The Revolt of the Elites: And the Betrayal of Democracy

The title (its play on Jose Ortega y Gasset's The Revolt of the Masses, notwithstanding) misserves this collection of essays, for Lasch's criticism that the elites have become cosmopolites in a global marketplace that disdains loyalty to locale is only one aspect of the crises the late author defines. Myriad factors in concert, he shows, including multiculturism, entitlements, mobility, secularization, our therapeutic culture and the professionalization of knowledge, have unsettled Americans' frame of reference. ``Common standards are absolutely indispensable to a democratic society,'' stresses Lasch (The Culture of Narcissism), standards he says we have lost, like the work ethic, individual responsibility, self-restraint and civility. In these essays, some of which were previously published in scholarly journals, Lasch is so encompassing, arguing with such an array of received wisdom-Horace Mann, John Dewey, et al.-that the book is too dense, its focus blurred rather than clarified by its scattershot range. (Jan.)