Jeffrey Epstein, the crimes he committed and the people he involved are topics that simply will not go away in our news cycle, and that’s saying something in a news cycle with a notoriously short memory. It transcends the political spectrum (no mean feat either) and sticks in the craw of a significant portion of our population. Why is does this seems obvious, but if we look under the surface it isn’t as obvious as we think.
As a Palm Beacher, it doesn’t surprise me that his whole system of sexual exploitation started in my own home town. The first surprise comes in that the beginning of Epstein’s end came with the Town of Palm Beach Police and its police chief, Michael Reiter. While Palm Beach County and the State of Florida, where the triumph of “good government” over the “Pork Chop Gang” used to be the stuff of political legend, tried to dodge the issue, Reiter pressed on and got the FBI involved, which was the beginning of the end for Epstein. My only hope is that, when they arrested him, they used the same line the Palm Beach Police used on my brother when they caught him for speeding in our baby blue Pinto: “We’ve been looking for you for some time.”
Let’s get back to serious matters: there are many scandals that fill both air time and internet bandwidth. Why is this one so special? I think that the whole Epstein business is a dagger in the heart of the way people look at life in these United States and for that matter in our estranged neighbour to the north, Canada, and people have reacted viscerally to the assault on their cherished beliefs.
As I settled down to life in lower Appalachia, there’s one nearly universal attitude amongst the people I ran with which took me aback: the attitude that the “rich” (and that definition is very elastic) were more virtuous than those below them. I was prepared for the resentment driven attitude that my mother’s people exhibited, but while I wasn’t looking there had been a vibe shift in the culture. Experience taught me differently, but more about that shortly.
Years later I got into lockhorns with my “Canadian sheeple,” who exhibited a similarly deferential attitude which I characterised at the time (and still do today) as sycophantic. He described himself as a “country boy” from deepest Ontario. Country boys are something I’m familiar with, but they’re generally different in their politics from Ontario to Ocoee. In their attitudes towards those up the food chain, however, I found common ground. In the end he developed TDS and our communication broke down, even though my attitude towards the “hero of Mar-a-Lago” is more utilitarian than anything else.
The reason why I feel the way I do is really simple: my years in Palm Beach (and those further down the coast) tell me that the wealthy and their spawn are not more virtuous than those whom they lord over. Many of these people are deeply sybaritic and insouciant in their outlook on life; their main goal is to get laid, high or drunk, and preferably all three. Now I’m certainly aware that the wealthy were capable of partying hard in the old times, but this ethic was neither the religion nor the driver of public policy that it has been for the last half century.
Although certain groups had their own dysfunctions to spread around, most of the rot in our society started at the top. This includes divorce; the first time the reality of this hit home is when I read through all of the name changes in the school directory. The drug culture, the hallmark of the 1960’s into which I was thrown, needed money, which was easily obtained at the top and only with effort (usually illegal) at the bottom. Running to therapists instead of other guides was the sport of people who could afford the hourly fees. And the environmental movement was shaped by people who instinctively saw it being used to impoverish potential competitors coming up from below (yes, this is the key reason why nuclear power was trashed in the 1970’s and 1980’s.)
For an elite to stay on top the way ours has, it requires the kinds of attitudes down the ladder that Canadian and American alike have exhibited for many years. In the Anglosphere it starts early, as I note in my piece on the Anglican confirmation catechism And Who Are Our Betters? A Sticking Point From the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. We are taught always to look up to these people, although finding out the truth is always a “looking behind the curtain” experience. These people really aren’t our “betters” after all.
As should be evident by now, Epstein found fertile ground for his island orgies and underage satiation. Revealing that puts a lot of the virtue signalling that has come from the top in a whole new light. What about #metoo? What about protecting our young people? Where were the people who could do something about it when it happens either on Epstein’s island or anywhere else? Or, to look at it another way, why do these people throw people down the line into jail for these offenses and then go scot free on their own account? (That’s been going on for a long time, too, it’s just harder to hide these days.)
Now, of course, people are angry that their ideas have been smashed. These days the hue and cry is for people to be “held accountable.” Personally I find vindication in our court system–civil or criminal–of limited satisfaction, probably as I’ve been through too much litigation and legal process. We don’t need our elites to be held accountable: we need new elites, since we seem to find an elite indispensable. We need an elite which has a lot stronger sense of civic duty and connection with the existing populace. We need an elite which will put the productive strength of the country ahead of personal pleasure and enrichment. We need an elite which has a modicum of basic integrity rather than one whose integrity ends at virtue signalling on social media.
Will we get any of this? I’m not optimistic, but if we don’t the only thing we have to look forward to is When the People’s Liberation Army Marches Down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Positive Infinity 