Why Skull and Bones Matters

America [may be] about to choose between two presidential candidates who belonged to an organization whose values were infantile, elitist, misogynist, anti-democratic and secret and whose purposes include the mutual support and protection of its members as they make their into the upper ranks of American society and throughout their adult lives. Far from apologizing for this, the two candidates refuse to give open and honest answers about their participation.

The most benign view of this was expressed by the conservative columnist David Brooks, who told CBS, "My view of secret societies is they're like the first class cabin in airplanes. They're really impressive until you get into them, and then once you're there they're a little dull."

It is said, of course, that if you raise such matters you are engaging in 'conspiracy theories.' In fact, this phrase is popular among the political and media elite precisely because it provides a dirty mirror reflection of the very values that this elite holds: "If the country needs to change, let's face it, we're the ones to change it." It is schools such as Harvard and Yale that inculcate their political science and history majors with a sense of change being the product of a small number of great minds working in concert with their peers. It is this arrogant illusion that kept blacks, women, and the poor so long out of the history books in such places. They called it the Great Man Theory of History.

The other day, Jim Ridgeway of the Village Voice, a former editor of the Daily Princetonian, and I were trying to think of people who had served in major Ivy League media positions yet had not become - in the manner, say, of Adam Clymer or Don Graham - totally embedded in establishment values and media. We could only think of two others: William Greider and Larry Bensky. Another one, interestingly, was a guy named Howard Dean.

The problem with such people is that we actually know how the system works. We have been probationary members of it and have betrayed and deserted it taking along the secrets of the crypt. Yes, as David Brooks says, it is as boring as first class, but who said the distortion of power, the corruption of society, and narcissistic excesses of ambition had to be interesting?