Thread: A longstanding narrative in the modern West is that conservatism is the ideology of the elite; progressivism is the ideology of the people. This narrative has been mainly advanced by a left-leaning intelligensia.

This dominant narrative is a prototypical form of "Whig history." It neglects both the inherent elitism of progressivism (see "Mill, John Stuart") and the inherent populism of conservatism (see Burke, Edmund).

Conservatism was born when a new elite emerged: an elite whose main ambition was to replace existing cultures with an "anti-culture." Conservatives like Edmund Burke and Disraeli sought to align the traditional, aristocratic elite, with the innate conservatism of the people.

The great contest of the past several centuries has been who was correct: are the people ultimately revolutionary, and hence, align with progressive elites; or are they conservative, and align with conservative elites?

Tragically, a conservative elite-popular alignment was circumvented in the United States because of the rise of progressivism. This "progressivism" was not merely a left-liberal phenomenon. It pervades every domain of elite American society.

Progressivism shaped the elites to favor one of two revolutionary forms: economic or cultural. The first we call "conservative;" the second, "liberal." Today, those two elites forms have combined in the form of "woke capitalism."

Rather than an elite that protects a "bottom-up" culture - the kind of elite favored by a Burke or Disraeli - today we are subject to a revolutionary "popular culture" that is generated by elites - Hollywood, music, etc. These "cultural forms" are intended to destroy culture.

Yet, one sees a degree of revulsion to such elite-generated "cultural" content such as WAP and "Cuties." These forms of "popular culture" are the opposite of the culture created and fostered from the bottom up - rituals, festivals, formal observance of human and natural rhythms.

Conservatives should understand that a primary duty of elites is not to defend "the blessings of liberty," but ferociously defend the remnants of traditional culture against their destruction by revolutionary "popular culture."

And, given the wholesale destruction of genuine, bottom-up cultural forms by a revolutionary progressive elite, conservatives must look to foster the conditions for the emergence of genuine culture to combat the pervasive anti-culture. /fin.