On the last supposition: they've managed something better for themselves, which is an order where they have substantial control over public policy without being subject to the full brunt of public inquiry or responsibility. You would have to force Sam Altman to run for office; Oprah famously laughs when questioned about pursuing the presidency.
cafebeen
Seems like an accurate picture of the Victorian elite, but it sounds like they were optimized for rent-seeking from an economy and an empire that others built and worked. That was success "on their own terms," as the article puts it, but not something to emulate.
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jimbo456
Insane that this whole thing never mentions once the legions of servants who did their laundry, cooked their food, poured their Port and generally did all the work.
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simonw
> Academic life was dominated by Latin and, to a lesser extent, Greek. The exact share varied, but the classical languages took up generally at least half of teaching hours, and sometimes as much as 80 percent, especially earlier in the century.
That's so weird to me. How did that tradition hold on for so long? Where did it come from? Who thought that was a good idea?
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pipes
What a fantastic read. An interesting perspective on schooling. I've been thinking a lot lately if booze is actually a useful thing, it seems the Victorians saw that it is.
yubblegum
(Modulo d'oh because of the industrial revolution and the relatively easy wealth extraction that that enabled;) because the British public had internalized (I would venture to this day) the distinction between upstairs and downstairs and did not present a revolutionary risk to the elite. This then allowed the wise decision of the elite to permit social mobility to those who would work to further the broader cause of the Empire, in all domains including sciences. This is likely a very goldilock moment for any civilization: higher valuation of reason over dogma; a techological and economic production jump that enabled a categorical raising of one nation over many others; a mass population that did not think less of its 'betters' because they were slothful extravagents (as long as they 'acted' superior); and finally the creation of a productive and resourceful middle class that was satisfied to help in the administration and operation of an enterprise that was deemed a national cause: the empire.
anonymous908213
Completely faulty premise. The British Empire was already globally dominant before the Victorian era. You cannot attribute success nor failure to something that came after the fact; I suppose the Victorian elites were not time travelers. That the Empire has since collapsed does not give an especially strong vote of confidence in their stewardship, however.
Moreover, the article presupposes the notion that STEM is associated with "success", but it has never been associated with the elite in any capacity. Generously, STEM might be considered elite for a peasant. Let us not forget who the current US president is, or the general makeup of both the American and British political systems. Hint: it's not composed of scientists and engineers.
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iberator
Slavery and Imperialism money.
graemep
I would say that being sexually abused by older boys (which what the male relationships at schools largely were) was in any way healthy of helpful to anyone.
I think its possible that humanities based education made for efficient administrators.
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ford
I think that extreme prosperity like this (another example - Baby Boomers in the US) is a lagging indicator of geopolitical/industrial power.
Britain was prosperous in the 1800s because of colonialism and the industrial revolution. The US was prosperous in the second half of the 1900's because they capitalized on not being decimated by WW2.
IMO Britain's success in this era was actually sustained prosperity driven by the working class, and the failure to maintain global leadership followed from the victorian attitude of the elite.
martythemaniak
They got nothing on American Elites - the current regime is packed to the gills with TV personalities who are incapable of actually doing their nominal jobs, yet they've all done extremely well for themselves.
This article really should not be surprising - the elite go to school to learn to rule - to socialize and develop networks of trust. Doing stuff is for the class below (PMC in today's terms).
tsunamifury
Those who automatically gain leverage of information network, rent seeking, and labor superiority are able to use immense leasure time to better process directional changes. This isnt' automatically true, many Victorian elites went bankrupt, but it is true for some.
What the protestant work ethic is either wrong or intentionally dishonest about, is hard work may inform you of the technicalities of labor, but it rarely gives you the time, enenrgy or education to understand its organizational effeciencies or opportunties.
This is incredibly timely as we have stories and visual evidence of our current oligarchs clearly high on drugs, drunk, or generally indifferent in a leaisure way to the serious science of running our society and business, yet seem to continually get the upper hand in doing it.
Ask yourself ... why?
Razengan
Something I've always wondered: What keeps the guards and thugs of the ""elite"" from just killing the elite and taking their money and position?
The boss usually doesn't have any actual physical strength (unless maybe you're Genghis Khan or something)
Imagine 2000 years ago: A merchant prepares a caravan of goods to trek across the wilderness to a far-off settlement. He hires some guards. He sells the goods and pays off the guards a portion of the profits.
What keeps the guards from taking all the profit?
Or a landlord hires some goons to go beat up a tenant for not paying rent on time. Why don't the goons beat up the landlord and take the income from ALL his properties?
Or, after a miserly old oligarch pays off his bodyguards a few times, they'll eventually learn where he keeps all his money. What keeps them from torturing him to give it all to them?
Why didn't Bronn just stomp Tyrion Lannister? He could literally SEE the chest where Tyrion kept all the gold! Why walk around with him and risk getting injured or slain?
On the last supposition: they've managed something better for themselves, which is an order where they have substantial control over public policy without being subject to the full brunt of public inquiry or responsibility. You would have to force Sam Altman to run for office; Oprah famously laughs when questioned about pursuing the presidency.
Seems like an accurate picture of the Victorian elite, but it sounds like they were optimized for rent-seeking from an economy and an empire that others built and worked. That was success "on their own terms," as the article puts it, but not something to emulate.
Insane that this whole thing never mentions once the legions of servants who did their laundry, cooked their food, poured their Port and generally did all the work.
> Academic life was dominated by Latin and, to a lesser extent, Greek. The exact share varied, but the classical languages took up generally at least half of teaching hours, and sometimes as much as 80 percent, especially earlier in the century.
That's so weird to me. How did that tradition hold on for so long? Where did it come from? Who thought that was a good idea?
What a fantastic read. An interesting perspective on schooling. I've been thinking a lot lately if booze is actually a useful thing, it seems the Victorians saw that it is.
(Modulo d'oh because of the industrial revolution and the relatively easy wealth extraction that that enabled;) because the British public had internalized (I would venture to this day) the distinction between upstairs and downstairs and did not present a revolutionary risk to the elite. This then allowed the wise decision of the elite to permit social mobility to those who would work to further the broader cause of the Empire, in all domains including sciences. This is likely a very goldilock moment for any civilization: higher valuation of reason over dogma; a techological and economic production jump that enabled a categorical raising of one nation over many others; a mass population that did not think less of its 'betters' because they were slothful extravagents (as long as they 'acted' superior); and finally the creation of a productive and resourceful middle class that was satisfied to help in the administration and operation of an enterprise that was deemed a national cause: the empire.
Completely faulty premise. The British Empire was already globally dominant before the Victorian era. You cannot attribute success nor failure to something that came after the fact; I suppose the Victorian elites were not time travelers. That the Empire has since collapsed does not give an especially strong vote of confidence in their stewardship, however.
Moreover, the article presupposes the notion that STEM is associated with "success", but it has never been associated with the elite in any capacity. Generously, STEM might be considered elite for a peasant. Let us not forget who the current US president is, or the general makeup of both the American and British political systems. Hint: it's not composed of scientists and engineers.
Slavery and Imperialism money.
I would say that being sexually abused by older boys (which what the male relationships at schools largely were) was in any way healthy of helpful to anyone.
I think its possible that humanities based education made for efficient administrators.
I think that extreme prosperity like this (another example - Baby Boomers in the US) is a lagging indicator of geopolitical/industrial power.
Britain was prosperous in the 1800s because of colonialism and the industrial revolution. The US was prosperous in the second half of the 1900's because they capitalized on not being decimated by WW2.
IMO Britain's success in this era was actually sustained prosperity driven by the working class, and the failure to maintain global leadership followed from the victorian attitude of the elite.
They got nothing on American Elites - the current regime is packed to the gills with TV personalities who are incapable of actually doing their nominal jobs, yet they've all done extremely well for themselves.
This article really should not be surprising - the elite go to school to learn to rule - to socialize and develop networks of trust. Doing stuff is for the class below (PMC in today's terms).
Those who automatically gain leverage of information network, rent seeking, and labor superiority are able to use immense leasure time to better process directional changes. This isnt' automatically true, many Victorian elites went bankrupt, but it is true for some.
What the protestant work ethic is either wrong or intentionally dishonest about, is hard work may inform you of the technicalities of labor, but it rarely gives you the time, enenrgy or education to understand its organizational effeciencies or opportunties.
This is incredibly timely as we have stories and visual evidence of our current oligarchs clearly high on drugs, drunk, or generally indifferent in a leaisure way to the serious science of running our society and business, yet seem to continually get the upper hand in doing it.
Ask yourself ... why?
Something I've always wondered: What keeps the guards and thugs of the ""elite"" from just killing the elite and taking their money and position?
The boss usually doesn't have any actual physical strength (unless maybe you're Genghis Khan or something)
Imagine 2000 years ago: A merchant prepares a caravan of goods to trek across the wilderness to a far-off settlement. He hires some guards. He sells the goods and pays off the guards a portion of the profits.
What keeps the guards from taking all the profit?
Or a landlord hires some goons to go beat up a tenant for not paying rent on time. Why don't the goons beat up the landlord and take the income from ALL his properties?
Or, after a miserly old oligarch pays off his bodyguards a few times, they'll eventually learn where he keeps all his money. What keeps them from torturing him to give it all to them?
Why didn't Bronn just stomp Tyrion Lannister? He could literally SEE the chest where Tyrion kept all the gold! Why walk around with him and risk getting injured or slain?