To the infinite confusion of all values

The other delegates from America — red-headed Schwartz with his saint’s face and his infinite patience in straddling two worlds, as well as dozens of commercial alienists with hang-dog faces, who would be present partly to increase their standing, and hence their reach for the big plums of the criminal practice, partly to master novel sophistries that they could weave into their stock in trade, to the infinite confusion of all values.

F. Scott Fitzgerald – Tender is the Night (1934)

When we consider educated elites, it soon becomes apparent that their education is enough to offer a partial explanation of their disdain for veracity, especially in the political arena.

The explanation arises when educated mediocrities are able to articulate their political interests via sophistry. They climb the elite ladder by doing what Fitzgerald described, they use their ability to master novel sophistries that they could weave into their stock in trade, to the infinite confusion of all values.

There is no member of the UK Cabinet who doesn’t do it. They may be mediocrities, but they are educated enough to master sophistries which restrict and control the interests of the wider population and they do it in pursuit of an undeserved and undignified political career.

The point to be made is this – if they did not restrict and control the wider population, those sophistries wouldn’t be elite sophistries, they would be subsumed into the market of ideas. They have to be sophistries which don’t restrict the elites, do restrict the wider population, but are just about plausible enough to acquire a following of useful idiots within that wider population.

Unfortunately here in the UK, many elite mediocrities struggle to maintain their grip even on the lax standards of mediocrity. The failed mediocrity has become a fixture within UK political elites. They eschew sophistries in favour of lies, and censorship which they find easier to master.

Thanks to our deplorably low standards of elite mediocrity here in the UK, Net Zero has evolved into a tangle of ridiculous lies and nonsense with hardly a plausible sophistry to be seen. As have mass immigration, gender politics and the supposed benefits of the EU. We see it all the time, we’ve always seen it, but previous elites sometimes managed their sophistries with style. Not now.