What a wonderful explanation,
after the Princeton address,
the interview on NPR.
Of course, he remains an idealist here......
American so-called elites are not that kind, the kind of former elites,
to whom the term noblesse oblige could sometimes meaningfully have applied,
whose passing had been bemoaned in, say, The Proud Tower.
Tuchman's description there, of when and why the early American 'elites' (such as they were!) chose, in the early 19th Century, to refuse to go into politics, is instructive for Lewis' theme of noblesse oblige, and for its prospects for success in the 21st Century.
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