Elite Sorrow

Korach and Turchin on Social Status in a World Without Holiness

As a longtime fan of Torah Scholar Avivah Zornberg, it was an honor to record this conversation with her. I hope it brings some joy and recognition to her other fans, and for those who wonder what her argument is, I hope it clarifies what’s at stake for her.  If I had to sum it up, it would be something like “Life is anguish. Acknowledge it, hold it, let it deepen you; seek God in it. Great literature, and especially Torah, offers us a way to open our hearts to this existential anguish.” You can support the show, and help it grow, by rating it five stars and reviewing it on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify.

Back to our regular program:

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Now Korah, son of Izhar son of Kohath son of Levi, betook himself, along with Dathan and Abiram sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth—descendants of Reuben—to rise up against Moses, together with two hundred and fifty Israelites, chieftains of the community, chosen in the assembly, men of repute. They combined against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the LORD is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the LORD’s congregation?” (Numbers 16:1-3)

“Elite overproduction, the presence of more elites and elite aspirants than the society can provide positions for, is inherently destabilizing. It reduces average elite incomes and increases intra-elite competition/conflict because of large numbers of elite aspirants and, especially, counter-elites. Additionally, intra-elite competition drives up conspicuous consumption, which has an effect of inflating the level of income that is deemed to be necessary to maintain elite status. Internal competition also plays a role in the unraveling of social cooperation norms.” (Peter Turchin, “Modeling Social Pressures Toward Political Instability”)

Although we speak generally of Korach’s rebellion against Moses, the Torah tells of multiple, distinct factions that join together to oppose the status quo. The players include Korach, Datan and Aviram, On, and 250 “men of repute” (anshei shem). The variety and multitude of opposers suggests an opposition party formed less by a positively shared mission than by a negatively formed shared enemy: Moses. Commentaries spell this out, with some suggesting Korach to be an idealist, a “true believer” in his cause, and others merely joining the bandwagon for opportunistic reasons. Biblical critics hypothesize that originally there were two different rebellions against Moses that got spliced together into a single story by the editor. In both the classic telling and the modern academic hypothesis lies the insight that political movements are multi-causal. Explaining the rebellion of Korach is as difficult as explaining the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and the rise of WWI. There are many reasons to want to seek Moses’s downfall, and it’s easy to be a naysayer: You don’t have to say what you want the alternative to be, just what’s wrong with the current reality. The core of the rebels’ critique is both irrefutable and empty.

One thing that we can say for sure is that the conflict is one between elites, as highlighted by the Torah’s mentioning of “anshei shem”—men of high repute. Korach is a member of the Levite tribe, which is an elite tribe. On is a Reubenite, Reuben being the firstborn son of Jacob who nonetheless became a marginal figure relative to both Yehuda and Joseph, in Genesis. To put it in the contemporary parlance of philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, their critique of elitism is itself elitist, a form of elite capture.

What would cause people of high status to oppose Moses? And what would cause people of high status to do so by adopting a kind of pseudo-populist battle-cry: “All the community are holy”? Were the “men of repute” genuinely interested in destroying social hierarchy, or simply redistributing power from the 1% to the 10%? The Midrash suggests that this cannot be Korach’s motivation, for Korach was the wealthiest person on the planet. Yet, what about the scores who joined him?

While my answer is speculative, anachronistic, and incomplete, I contend that sociologist Peter Turchin’s theory of “elite overproduction” helps us consider that what we are reading is a story of people who experience a mismatch between their internalized sense of importance and their social opportunities to feel recognized and appreciated. These are people, as it were, who went to fancy law schools, but along the path of life found themselves in a dark wood—stuck, lost, unprepared for a world that had been disrupted while they were busy studying to marginally outcompete their peers. They had won the race, but it was too late—all the alpha had been arbitraged out (to put it in finance-speak). All those good grades, and for what? To win at a tournament whose glory had become obsolete? When we think of folks left behind by seismic social and economic change, we tend to think of blue collar workers whose work has gone overseas or been automated, not people with MFAs from the Ivy League. But the opposition to Moses comes from those who should have no reason to be anxious about their status—they are people of repute. So what’s bothering them?

Psychological approaches tend to use a static model of selfhood: the problem is in the mind, rather than “out there” in the world. The reason is practical. We have some agency of our thoughts and feelings, but we can’t wave a wand and make discrimination or stigmatization from the outside go away. In the immediate term, we can only work on ourselves. There will always be people who are insensitive to us, people who seek overtly to diminish us, but pointing out the injustice over and over again isn’t always productive or healthy, and it won’t change our antagonists. So, working on things like self-esteem or self-love or resilience or growing a thick skin are important regardless of whether we achieve a more just world, one in which we might not need to expend so much energy shrugging off the slings and arrows of social indignity. Perhaps the 250 “men of repute” just needed to take some deep breaths, do some power poses, and affirm themselves—a standard recommendation for “keeping-up-with-the-Jones’-syndrome.

Fine, yes, but also, the story is a tale of social conflict; it’s a story of the struggle for recognition; and the thirst for recognition will not be quenched by looking in the mirror or going to therapy or taking a salt bath. The fundamental conflict turns on the word “holy” (kodesh). Does being holy entitle one to formal leadership? Is that the correct category to think about holiness? Or is holiness less a right, less a badge of honor, less a talent, than a call to serve, no matter one’s station or formal position? Is holiness less about who has it than what it is for?

The critics of Moses are right that the whole congregation is holy. We know that they are right, in some sense, because the Torah has just commanded the entire congregation to wear tzitzit, in the previous parasha, an emblem of the high priesthood. So the question is: I’m dressing like a high priest, yet I’m not a high priest, what gives? In fact, the conclusion should be the opposite: “I can be like a high priest in the way that I conduct myself, without needing to be the one officiating the sacrifices? I can be a person of God without needing to be the prophet or lawgiver. My sense of holiness does not need to track with my job or my social role. God is with me, and therefore I am free to be a divine agent in any circumstance.” But jealousy doesn’t work this way, and so it sees holiness as a scarce resource, a possession, to be distributed. The Korach story is one not just of the politics of resentment, but a story of the politicization of religion, the reduction of spirituality and theology to power analysis. Datan and Aviram read their Foucault, but not their Aristotle. They saw power everywhere, but had no sense of what power was actually for. If holiness is about a right to recognition rather than an obligation or calling to serve it becomes mundane. Korach may be properly motivated, if misguided, but his followers have turned holiness into a form of status. Whether they win or lose their particular battle, they have already lost.

This isn’t to say that the calling to be holy is a purely aesthetic, apolitical calling. But we need to ask: politics in the service of what? We misunderstand social equality when we think of it as the impossible-to-achieve equal distribution of status (and Marxists are too optimistic when they think that economic redistribution will take away rather than intensify status competition). Holiness is the counterforce that says, “I don’t care who you are—whether you are the water carrier, the woodchopper, or the judge—you have the potential to bring God in the world.” In this sense, Marx was right that religion is an opiate in that it diverts our desire to equalize the external world into a desire to equalize the internal one.

The moral hazard of religion is that it relinquishes its responsibility to create a world in which everyone in the community can have a good life. But the moral hazard of modern philosophy, be it Marxism or utilitarian capitalism, is that it defines the good life primarily in terms of power. From this point of view, it is good to be Moses in the same way that Mel Brooks (happy birthday!) says in History of the World, “It’s good to be the king.” Actually, it is good to be Moses because it is good to have a life that is fulfilling, meaningful, and purposeful—an enigma that eludes many in power but seems to find many who lack it.

Our democratic age has positively shifted us from a society rooted in fixed caste to one in which we can compete for status and opportunity and move up and down the social hierarchy—but power differentials, real and imagined, have not gone away simply because we all have the right to vote or to post our opinions on social media. If anything, our resentment and anxiety have intensified as a result of living in a meritocracy—where now a low social position in life has become a de facto reflection on one’s moral status rather than just a fact of life (a point often made by Michael Sandel).

How do we square the circle that we are, in Western societies, more formally free now than at most moments in history, yet more envious, more psychologically anxious about our status and life prospects—relative to our expectations—than ever? Is the solution: Don’t strive? Is it the quietist argument that the problem is not the world, but our expectations of it, which we must simply lower? I don’t think so.

The corrective needed is a redefinition of equality that is more inclusive of inner life. Korach’s followers should be pitied, for they were people who had much by some external metrics, yet felt so small. The PEW report will tell us that they were people of means, but it won’t tell us that they were people who felt snubbed. Often, and this is Turchin’s point, it is those at the top who feel smallest, especially in times of volatility. Holiness is not the only human good, but it is often missing from the conversation that frames everything in terms of “haves” and “have nots.”

Those of us who have felt the presence of the holy don’t ask “Why be led by Moses and not by Korach’s “men of repute”? We ask “What can be done to make life a quest for holiness and not just glory and title”? How can we expand our definition of excellence—and thus aristocracy (“rule by the best”)—to include the pursuit of the holy, which all can pursue, regardless of station? Assuming a world in which some will lead and others will be led, when will our aristocrats be those who are excellent not just at making spreadsheets or building software companies, but visiting the sick, feeding the poor, contemplating transcendence, and praying from the heart?

Shabbat Shalom,

Zohar Atkins @ Etz Hasadeh