fortress architecture

"but in a computer driven, knowledge-based world economy, educated americans may have more in common with ( and, ultimately, loyalty to ) their highly educated friends and counterparts in europe, latin america, and asia than they do with their less educated fellow americans a few miles away...'foreign' might eventually mean...no more than a fading memory of a time when cultures ( and nations ) were distinct and colorful, as on today's map, rather than the free floating aggregations they will have become at the upper end of the world economic spectrum and the unpromising sludge they will become at the bottom." robert d. kaplan. an empire wilderness:travels into america's future._______________a kulturkampf between the "highly educated" and the "unpromising sludge" that is certainly apparent in the 2016 presidential zoo parade...the populist volk who see themselves being left behind ( the volk are demonized as a rabble however, despite elite distortions they are not stupid...only poorly educated [ or indoctrinated if you prefer]..we will be getting to that shortly ) and the "rootless cosmopolitan" elite who are actually rooted in urban pods...living in high rise luxury ridden condos that isolate them from the mob...migrating between european and asian pods electronically as well as physically..and some may be "highly educated"..there may still be elite private universities that specialize in turning out the future ruling oligarchical cadres...but mass education in state universities has taken a turn for the so so...in my experience state schools have dumbed down the syllabus, begun replacing permanent faculty with adjuncts, opened an "office of retention" to keep enrollment up, and gone into the debt creating business..more misery for the "unpromising"...control through penury...so as the gap between the "volk" and the "cosmopolitans widens the latter flee to the safety of the fortress architecture of gated communities and high rise condos in urban and suburban pods...kaplan should not be so quick to sound the demise of culture though...even if a billionaire has persuaded some of the volk that he is not the problem and the debt saddled youth migrate towards a political insider with a leftist cachet that disguises a quarter century among the whores there are still distinct cultures on the continent..with clear geographic boundaries and social mores...adaptation to local environments..and a marked distrust of "outsiders" be they "volk" or "cosmopolitan"..the weakness of the system is that one of these bozos has to be elected...there cannot be a vote of "no confidence"...and they will achieve that by widening and deepening the gap, not bridging it...eventually the distinct cultures will find their ties to the idea of some illusory central "americanism" a detriment..they will go their own way.