{"id":129,"date":"2003-07-06T00:46:09","date_gmt":"2003-07-06T00:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2010-04-22T06:08:46","modified_gmt":"2010-04-22T06:08:46","slug":"a_setting_son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=129","title":{"rendered":"A Setting Son"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this month’s Atlantic<\/a>, a lot to write and think about. A great article on “Supremacy by Stealth” by Robert Kaplan that I put on Biggest Guy’s night table for him to read, and that I’ll follow up on in another post.<\/p>\n

And an infuriating article “In Praise of Nepotism<\/i>” by Adam Bellow, son of Saul – taken from a forthcoming book<\/a> of the same name.<\/p>\n

The article isn’t available online, so let me set out some quotes:<\/p>\n

Since we are clearly not going to get rid of the new nepotism any time soon, Americans must come to terms with it. That means learning to practice it in accordance with the unwritten rules that have made it, on balance, a wholesome and positive force. If history shows us anything, it is that nepotism in itself is neither good nor bad. It’s the way you practice it that matters. Those who observe the hidden rules of nepotism are rewarded and praised; those who do not are punished, often savagely. These rules – derived from my own study of dynastic families, from the biblical House of David to the Kennedys and the Bushes – can be reduced to the following simple injunctions:<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

1. Don’t embarrass me.<\/u> The first rule of patronage has always been that the protege’s actions and manner reflect on the patron. By holding a patron responsible for his protege’s performance, the Mandarins of the Chinese imperial bureaucracy introduced a powerful corrective to the potential for nepotistic abuses. This is also the corrective built into the modern nepotistic equation.<\/p>\n

2. Don’t embarrass yourself,<\/u> or You have to work harder than anyone else<\/u>. If the protege is obligated to respect the patron, he is equally obligated to respect himself and his colleagues. A democratic society is founded on a moral commitment to equal opportunity, and those who enjoy advantages of birth must make an effort to counteract the natural resentment of those who do not. That is why “good” business heirs display outstanding dedication – arriving early, leaving late, and in other respects going out of their way to win the approval of their colleagues. This is what distinguishes the new nepotism from the old: other people must prove their merit before the fact, but nepotees must prove it after.<\/p>\n

3. Pass it on.<\/u> Although nepotism is considered selfish, it proceeds from the generous impulse to pass something on to one’s children, and this we think of as entirely praiseworthy. But if nepotism is in some respects a two-way street, it is also a one-way transaction. We therefore express our gratitude to our parents in the form of generosity to our children. This wholesome consciousness implies a certain humility and an acceptance of morality.<\/p>\n

Above all, it is high time for us to get over our ambivalence about the “return” of dynastic families. This country is now old enough to have accumulated a large number of great families, and we can no longer deny their many obvious and constructive contributions. Americans admire the Adamses, the Roosevelts, and the Kennedys not just for their unity – a value that is becoming increasingly difficult to preserve in our mobile society – but for their sense of common purpose and the spirit of public service that they foster. There is much to be said for these “aristocratic” features of dynastic families, and as long as these families observe the meritocratic rules of the new nepotism, we really have no basis for complaint. Indeed we should not only respect great families, but try to be more like them. rather than simply seeking to punish or stamp out the bad kind of nepotism, we should reward and encourage the good.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My first reaction on reading this was that the satire hadn’t quite worked; I was looking for the ironic stretch, and never found it. A closer reading, and a bit of Google searching, led me to the conclusion that Bellow is actually serious, and that he believes that the kind of dynastic despotism he represents (along with, sadly, Lizzie Grubman and the Hilton daughters) represents the hope of the republic.<\/p>\n

My second reaction was to be annoyed that the Atlantic, a magazine I devour and consider a touchstone, would publish such an offensive piece of tripe. But I reconsidered. They have done a valuable service, as has Bellow himself, to whom I give full marks for courage, given the shellacking I am sure he will take once his book hits the stands this month. They have brought this issue out onto the table and made it clear that the ‘Class War’ isn’t only an issue on the left. By writing this article, and publishing it, Bellow and the Atlantic have in essence thrown down the gauntlet. <\/p>\n

The decline in income and class mobility for the average American is one of the three or four most dangerous issues that we face as a nation today. The increasing concentration of wealth, income, and power – not a threat from the outside – are what place our nation at the most serious risk. We will eventually defeat the anti-Western, anti-modern forces combating us today, but we may do so only to wither from within, as the legitimacy<\/a> that ties us together collapses, sucked dry by privilege.<\/p>\n

Bellow proposes that we take a bug and declare it to be a feature; that the increasingly frozen nature of our society holds promise – because it will give us more enlightened rulers.<\/p>\n

The America that I love has it’s share of spoiled children (I’ll confess that I’m one and grew up with many of them in Beverly Hills), and has never promised to be fair. But they have always been seen as the inevitable imperfections of the system, and the unfairness as something we were mildly ashamed of. Never before has someone had the colossal nerve to hold that unfairness up and call it hope.<\/p>\n

The America that I love – of country music stations and diners, as well as symphony halls and dining rooms set with Christofle – is one in which Bellow’s pronouncements in one would lead to an ass-kicking, and in the other social suicide.<\/p>\n

Personally, I look forward to using this book as part of my arguments to reimpose the estate tax.<\/p>\n

The book is supposed to be published this July; I can only hope it comes out on Bastille Day. I’ll close with Mark Twain’s comment on the Terror and the inevitable end result of the kind of republic of the elites that Bellow envisions:<\/p>\n

“There were two ‘Reigns of Terror’, if we could but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passions, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all for the ‘horrors of the… momentary Terror’, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief terror that we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror – that unspeakable bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”<\/p>\n

– Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UPDATE:<\/b> See the follow-up article “Bellow Redux<\/a>“, which includes a priceless quote from Tom Paine… and a comparison that may surprise you.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 2<\/b> My talk with Bellow, and my own apology.<\/a>
\n–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Armed Liberal takes on Adam Bellow’s article “In Praise of Nepotism.” He writes: “The book is supposed to be published this July; I can only hope it comes out on Bastille Day.” Read the rest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}