the soil is receptive: utterly brainless mass of mobile-bound individuals devoid of any historical perspective and of any kindergarten common-sense understanding.
Interesting in an essay trying to underscore elitism in humanities, we see "scientifically justified" techno-elitism. If the STEM overlords view me as a mindless mass of flesh because I don't reach their intellectual standards, then of course the cultural divide will be exacerbated. Not to mention I have become a mindless mass of flesh because of their inventions.
the cultural gap between the “normies” and the “elites.”
They want to work, get married, have children—boring stuff. That’s what normal means.
Ascribing to me my plebeian values without giving me a voice does not actually endear me to any "elites" - including the STEM overlords who funnel a majority of my day-to-day attention through their design of the digital space. And if "the other side" is going to lump together the worst of the humanities1, which, as far as I can tell, is the reordering of intrapersonal beliefs via the uprooting and replanting of the sociocultural hierarchy on the grounds of identity-based "intersectionality" - if the STEM elite is going to equate that worst of the humanities elite with its best (which is?), why can't I equate the worst of the STEM elite - technological surveillance and behavioral grooming - with the entire kitten caboodle?
The elites, for their part, wish to change everything [including] our history
Anyone who is actually interested in how "The elites...wish to change...history"2 might benefit greatly from understanding the history of that, specifically Foucault's work in describing the history of the asylum and state surveillance in military, educational and prison settings.
No mention of the elites who have changed, supplanted and seem to wish to dominate how we interact with plain, physical reality, how we communicate, understand the world and how we make future decisions: the techno-elites who are so ubiquitous and at the same time hidden they receive no mention at all in an essay on how elitism is compounding a cultural divide. Astonishing.
Footnotes
And the social sciences...in an essay faulting "the humanities" for their lack of scientific literacy, the author lumps together the humanities and the social sciences as one conglomerate mass. ↩
Again, I don't know if we even have a clear definition of "the elites." History is a social science, not part of the liberal arts/humanities. To ascribe to it the fault of technical rigor that techno-elitists love to ascribe to "the humanities" and "liberal arts" gives credence to techno-elitism on the grounds of the STEM mass conglomerate somehow being "the holiest of the holies" while making a great error of either not knowing or understanding how the disciplines work. ↩
Footnotes