David Brooks’ long thoughtful essay in the current Atlantic – “How the Ivy League Broke America” – deserves long thoughtful consideration. In it he argues – brevity compels concision – that our current national angst – and abysmal choice of leader – may be traced to a decision of the Ivy Leagues, in the mid-twentieth century, to transform their admissions policies. Out with the spiffed cadets who’d ruled the roost for a century – pedigreed WASPs from the right addresses with impeccable manners – and in with the best brains, wherever they hailed from. Meritocracy instead of aristocracy. Cognitive elite (Brooks’ term) versus social elite. Brainiacs instead of Upper-Crusters (my term).

These Upper-Crusters – Yale, Groton, Social Register, Brooks Brothers, boola-boola, Bush (1)/Rockefeller/Scranton/Lindsay Republicans – not all-fired smart maybe, but ever so clubbable and entitled – you know the type – the guy who’s typing, say – yeh, on paper that’s me – card-carrying ruler of mankind – in his youth, a Little Lord Fauntleroy, who played his purring part with aplomb, basking in the applause – George Clooney might play me in the movie which will never be made. Such was the world I was born to – and as the sun of its solar system – and the son of the son – this organization struck me as sound. “From those to whom much has been given much is to be expected” my dad drummed into me. (We knew Bushes, Rockefellers, Scrantons, Lindsays socially – naturally! – and yes, we were honorable, by our lights.)

Alas I fell out of love with my set. My prestige prison cramped, stultified, suffocated. Conformity felt like deformity. Plus, it was boring. Beneath my proper attire beat the heart of a Thoreauvian loner, determined to dope life out on his own. True, Thoreau attended Harvard, but he wasn’t the sort of alumnus the development office (a later development) favored. (“The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad,” Thoreau wrote, “and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.”)

(I’d like to claim allegiance to both camps. Am I not a Brainiac too? Not by today’s daunting standards. I doubt I could win admission to Yale, where every applicant flaunts astral SATs.)

The fault of the Brainiacs, in Brooks’ view, was while whizzes at figuring stuff out, they were arrogant, condescending, self-engrossed, sniffy and altogether infuriating to the ninety-eight percent who didn’t make the grade. Hence, MAGA and its grievances. Better for President a vile dummy who shares my gripes than a polished know-it-all who looks down on me. Blow up democracy, if that’s what it takes. To hell with them!

The Brainiacs, it turns out, were too smart for their own (or America’s) good. While Brooks doesn’t advocate their decapitation MAGA-style, he suggests modifications of our system, which strike me, on balance, as wishful thinking. Yes, we need inclusion, community, fairness, a more level playing field, moral education, but can you mandate redemption? Can we, by devising, turn white collars bluer or red necks pink? Maybe we need a better human being to make self-government work in this overpopulated, over-pampered, overconfident, over-armed, self-infatuated epoch. Good luck with that.

Brooks, bless him, is an obdurate optimist. He’d find the good side of Satan if he could wangle an interview. As a one-time sun – and son – I’d like to be sunny too. No can do. I see modernity hurtling into an abyss at an accelerating rate, impossible to brake. My response, such as it is, is to do what I love, cling to those I love, do my best and hope for the best, knowing hope is hopeless and hoping I’m wrong.