An evil chorus singing pleas of deference and obfuscation

Kind of striking to come across three articles (two seen, one brought to mind) in one day dealing with broadly the same meta-issue. The behavior of the Mandarin Class who demand deference but whose behavior shocks the conscience.

The first instance was from Ann Althouse, using her language skills to disembowel an opinion writer who barely ranks as a Mandarin Class wannabe. From "Those on the left have been going over how we’re supposed to feel about him for decades, but in the arguing about it, we have been asked to focus again and again on Clinton and his dick and what he did or didn’t do with it." by Ann Althouse.

"The questions we’ve asked ourselves and one another have become defining. Are we morally compromised in our defense of him or sexually uptight in our condemnation? Are we shills for having not believed he should have resigned, or doing the bidding of a vindictive right wing if we say that, in retrospect, he probably should have?"

Writes Rebecca Traister, in "Who Was Jeffrey Epstein Calling? A close study of his circle — social, professional, transactional — reveals a damning portrait of elite New York" (a long compendium by the editors of New York Magazine). Traister continues:

Meanwhile, how much energy and time have been spent circling round this man and how we’ve felt about him, when in fact his behaviors were symptomatic of far broader and more damaging assumptions about men, power, and access to — as Trump has so memorably voiced it — pussies?

Professor Althouse is, I think appropriately, having none of it.

You wouldn't have spent all that time if you'd been consistent in the first place. Anyone who cared at all about feminism back then already knew the "far broader" picture! That is feminism. If you'd put feminism over party politics at the time, you'd have easily processed the Clinton story long ago.

I agree. One of the epistemic weaknesses of the radical, postmodernist, social justice theory left is that they are so overwhelmingly manichean and deterministic. There is no room in their epistemic world for nuance, gradations or emergent order where outcomes arise from human action but not human intent.

In their world, every outcome is an intended outcome and all things must be logically and inherently consistent. If not, then you are ebad and evil.

A Christian Classical Liberal has no issue with processing Bill Clinton. Probably the most gifted retail politicians of his generation. Exceptionally bright. Committed to achieving desirable outcomes even when that meant compromise with his opponents. But also chaotic, undisciplined, voracious in his appetites, certainly a serial philanderer, quite possibly a serial rapist. He was, in a Christian Classical Liberal world construct, a man. Imperfect, inconsistent, varied, sinful and capable of so much.

For the modern Postmodernist progressive movement, he was the case study which shone a bright light on the absence of their own moral consistency. He was useful to their side therefore his sins must be ignored, and if not ignored, denied or contextualized, or excuses made. Utility superseded morality.

OK, that's a longstanding conundrum not yet resolved on the left but Althouse states the case clearly in her rebuke of the essayist.

The linking element between this and the next articles is that, while not born to it as so many are, Bill Clinton was a linchpin of the Washington D.C. Mandarin Class and when he transgressed, the Mandarin Class drew a protective cloak around him. He never answered for his crimes.

Similarly from Who Was Jeffrey Epstein Calling? A close study of his circle — social, professional, transactional — reveals a damning portrait of elite New York by the Editors of New York Magazine. Now that he is charged again for yet further crimes involving child pornography and possibly sex with underage minors, Jeffrey Epstein is once again in the news. While editors want to tar some non-left figures such as Steven Pinker and Allen Dershowitz (both Classical Liberals, not conservatives), and especially Donald Trump, the great bulk of the names are leading lights of the New York leftist Mandarin Class. Even Pinker, Dershowitz and Trump appear to be being tarred by long ago association rather than any actual affiliation with Epstein. Indeed, while they emphasize that three or four decades ago, Trump occasionally shared the New York scene with Epstein, they do not mention what also appears to be true - that he severed ties with Epstein one or two decades ago based on reports of inappropriate Epstein behavior at Trump properties such as Mar-a-lago.

Right now, few of the names on the list of names associated with Epstein are charged with crimes, but New York Magazine's larger point is that the New York Mandarin Class enable Epstein's behavior by not ever making it unacceptable.

Which of course brings to mind the whole Roman Polanski ongoing saga, where some of the leading lights of Hollywood have not just demurred on Polanski's statutory rape crimes, but have actively defended him. And it is largely the same social cohort who likewise spent decades turning a blind eye to Harvey Weinstein's sexual lay-to-play schemes, sexual harassment and sexual assaults, as long as it was beneficial to their careers.

The corrupted Mandarin chorus always seeks to defend their own from actual crimes committed, while preaching a whole other song of accountability for everyone else. Ordinary citizens should suffer for their sins and faults, but not the much more egregious Mandarin Class. A chorus sung in New York for Epstein, in Washington for Bill Clinton, and in LA for Weinstein and Polansky. The Mandarin Class are reprehensible.