Customer Reviews

New Elites

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The New Elites is a pugnacious, witty social diatribe. Walden is an unashamed smasher of shibboleths, and he wastes no time in trenchantly criticizing much of the New Labour elites (especially the cultural mavens -Chris Smith, Peter Mandleson and Gerry Robinson) who have inflicted so much bad culture - Brit art, the Millennium dome, on the country. The New Elites is a well argued commentary that pins much of the blame on the current demotic elites for modern cultural malaise - domination by a scurrilous media, shameless politicians peddling sententious populist snake oil and a lack of ambition in the cultural tastes of the masses so instead of bettering themselves they hold out their satellite dishes 'like begging bowls' waiting to be satiated by more junk.

Walden describes this state of affairs as 'ultra-democracy', ultra in the sense of beyond, rather than extreme, where the modern elites dress in the clothes, and speak in the language of the masses, yet are still very much an elite as ever, they just deny so. He offers little in the way of reforming this mess, other than making suggestions that a return to old fashioned values in education is in order in order to introduce true social mobility instead of the hypocritical egalitarianism pedalled by the modern liberal minded elites who preach educational fairness yet opt out of the system by sending their own children to fee paying selective schools.

Walden's cultural analysis throws up some interesting tangental arguments - such as why Salman Rushdie will never be as great a novelist as Don Delillo (it's to do with his attitude to rock music) and why the Simpsons is a better TV series than any British equivalent (its seamless mix of high and low culture, rather than the cultural paucity of UK soaps)

Where I think he is bang wrong, however, is his criticism of the plans by the modern elites to spread this form of democracy in the form of greater localism and devolution. He thinks this will lead to a greater mediocre political class than ever before - more timewasters, careerists and lobbyists. However if we are to improve on the current situation where the vast majority of the population feel disenfranchised by the political process, I believe we need to strengthen the very areas of democratic participation Walden so derides. Certainly he is right in lamenting the state of much modern education, and a return to underpinning core values of literacy and numeracy is essential when so many children fail to gain the basic quota of GCSEs. But improved education must co-exist with greater opportunities for these new, better educated elites of the future, to utilize their skills for the good of their communities and societies. Walden's argument is a little humpbacked in this respect - what we need is better democracy, not less of it.