whining about having to share the fifth-place trophy with Lia Thomas, a trans swimmer.

I was hoping the meritocrats would take issue with Gaines.  Cause in a real meritocracy, there'd be no trophy for any swimmer outside the top three. After that it's like a participation trophy.

And no self-respecting meritocrats would endorse giving someone a trophy just for participating, dammit!

But somehow Riley's become a MAGA darling, who claims to be standing up for women's sports.

Conveniently overlooking that there were four "real" women swimmers in that race who beat Riley and Thomas. So, what the hell you crying about, MAGA?

Wow. Sorry about that tangent. Don't know where it came from.

By chance, I read Country of Lords right around the time I saw an installment of The Elephant Graveyard, a YouTube show by an unknown narrator I'll call Hunter. Cause his sardonic voice sounds so much like the written voice of Hunter Thompson, the great gonzo journalists.

This particular Elephant installment was about the death of comedy. Or, more specifically, the elevation in fortune and fame of talentless hacks who aren't funny, clever, wise or witty. Instead, they got pushed to the head of the line by virtue of their ties to Joe Rogan, another wannabe comedian who's not particularly funny.

The hacks go on Rogan's show and enthusiastically suck up to him by laughing uproariously at his jokes--even though they're not funny. And he promotes their appearances. And maybe they get a Netflix deal out of it, cause if Netflix promotes some un-funny comic from Rogan's show, then maybe MAGA won't call Netflix woke.

In short, it's the exact opposite of a meritocracy.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say the entire Trump universe is proof you need not be smart, educated or in any way deserving to get ahead. 

Hence, you got Bobby Kennedy running the federal Department of Health and Human Services, even though he's no doctor. And Linda McMahon running the Department of Education, even though she's no educator. And Lee Zeldin running the Environmental Protection Agency, even though he's no scientist. Or environmentalist. More like the environment needs protection from him.

So, we've swapped a meritocracy for a suckuptotrumpocracy.

As you can see, Phillips-Fein’s got me all fired up with her latest. Good books will do that. Now it’s on to Fear City.