"[A] passionate, compelling, and disturbing argument that the ills of democracy in the United States today arise from the default of its elites." —John Gray, New York Times Book Review (front-page review)
In a front-page review in the Washington Post Book World, John Judis wrote: "Political analysts have been poring over exit polls and precinct-level votes to gauge the meaning of last November's election, but they would probably better employ their time reading the late Christopher Lasch's book." And in the National Review, Robert Bork says The Revolt of the Elites "ranges provocatively [and] insightfully."
Controversy has raged around Lasch's targeted attack on the elites, their loss of moral values, and their abandonment of the middle class and poor, for he sets up the media and educational institutions as a large source of the problem. In this spirited work, Lasch calls out for a return to community, schools that teach history not self-esteem, and a return to morality and even the teachings of religion. He does this in a nonpartisan manner, looking to the lessons of American history, and castigating those in power for the ever-widening gap between the economic classes, which has created a crisis in American society. The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy is riveting social commentary.
In this hard-hitting book, one of America's most distinguished historians takes aim at what is wrong with the values and beliefs of America's professional and managerial elites. Lasch argues that democracy today is threatened not by the masses, but by the elites. As they abandon the middle class and divide the nation, Lasch warns, they betray the idea of a democracy for all Americans.
| Acknowledgments | ||
| 1 | Introduction: The Democratic Malaise | 3 |
| I | The Intensification of Social Divisions | |
| 2 | The Revolt of the Elites | 25 |
| 3 | Opportunity in the Promised Land: Social Mobility or the Democratization of Competence? | 50 |
| 4 | Does Democracy Deserve to Survive? | 80 |
| 5 | Communitarianism or Populism? The Ethic of Compassion and the Ethic of Respect | 92 |
| II | Democratic Discourse in Decline | |
| 6 | Conversation and the Civic Arts | 117 |
| 7 | Racial Politics in New York: The Attack on Common Standards | 129 |
| 8 | The Common Schools: Horace Mann and the Assault on Imagination | 141 |
| 9 | The Lost Art of Argument | 161 |
| 10 | Academic Pseudo-radicalism: The Charade of "Subversion" | 176 |
| III | The Dark Night of the Soul | |
| 11 | The Abolition of Shame | 197 |
| 12 | Philip Rieff and the Religion of Culture | 213 |
| 13 | The Soul of Man under Secularism | 230 |
| Bibliography | 247 | |
| Index | 261 |
Overview
"[A] passionate, compelling, and disturbing argument that the ills of democracy in the United States today arise from the default of its elites." —John Gray, New York Times Book Review (front-page review)
In a front-page review in the Washington Post Book World, John Judis wrote: "Political analysts have been poring over exit polls and precinct-level votes to gauge the meaning of last November's election, but they would probably better employ their time reading the late ...