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PARTISAN REVIEW
says, "that in such a society, the succession of the elites would take
place much too rapidly and social contj.nuity which is essentially due
to the slow and gradual broadening of the influence of the dominant
groups would be lacking in it." In
his
three principles upon which
selection has been based- blood, property and achievement-Mann–
heim seems to me to have in mind only the ordinary "aristocratic"
conception of
blood
(social position, founded on the possession of
land for a number of generations) and to ignore what are to our
purposes the more important aspects, those of transmitted aptitudes
and domestic environment. The inheritance of a particular high level
of culture is what matters, and it is only incidental that the main–
tenance of such a family tradition has been largely dependent upon
a settled social position and the continuance of a degree of material
afHuence. The development of a superior culture among people would
seem to me to depend upon the maintenance of such an hereditary
elite, refreshed by the addition and assimilation of new members–
provided that the rush of new recruits is at no time so numerous as
to be overwhelming, by the adoption of those individuals of excep–
tional gifts who possess the sole qualification of
achievement.
Such
is a general description of what has happened in the past: if it con–
flicts with the reader's convictions abo!-lt what ought to happen in
the future, let him reflect that a high degree of culture in an equali–
tarian society can only be attained if the great majority of men can
be raised .to a level, and kept at a level, which has never been remotely
approached in the past.
If
elites are to be formed solely on the basis
of
achievement)
then it is our business to enquire how to inculcate
the right values of what is worth achieving.
It
may be desirable at this point to anticipate an objection which
is likely sooner or later to occur to the reader's mind. The history of
some great cultures of the past-that of Greece, for instance, or of
the Middle Ages-may lead us to the conclusion that the develop–
ment of culture has its cycle; that the perfection of one stage arises
from the decay of a previous stage; that it can do no more than last
out its time; that efflorescence and decomposition are inexorably re–
lated; and that at no time have all the levels of culture which I would
maintain been found to co-exist. The charge has frequently been
brought, against writers like myself, of wishing to put the clock back,
of craving for a romanticized folk-culture, or an incredible mediaeval–
ism. At least, the censure of this essay inust be on a somewhat different
ground-that of my wishing to have all at once what can only be had
in succession
in
an historical process, a co-existence of the primitive
and the most highly sophisticated. I am by no means insensible to this
