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How the World Failed Greta
Is Culture Dying?
How To Be Charles Darwin
Prince’s Genius Guitar Solo
My Book Of the Year
Pundits and politicians talk about ‘elites’ but rarely make a serious effort to say what or who they mean. What do we actually know about this mysterious species, other than that it flocks to cocktail parties? Born To Rule, by the sociologists Sam Friedman and Aaron Reeves, is an evidence-based answer to that question and a richly interesting one. Here I’m going to focus on just one of the book’s strands: the shifting relationship of elites to ‘high' culture - classical music, literature, fine arts.
How did these researchers go about studying the elite? Their main source is Britain’s yearbook for the powerful and influential, the insouciantly titled Who’s Who. Every year since 1849, senior figures in the aristocracy, military, clergy, civil service, business, charity, arts and media have filled out a questionnaire about their education, career and cultural interests. It’s a mark of distinction to be included, a little like having your own Wikipedia entry but even more prestigious, if you can imagine that, and easier to manage. Friedman and Reeves scraped data from the entire historical corpus of Who’s Who, supplementing it with in-depth interviews with current subjects. They also drew on a number of other sources, like probate records for information on the inherited wealth of their subjects, and the archive of Desert Island Discs.
They use all this evidence to tell a fascinating story about how our elites have changed in composition, outlook, and interests - and in how they choose to present themselves to the world. The latter, in particular, explains a lot about the status of the arts in Britain today.
To be in the elite means holding a position of power or influence, and it can also mean being rich. You can be one and not the other, but being rich and powerful makes you very elite indeed. The authors distinguish between the positional elite - about 33,000 in the current Who’s Who - and the 6000 or so members of that group who combine positional and economic power: the ‘wealth elite’; an elite within the elite.
Britain’s elite has changed in composition over the years in the way you would expect, becoming less aristocratic and more commercial, drawing from an ever-wider demographic pool - social class, gender, ethnicity. It has become more meritocratic: educational achievement is far more important than it used to be, as is hard work and professional accomplishment. All this is to the good. But what Friedman and Reeves also show is that in other ways, the picture hasn’t changed so much.
Inheriting wealth still makes it much more likely that you’ll achieve membership of the elite, as does attending one of the top private schools (the influence of Eton and Harrow and so on has declined, but is still outsized). Of course, these two factors are reciprocal. The very rich are more likely to have networks of family and friends, cultivated at school and at Oxbridge, who propel them into positions of power and influence. Being around the rich and powerful in their early years imbues them with a self-fulfilling confidence in their ability to make an impact on the world.
Born To Rule is at its most compelling on the subtleties of self-presentation - how the elite sees itself, and wants to be seen by others. What the authors find is that elites at the beginning of the twentieth century were unembarrassed by their elite status, whereas elites today go to great lengths to persuade everyone, including themselves, that they are simple folk who just happen to be in Who’s Who.
These days, the first rule of elite membership is to deny membership of the elite. The rich, powerful and influential individuals interviewed by Friedman and Reeves get positively outraged at any suggestion they are rich, powerful or influential. Those who were born into wealth almost all ignore it or play it down when telling the story of their lives. Asked to explain their success, they focus on a capacity for hard work and on what they regard as their innate aptitudes.
Contemporary elites are desperately keen to present themselves as ordinary. While this self-effacing posture may be sincere, it is not entirely innocent, suggest Friedman and Reeves. It is a form of social signalling, or “impression management”. In a world of cynicism and anger about elites, presenting as ordinary is a way of saying to the masses, I’m just like you! Don’t hate me!
This is most apparent in the realm of cultural tastes. Elites have always used cultural activities and interests as signals to distinguish themselves from the masses. Today’s elite is no exception, but its members are running scared of high culture, a change which has profound implications for the nation’s cultural life. To understand why, we need to trace the arc of high-status tastes in the twentieth century.
Here is the Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s list of Desert Island Discs:
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