Prole Models

When a society is robust and self-confident, Toynbee suggested, the influence travels largely from the elites to the proletariats. The proletariats are “softened” (in Toynbee’s phrase) by their imitation of the manners and morals of a dominant elite. But when a society begins to falter, the imitation proceeds largely in the opposite direction: the dominant elite is coarsened by its imitation of proletarian manners: Toynbee spoke in this context of a growing “sense of drift,” “truancy,” “promiscuity,” and general “vulgarization” of manners, morals, and the arts. The elites, instead of holding fast to their own standards, suddenly begin to “go native” and adopt the dress, attitudes, and behavior of the lower classes. As Mr. Murray notes, “That sounds very much like what has been happening in the U.S.”

- The tendency of our culture

this article in The New Criterion is a reply to Prole Models by Charles Murray

via @charlesmurray

For Toynbee, history had the structure of a Greek tragedy. It was the story of Hubris ineluctably calling forth “ate” —infatuation, blindness, delusion—which was followed in turn by Nemesis and ruination.