Oct
24
2008
The Importance Of Elites And Social Capital
John Seel on how culture changes:
Over the past twenty years, evangelicals have created a number of institutions that have fostered networks among the power elite. Among those whose influence is noted in this book are the Fellowship (organizers of America’s National Prayer Breakfast), the L’Abri Fellowship, The Trinity Forum, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, the Leadership Network, Act One, and Walden Media. While not all of these organizations and companies are explicitly evangelical, they have been important in fostering evangelical legitimacy within their respective spheres. The end result is that evangelicals have leveraged their economic capital to increase their social capital. “In elite circles,” Michael Lindsay writes, “social networks are critical to prestige.”
This strategy stems from a general acceptance that cultural change is top-down and guided by strategically placed gatekeepers. Infiltrating these gatekeeper networks has been one of the overarching objectives of these institutions. This view, based on research by Peter Berger, Philip Rieff, and Randall Collins, has been popularized in evangelical circles by sociologist James Davison Hunter: “Hunter argues that culture only changes when individuals and ideas infiltrate elite networks and the organizations they control.” Latent evangelical populism has resisted this overt elitism. Charles Colson writes, “I don’t believe societies are moved as much by the social elites as they are by changes in the habits of the heart. I think you have to give people, the mass of people, a different vision to live by . . . John Naisbitt said that fads start from the top down, movements from the bottom up.”
And yet, the reality-defining institutions of the academy, art, media, and entertainment, which are controlled by economic, social, and cultural elites, shape the “habits of the heart” of any given society. Having once worked for John Naisbitt, I can say with confidence that he was speaking about consumer trends, not cultural dynamics. The achievement of these institutions is to be applauded.