Hey, everybody. It's James Lindsay. You're listening to New Discourse's Bullets, where I give a short bullet point-like summary of one topic relevant to woke that we need to understand so we can beat it.

And the topic today is something called elite theory.

In fact, the two faces of elite theory, but I want to start by talking about generally what it is.

It's a very simple thing to understand.

And then why communists run a form of elite theory and why America is definitely not an elite

theory kind of place. So let's start with just the general idea, but there are two faces to it.

Of course, it's going to mean two things. This is very frequently the case. And that's where the

devil's playground is. When you have one concept that means two things, you're going to have manipulators who try to do the Motten Bailey on you. They're going to try to

sell you on the less scary thing so that they can bring in the more scary thing. That's the

general idea of the Motten Bailey. So here's elite theory is the idea that society, whether we like it or not, is run by elites.

These elites can be chosen in any number of ways.

They might be divinely ordained kings that are noble by dint of their birth.

And for whatever reason, historically speaking, the god or gods have decided that they, in fact, are the anointed families.

And so there's some royal heraldry that leads us to go from one generation to the next of kings and queens and rulers.

That's one way that the elites, the nobility might be seen.

There are other theories of the elites. You could have priest classes. You could have high political classes. You could have an aristocracy.

Whatever. Different ways. It could be intellectuals. Different ways of conceiving of the idea that

elites actually runs society.

So that's what you might call a descriptive elite theory, as opposed to a prescriptive elite

theory.

And this is where your Mont-Baley territory comes in.

Maybe it is true.

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