The attitude of elite and populace toward each other sums up the situation today. Elites consider the people ignorant and bigoted, the people think their rulers pretentious, hypocritical and self-seeking. The reason for the dislike and suspicion is less personal qualities, with regard to which elite and populace may differ little, than social position and function. Elites stand for the principles publicly accepted, the people for actual day-to-day life, and their opinions of each other display the opposition between accepted theories and the things that enable life to go forward. Thus, the people admire standards not based on desire, and respect loyalty to one’s people and their ways, while elites view such things as ignorance and bigotry. In contrast, elites insist that the supreme and indispensable virtue is equal acceptance of all ways of life consistent with the uncontested reign of bureaucracy and money. The people, depending on mood, may view that insistence either as comical because of its irrationality or as an attack on the value and coherence of their own identity and way of life because of its implicit and increasingly explicit tyranny.
[From my book-in-progress.]