Dead Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite was an essay published twenty years ago by Samuel P. Huntington (1927-2008), a prominent political scientist who taught at Harvard University. One of his focal points was the topic of national identity. In his 2004 essay he wrote about the growing group of ‘Davos Men’, the ‘gold-collar workers’, the ‘cosmocrats’ and the ‘dead souls’ of American elites who were divorcing themselves from the rest of Americans.
Huntington’s essay is a valuable resource, a marker in time, that reads as an eyewitness account to a development affecting the lives of all citizens. I wrote about his most important observations.
Nowadays we can learn a great deal from analysts whose observations have passed the test of time, whether they’d be poets, artists, writers, scientists or academics. The past two decades have revealed many tensions, system failures and high-level corruption. Studying the older roots of these harmful predicaments – as well as recognizing the warning signs and points of no return – creates a solid foundation for the future.
