You're not in tzarist Russia anymore, Dorothy. "Elite overproduction" in the modern system is far from an accident. In fact, it's essential to keeping everything chugging along smoothly.

Let's talk about the janissaries

Anyone who's read their Moldbug like a good boy knows that the Brahmins are the caste that run the show - using their arcane rites of “evidence based” “best practice” such as “expert consensus” and “following the science” to shape "global governance" and "government policy."

I don't think we pay nearly enough attention to the structure of this group.

A deep divide runs through the Brahmin caste. A divide that forms the source of much anger, resentment, bewilderment, tweeting, and gnashing of teeth.

Everyone knows the plight of the adjunct professor. For a select few, academia is a dignified life of the mind. For the rest it's a life of miserable, grinding poverty. Everyone's seen handwringing from the left and crowing from the right on the issue of lit PhDs on food stamps.

Scratch the surface of every Brahmin profession and territory and you will discover the same division. The difference between lawyers and lawyers is less well known than that between academics and academics, but it’s one which has received its fair share of coverage.

A similar two-tier system exists in the world of scientific research, and in tech. The vast majority of journalists - the elite shock-troopers of the cathedral itself - are essentially PAYING to do the jobs that define their entire identity.

Some Brahmins pursue their intellectual callings and “social and cultural impact” without let or hindrance, are well compensated, and publicly lauded. But many more - in fact, the overwhelming majority - live on the edge financially, socially, and politically.

What we’re seeing here isn’t different rungs on the ladder of the same status hierarchy. We’re actually dealing with two completely different castes that share a value system.

A small percentage of the Brahmin caste are “true” Brahmins. Either generationally via parents and grandparents who have access to the levers of its power hierarchies - or they have gained admission through grooming, holding the system hostage, or sheer dumb luck.

The rest of the “Brahmins” are actually a completely different caste which we can call the "Janissaries" thanks to its remarkable similarity in both origins and function to the elite military units of the Ottoman Empire. We can also shorten it to "jannies", which is fun

But unlike the Sultan, our elites don’t forcibly abduct the children of the Vaisya, Helot, and Dalit classes to create their loyal attack dogs. They outsource the process to the institutions that train their own children.

Much like their future Brahmin masters, children destined for the life of the Janissary show a great deal of promise intellectually from a very early age. They may come from more successful families in their birth-castes, or simply be winners of the genetic lottery.

Either way, they are encouraged by everyone around them to make the most of their undeniable talent by applying the eternal virtues of hard work and persistence to the only available path to a better life - admission into a top university.

Here - in a process which has been documented extensively elsewhere and experienced by many of us - they are converted to the Brahmin value system that dominates these institutions, entirely and enthusiastically of their own will.

They recognise the superiority of the Brahmin’s values to the values of their parents, teachers, and friends back home. And they adopt them wholesale, with the customary zeal of the convert.

Leaving aside questions of right and character, the future Janissary is at the very least intelligent. They know power when they see it, and they see clearly that the Brahmin worldview holds control of the path to power.

The unspoken promise for the Janissary is that if they become a Brahmin, body and soul, then the opportunities denied to them by the station of their birth can be theirs.

The Janissary caste exists to provide willing handmaidens, cheerleaders, and utterly disposable footsoldiers to the Brahmin caste in their quest to achieve social, cultural, and political “impact”.

This is achieved by convincing them not that the Brahmins are their worthy masters, but by convincing them that they ARE the masters. (Just temporarily lacking in the social capital and network access more "advanced" Brahmins possess through "merit".)

In this way, the most capable members of other castes - the only people who might be able to form networks of power and social capital capable of challenging the Brahmin spiritual meritocracy - are awarded the white elephant of approbation, elevation, and castration.

Turning a promising young future leader of a community into a Janissary allows them to feel - for a time, as though they have “made it.” But the process permanently neutralises their ability to actually act as a leader of their community.

They are permitted the trappings of power, they may even be allowed some measure of access to the powerful themselves, but the actual mechanisms of power route harmlessly around them. Although they may appear free, they are unfree.

Even the luckiest can find themselves confronted with a multitude of dead ends as they get older - trapped and unable to advance in positions that are prestigious and well compensated on paper but stifling dead ends in reality.

This uncomfortable position - the feeling of being simultaneously euphorically enlightened by one’s own intelligence while also being trapped by it - is the source of one of the Janissary’s defining traits: extreme, all consuming anxiety over their status.

The middle class is an anxious class, and this is tied to its ambitions and fears. The upper classes have no reason to be anxious: their position is secure. Likewise, the lower classes, with limited options for advancement and regression, are without anxiety.

Anxiety only arises when there is potential for movement - either up or down. If we feel we have an opportunity to move up, anxiety is a healthy motivator that helps us put our best foot forward. If we feel like we might move down… well, this one should be obvious.

The Janissary is perpetually anxious, because they know that, short of a miracle, the only trajectory they have is downward. This leads to a feeling that both they have done something wrong, and that something is “missing” from their lives.

This stems from their inability to see true impact on society and culture. The kind of impact that all Brahmins strive to achieve. Since Janissaries firmly believe they are Brahmins, knowledge of their own impactless existences weigh heavy on them.

And this knowledge leads to a peculiar pattern of behaviour. Many mid-career Janissaries seek to escape their semi-slave status through “career changes” - but in ways which seem absolutely bound to further restrict their freedom.

They will trade actual, tangible resources even for the illusion of impact - by taking a large pay cut to work for a nonprofit, say, or to do work that’s “making a difference.” They will even volunteer time to fashionable Brahmin causes purely to feel closer to impact.

The real tragedy of this, of course, is that these attempts to scratch their itch simply see them doubling down on their own misery. Their every attempt to escape only serves to further cement their status, sculpting them inexorably into better servants for their masters.

Anyway hope you're all having a good Monday.