I'm...somewhat puzzled and a bit frustrated by this essay; some of that is because I'm a bit puzzled and frustrated by the Epstein files phenomenon in the first place, and some of it because I'm not sure what the essay is trying to persuade me of. It contains no specifics, but rather a sort of polemic about modern society and its corrupt decadence as show by Epstein or the Epstein files.
The corrupt decadence of the situation is treated as if it's obvious, as if we know exactly who did what to whom, and what those within are guilty of, rather that a large constellation of the wealthy and powerful revolving around each other like satellites. Didn't we already know this pre-Epstein? There don't appear to be a lot of legal issues brought to light in the files (though I'm sure we'll find some in there -- it's millions of pages of private email communications -- I sort of doubt they will be of the type of licentious decadence this essay imagines). We've already seen how it suggests the corruption and venality of such specimens as Trump and the Clintons, but didn't we already know they were corrupt and venal?
I'd like to point out a different sort of decadence that the Epstein case implies: that of the American people as a whole. We demand the release of the files. These are government-collected information in pursuit of justice against a man who was convicted and is dead. The only people these could matter to are the ones still living who are in those files, and this amounts to a government release of private information with no warrant or due process. The fact that the public froths for this information to be released without due process of law is part of the decadence we should fear.
Liberalism is the heart of the documents that founded this country, and that liberalism reveals itself in the restraint of exercise of power, of the subjugation of power to process and legal legitimation that protects the rights and freedoms of us all. There is nothing of process and restraint in the hue and cry to out the "guilty" among our elites. Instead, we have a decadent public who elects the venal, corrupt, and authoritarian Trump. We have a decadent public, both halves of whom wish to coerce the country into their moral framework, on both sides of the coin, through varying uses of power. Where is the defense of pluralism? The demand for protections of individuals from the overreach of the mob?
What should concern us is far less the fact that the most wealthy and powerful among us have a higher percentage of venal, corrupt people and acts. It's that we as a society are more interested in coercing everyone into our moral politics, and in making moral politics the center of everything, than we are in respecting due process, restraint of power that are hallmarks of liberal governance. We seem disgusted by our powerful governors, but we keep electing venal power-mongers to public offices because we value our tribal moralities more than good basic character and respect for liberal principles.
The Epstein files is not a symptom of elite corruption. Well, it is, but not new elite corruption. Nothing we haven't known exists since forever. It's a symptom of a public looking for villains to blame, for excuses to attack their enemies, to exercise power without the moral restraint implied by liberalism. it's a symptom of our own moral decay.
Let me add: I understand that, in many ways, this impulse to extract justice without due process is a response to the feeling that the elite and powerful are not held to account by our liberal processes. That's a completely understandable frustration, but deciding to throw out liberal restraint in response is exactly the thing which finishes the destruction of liberalism and its values of restraint of power and pluralism, and we are then left in a world where only the exercise of power for whatever the majority thinks is the moral thing matters. Instead, we need to re-commit to liberalism, and pursue the guilty through the due process of law we have enshrined and which protects us all -- yes, sometimes even the guilty.
One additional point: the Epstein situation is being treated as if it will let us suddenly find crimes and prosecute the immoral guilty. There is nothing I've seen or heard that suggests major criminal investigations or major lawbreaking will be revealed, other than the fact that it's millions of documents of powerful and corrupt people exposed. If, say, Donald Trump had actually been *legally* implicated anywhere, you can be assured that the Biden administration's justice system would have investigated and prosecuted it to the hilt. If there were something on the Clintons, the Trump administration would have done the same. I just don't think there's the smoking gun of a ring of traffickers passing underage girls among them here.
The fish rots from the head. I agree with you that elite corruption reflects that of society, but you make too light of the point the ancients made and which this essay reminds us of. The sexual license is not about sex: it’s about the thrill of being powerful enough to defy society and ignore its rules. That is what this is really about.
I wouldn't deny that transgression can be a display of power. My point is that focusing on that dynamic avoids what should worry us most.
The deeper danger isn't that elites break norms, but rather that the public increasingly treats norm-breaking as license to abandon the restraint of liberal principles: due process, evidentiary standards, limits on power when it feels morally satisfying to do so. In reacting to elite decadence by discarding those principles, we risk eroding the very values that make pluralist society possible.
Again, I totally understand your point and even partly agree, but liberal principles are based on equality before the law. If the people society has trusted with positions of authority put themselves above the law, isn’t that massively eroding liberal principles? And have they not, in the real sense of the word, become “out-laws”? I realize I am perilously close to justifying “popular justice” aka lynching, but I think you are not attentive enough to the corrosive effects of elites betraying society’s trust and the social compact.
I take your point; I didn't mean to suggest that the elites were not a problem at all. However, if we wish to bring the elites under "equality before the law" then application of the law is critical. Releasing all this information about their private communications with no due process of law is still an issue. You can't restore equality before the law by not using the law the punish lawbreakers.
Pratap, it would have been cool to see some commentary on like specific things or stats or something. I feel like you could have released this essay before the uploads, but I'm sure sinking your teeth into what's there could have been really fruitful.
I can't get too exercised about Epstein. He was a pimp. There have always been his sort of exclusive brothels, have their not? His tarts seem to have been well treated and don't seem to have minded their work. If one is looking for horror I'm sure there's a million places in the worldwide sex industry where you could find far worse things than Jeff's Love Island.
I agree with part of this -- I don't think he was anything particularly unheard of. I don't necessarily know that the women he, well, wrangled? coerced? groomed? seem to have not minded the work. Generally, at least a number of them did not feel okay with it, and I largely take them at their word.
America's ruling class has gone full woke which adopts all sorts of sexual deviancy including demanding young children be sexualized. So, the Epstein files are not really any crucible of new moral decay. The ruling class have already committed to acceptance.
You are mistaken. The ruling class is the same as the professional managerial class... the globalist transnational elite... the upper 10%.... all of which are those in control of the Democrat party. The Republican party has a small percentage of old neocons in that cohort, but the MAGA Republicans are those against the ruling class.
Naw. Trump is only a man. He is a man elected to do a job. He is doing the job he promised during his campaign. He is getting things done that I think make America a better country. Joe Biden was a regime puppet that clearly was not in control and was being autopenned to do things that I think were terrible for the country. Democrats pick low-capability figureheads to love... people that cannot get anything done because they are career political people with regime hooks into them... but also because they lack any background in experience in every getting anything done.
Clearly you are projecting your own Trump derangement of hate. But no, people that don't hate Trump and support him are not in love with him. They just like that he is beating the tar out of you and your commie political ilk making a mess out of the country.
Neither MAGA nor critical social justice ("woke") has any interest in increasing accountability. What they call "accountability" anyone observing from the outside calls "prosecuting their moral and political enemies to garner power for themselves in the form of both status and political power." Accountability comes from being accountable to the processes of our system, the one laid out by our founders, because in so doing, we are accountable to each other while being protected by the worst of the excesses of partisan and factional moral and political outrage. MAGA and woke both want to rid us of those pesky systems that protect their enemies. We must not let them.
No. MAGA wants government and the credentialed elite to leave us the f*ck alone. The lie about right-wing authoritarianism is a commie revolutionary trick that nobody is buying. Defense of collectivist totalitarianism is not anything but that. We saw you commie f*cks at work during the pandemic. You are a hazard to freedom and liberty and if we have to aggressively smash you and your ilk to prevent your malice from occurring, then it is more than justified.
He's a good example of the sort of person who would have been an SD member in 30's Germany -- not too bright and quick to both judgement and violence. Easily lead.
I'm...somewhat puzzled and a bit frustrated by this essay; some of that is because I'm a bit puzzled and frustrated by the Epstein files phenomenon in the first place, and some of it because I'm not sure what the essay is trying to persuade me of. It contains no specifics, but rather a sort of polemic about modern society and its corrupt decadence as show by Epstein or the Epstein files.
The corrupt decadence of the situation is treated as if it's obvious, as if we know exactly who did what to whom, and what those within are guilty of, rather that a large constellation of the wealthy and powerful revolving around each other like satellites. Didn't we already know this pre-Epstein? There don't appear to be a lot of legal issues brought to light in the files (though I'm sure we'll find some in there -- it's millions of pages of private email communications -- I sort of doubt they will be of the type of licentious decadence this essay imagines). We've already seen how it suggests the corruption and venality of such specimens as Trump and the Clintons, but didn't we already know they were corrupt and venal?
I'd like to point out a different sort of decadence that the Epstein case implies: that of the American people as a whole. We demand the release of the files. These are government-collected information in pursuit of justice against a man who was convicted and is dead. The only people these could matter to are the ones still living who are in those files, and this amounts to a government release of private information with no warrant or due process. The fact that the public froths for this information to be released without due process of law is part of the decadence we should fear.
Liberalism is the heart of the documents that founded this country, and that liberalism reveals itself in the restraint of exercise of power, of the subjugation of power to process and legal legitimation that protects the rights and freedoms of us all. There is nothing of process and restraint in the hue and cry to out the "guilty" among our elites. Instead, we have a decadent public who elects the venal, corrupt, and authoritarian Trump. We have a decadent public, both halves of whom wish to coerce the country into their moral framework, on both sides of the coin, through varying uses of power. Where is the defense of pluralism? The demand for protections of individuals from the overreach of the mob?
What should concern us is far less the fact that the most wealthy and powerful among us have a higher percentage of venal, corrupt people and acts. It's that we as a society are more interested in coercing everyone into our moral politics, and in making moral politics the center of everything, than we are in respecting due process, restraint of power that are hallmarks of liberal governance. We seem disgusted by our powerful governors, but we keep electing venal power-mongers to public offices because we value our tribal moralities more than good basic character and respect for liberal principles.
The Epstein files is not a symptom of elite corruption. Well, it is, but not new elite corruption. Nothing we haven't known exists since forever. It's a symptom of a public looking for villains to blame, for excuses to attack their enemies, to exercise power without the moral restraint implied by liberalism. it's a symptom of our own moral decay.
Let me add: I understand that, in many ways, this impulse to extract justice without due process is a response to the feeling that the elite and powerful are not held to account by our liberal processes. That's a completely understandable frustration, but deciding to throw out liberal restraint in response is exactly the thing which finishes the destruction of liberalism and its values of restraint of power and pluralism, and we are then left in a world where only the exercise of power for whatever the majority thinks is the moral thing matters. Instead, we need to re-commit to liberalism, and pursue the guilty through the due process of law we have enshrined and which protects us all -- yes, sometimes even the guilty.
One additional point: the Epstein situation is being treated as if it will let us suddenly find crimes and prosecute the immoral guilty. There is nothing I've seen or heard that suggests major criminal investigations or major lawbreaking will be revealed, other than the fact that it's millions of documents of powerful and corrupt people exposed. If, say, Donald Trump had actually been *legally* implicated anywhere, you can be assured that the Biden administration's justice system would have investigated and prosecuted it to the hilt. If there were something on the Clintons, the Trump administration would have done the same. I just don't think there's the smoking gun of a ring of traffickers passing underage girls among them here.
The fish rots from the head. I agree with you that elite corruption reflects that of society, but you make too light of the point the ancients made and which this essay reminds us of. The sexual license is not about sex: it’s about the thrill of being powerful enough to defy society and ignore its rules. That is what this is really about.
I wouldn't deny that transgression can be a display of power. My point is that focusing on that dynamic avoids what should worry us most.
The deeper danger isn't that elites break norms, but rather that the public increasingly treats norm-breaking as license to abandon the restraint of liberal principles: due process, evidentiary standards, limits on power when it feels morally satisfying to do so. In reacting to elite decadence by discarding those principles, we risk eroding the very values that make pluralist society possible.
Again, I totally understand your point and even partly agree, but liberal principles are based on equality before the law. If the people society has trusted with positions of authority put themselves above the law, isn’t that massively eroding liberal principles? And have they not, in the real sense of the word, become “out-laws”? I realize I am perilously close to justifying “popular justice” aka lynching, but I think you are not attentive enough to the corrosive effects of elites betraying society’s trust and the social compact.
I take your point; I didn't mean to suggest that the elites were not a problem at all. However, if we wish to bring the elites under "equality before the law" then application of the law is critical. Releasing all this information about their private communications with no due process of law is still an issue. You can't restore equality before the law by not using the law the punish lawbreakers.
Pratap, it would have been cool to see some commentary on like specific things or stats or something. I feel like you could have released this essay before the uploads, but I'm sure sinking your teeth into what's there could have been really fruitful.
I can't get too exercised about Epstein. He was a pimp. There have always been his sort of exclusive brothels, have their not? His tarts seem to have been well treated and don't seem to have minded their work. If one is looking for horror I'm sure there's a million places in the worldwide sex industry where you could find far worse things than Jeff's Love Island.
I agree with part of this -- I don't think he was anything particularly unheard of. I don't necessarily know that the women he, well, wrangled? coerced? groomed? seem to have not minded the work. Generally, at least a number of them did not feel okay with it, and I largely take them at their word.
America's ruling class has gone full woke which adopts all sorts of sexual deviancy including demanding young children be sexualized. So, the Epstein files are not really any crucible of new moral decay. The ruling class have already committed to acceptance.
If I'm not mistaken, Frank, the "ruling class" is currently Republican.
You are mistaken. The ruling class is the same as the professional managerial class... the globalist transnational elite... the upper 10%.... all of which are those in control of the Democrat party. The Republican party has a small percentage of old neocons in that cohort, but the MAGA Republicans are those against the ruling class.
as exemplified by that paragon of moral virtue, the hero you repeatedly slobber over, Trump. I have concluded you are some kind of parody, FL
Naw. Trump is only a man. He is a man elected to do a job. He is doing the job he promised during his campaign. He is getting things done that I think make America a better country. Joe Biden was a regime puppet that clearly was not in control and was being autopenned to do things that I think were terrible for the country. Democrats pick low-capability figureheads to love... people that cannot get anything done because they are career political people with regime hooks into them... but also because they lack any background in experience in every getting anything done.
Clearly you are projecting your own Trump derangement of hate. But no, people that don't hate Trump and support him are not in love with him. They just like that he is beating the tar out of you and your commie political ilk making a mess out of the country.
Neither MAGA nor critical social justice ("woke") has any interest in increasing accountability. What they call "accountability" anyone observing from the outside calls "prosecuting their moral and political enemies to garner power for themselves in the form of both status and political power." Accountability comes from being accountable to the processes of our system, the one laid out by our founders, because in so doing, we are accountable to each other while being protected by the worst of the excesses of partisan and factional moral and political outrage. MAGA and woke both want to rid us of those pesky systems that protect their enemies. We must not let them.
No. MAGA wants government and the credentialed elite to leave us the f*ck alone. The lie about right-wing authoritarianism is a commie revolutionary trick that nobody is buying. Defense of collectivist totalitarianism is not anything but that. We saw you commie f*cks at work during the pandemic. You are a hazard to freedom and liberty and if we have to aggressively smash you and your ilk to prevent your malice from occurring, then it is more than justified.
Calling me a commie fuck suggests you have absolutely no idea who you are talking to. Or you don't know what a "commie fuck" is. Or both.
He's a good example of the sort of person who would have been an SD member in 30's Germany -- not too bright and quick to both judgement and violence. Easily lead.