But a revolution that abolishes all hierarchy is a fantasy, and historically, a bloody one. The alternative is not to burn the garden, but to tear down the fence. A healthy elite is not a closed caste; it is a rotating roster . It is the working-class kid who gets the full scholarship to the elite university and returns to run for local office. It is the entrepreneur who remembers the food bank. It is the general who has seen combat. The goal of a just society is not to eliminate excellence, but to ensure that excellence is discovered everywhere, not just in the nursery of the already-rich.
We live in an age of profound suspicion. The word "elite" once whispered of aspiration—the Olympian peak, the first-chair violinist, the Nobel laureate. Today, it is more often a sneer. It is the accusation flung from populist podiums, the hashtag of the disillusioned. But in our rush to condemn the elite, we rarely pause to define it. Who are they? And have they failed us, or have we failed to understand what they are for? But a revolution that abolishes all hierarchy is
Until they remember that, the sneer will grow louder. And eventually, the garden will be overrun—not by a better elite, but by the brambles of chaos. It is the working-class kid who gets the