Our Elites Have Failed Us

 From The National Post:

The conservative tradition has always accepted hierarchy as a fact of life — and often a necessary good. There will always be leaders and followers, the cultivated and the crude, the strong and the weak. The question is not whether hierarchies exist, but whether they are just and capable.

Since the French Revolution, the West has been haunted by the spectre of egalitarianism elevated to a fanatic creed. The guillotine didn’t merely decapitate a king — it aimed to destroy the very concept of natural order. In its place came Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s naive worship of the “general will,” a cult of popular sovereignty that mistook numbers for wisdom and emotion for truth.

But crowds do not think. They react. They surge, scream and stampede. As the crowd grows, the mind shrinks. That is the enduring lesson of the revolution: when the mob is sovereign, civilization burns.

The conservative does not idolize the mob. He fears it. He respects the people but insists they deserve more than flattery. They deserve leadership. Real leadership — wise, learned, prudent and self-restrained. The kind that builds cathedrals rather than chasing hashtags. The kind that governs with duty rather than ruling for applause. (Read more.)