Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Who is the establishment

Growing up in the Southern California 80s skate culture I was keenly aware of the anti-establishment. Everything was about being against the establishment, questioning authority etc. Back then we knew who the establishment. It was the same establishment the 60s rebelled against. But a lot of things changed in the 90s. Ironically, this perfectly mirrors the current dissonance in skateboard culture. In the 80s we really were anti-establishment, even the pros weren't making that much money and skateboarding was countercultural. But now they are rock stars making millions of dollars peddling the illusion of being counterculture when they are in fact card carrying members of the establishment culture. The irony is rich, and so are they. And like all rich people who make money for nothing (thank you Dire Straits) their values and politics are predictably leftist.

The real issue though is how they are able to maintain the illusion of being counterculture rebels when they are in fact now the ones with power. Power and money go together and you can see that the new establishment is totally of the Left. The dissonance is that they still pretend to be anti-establishment when in fact they are the establishment. They own academia, k12, the news media, the publishing industry, every aspect of the entertainment industry. Every cultural center of power has less intellectual and political diversity than the average evangelical church.

Americans desperately need to make the paradigm shift and realize that times have changed. Power and money go together: hence, the new Establishment.

No comments:

Post a Comment