Winds of Change.NET: Darth Vader, NASCAR, and the New Class

The New Class:

Joe Katzman at Winds of Change linked to the article on class, below. He wonders if it doesn't demonstrate illustrate the theory of the "New Class" envisioned by Communists, but likewise present in the socialist West.

Mr. Derbyshire, whose notes from the school bus stop were quoted in the piece below, wrote in 2000 about the New Class. He was entirely hostile, but his piece is nevertheless insightful. One of their traits, he stated, was that:

They hate masculinity. The great masculine enthusiasms -- hunting, sexual conquest, mathematics, adventure, history, poetry, war -- are not popular with the New Class.... There is a strong tendency in our culture, encouraged by New Class educators and psychologists, to regard masculine traits as undesirable.

That is a common theme here, and elsewhere, but Mr. Derbyshire put it to virtual paper some years before we did. Psychology as a discipline (not really the appropriate word, but "science" is even less so), when applied not to individuals with problems but to "social problems," does seem to serve just this function: to enforce New Class values, while undermining traditional ones.

(Psychologist, by the way, is 77th percentile in the 'high status' scale of the Times' article. Since it requires a college degree (91st percentile for education even if it's just a Bachelor's), any practicing psychologist will average out as a member of the Top Fifth.)

Recognizing that is the first step to purging that pseudoscience from the unearned position it has come to occupy in our society. Both Derbyshire and du Toit complain, rightly, of the abuse young boys take at the hands of members of the 'helping professions,' who redefine their natural and healthy energy as a problem for society. As adults, men who have that energy are routinely painted with a black mark on these grounds. Because an increasing number of Americans have grown up in institutions that have enforced those values on them since childhood, it almost seems natural. Of course we should punish aggression, in all forms -- protective as well as predatory! Naturally, both the person who started the fight and the man who fought back are guilty.

This is the real face of our problem, as Mr. Katzman has rightly recalled. It comes down to class, but not "class" as the Times meant it. It comes down to whether you're one of them. If not, perhaps you're just a Hun.