The Oligarchs' Lost Letters: The Nature of the Educated Man
A Letter on Resentment, Political Coalitions, and Elite Survival
This is the second letter from “The Benefactor” in our free series, The Oligarchs' Lost Letters. The first letter is linked below.
To My Dearest Friends,
When last I wrote to you, I was simply overjoyed with the prospects and our final completion of universal education for all. It was one of the proudest periods of my life. We had finally granted a path from poverty and destitution to becoming a contributing member and meaningful provider to future generations. I confess I could not contain the excitement of the gift we had bestowed upon the people.
Unfortunately, there have been troubling developments. It seems that the men we have allowed to become educated have not been thankful in the slightest. I completely understand that neither I nor any of you may have our names recognized for this. That is not the point of what we did. But it is simply baffling to me how the products of our own universities, institutions we funded from nothing, have produced such resentment toward us.
These educated men supposedly hate us and see us as evil because we have wealth. I truly am perplexed at what course or influence within our universities has driven this sentiment of anti-elitism. We have given these men a pathway to become influential and wealthy members of society themselves. Perhaps not as wealthy, successful, or influential as us, but we were born into money and good fortune. These men have proved they can earn it from nothing. It is actually one of my greatest dreams being fulfilled that men of such meager means and poor beginnings are beginning to populate a middle section of our society. This is exactly the intended purpose of the gift we gave them.
Yet instead of gratitude, there is resentment. These men have started their own political coalitions against us. They are doing what charlatans and con men have done for centuries. They are stirring up jealousy and emotion among the populace. This populace includes not just the educated men who could have formed an elite class of their own just below us, but also the great many who are still poor farmers and day laborers. These are the men that make our society run. Without them, all of our money combined will mean nothing. If these political movements gather enough momentum, all of us are in trouble.
This is not a desperate call for help. It is simply a letter of awareness. We all knew that education advances men and makes societies better. That is why we collaborated in the first place. Our society has gotten noticeably better since men became educated, not just for us but for every single man, woman, and child that lives in our nation. The positives of education cannot be ignored. They are simply far too great and remain a net positive. But we must counteract these political coalitions that wish to take power from us out of irrational jealousy.
It also pains me to say, but our fathers were partially right about the many. Many harbor irrational hatred driven by emotion. I believed that education and a measurable improvement in their lives would separate them from their baser instincts. I was partially wrong. I did not account for the nature of men to conspire toward power when they have none. It was perhaps an oversight, but I have a solution that could resolve all of our problems while preserving the positives of our project.
The populace, apart from the educated men we have cultivated, lacks unity and organization. This is why it has always been the policy of prior generations to keep the populace uneducated, for education grants precisely these traits to those who undertake serious study. We must absorb the capable educated men into our institutions with positions of influence and power. Those we cannot absorb, we must deploy capital and trusted men to counteract their political movements. Since you are all educated, I will not explain why this is effective. It would be redundant to do so.
Nevertheless, we must also restrain ourselves in this process. If we overreach, we may imprint upon our own children a hunger for competition and accumulation that we have largely rooted out in our class over the last few decades. The solution is simple. Restraint will be the hardest path we must endure.
Sincerely,
The Benefactor
As mentioned above The Oligarchs’ Lost Letters is a free PT series examining power, wealth, and control through the fictionalized private words of oligarchs.
Access the entire series HERE.
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