Because lots of people actually do want to kill them, and the walls keep those people out. It's the same phenomenon you see in South Africa - everyone who can afford it builds high walls and private security, because everyone who can afford it is a target.
Possibly not the best example - the people who can afford high walls and private security are usually white. South Africa was run for decades by a minority elite (racist) government that brutally subjugated the majority black population. The exact situation that the article talks about.
The article defines elite panic as a false panic; a "cognitive disorder", caused by elites who look down on the rest of us and think we're all violent hooligans. If people really are trying to kill them, I don't think "panic" is an accurate term and I can't blame them for taking steps to avoid being murdered.
> The article defines elite panic as a false panic; a "cognitive disorder", caused by elites who look down on the rest of us and think we're all violent hooligans.
Yes. It's a belief based on pseudo-morality, where those who are not privileged are portrayed as being rude uncultured barbarians who, without resorting to extreme violence and oppression, would represent a threat to their pure and pristine existence and social order.
It's the same argument that slave owners used to justify beating slaves to death.
>If people really are trying to kill them, I don't think "panic" is an accurate term and I can't blame them for taking steps to avoid being murdered.
You somehow left out the part where these elites resort to extreme violence and oppression to deprive their neighbors from fulfilling basic needs and instead of helping the community they outright represent a very real and very violent threat to them.
And then, as a feat of cognitive dissonance, these elites cowarding behind their castle walls try to fabricate a moral basis for the violence and oppression they inflict on the very society that permitted their life of privilege.
History strongly suggests that, in periods of disorder, even elites who did not resort to extreme violence and oppression will get murdered. ISIS didn't grant any leniency to nice elites who were well-loved by their local community.
That’s simply false. The aftermath of the American civil war for example worked out fine for large swaths of southern elites compared to the general population. Social disorder generally is bad for everyone, but the elites often recover faster with fewer problems.
Looking at say the fall of the USSR it was well connected elites that ended up making vast fortunes.
>If people really are trying to kill them, I don't think "panic" is an accurate term and I can't blame them
This is akin to saying "well if some wifes cheat, being a paranoid, jealous husband is perfectly reasonable". It's not that bad things never happen to elites, it's a cognitive disorder because the paranoia is structural, regardless of what actually happens.
It's a disorder because the panic is a function of their social status and their position in society that they know is to a degree unearned (in particular in countries like South Africa or wheverever else the elite is a hereditary class), so in a sense they anticipate the resentment that is rightfully coming their way.
It's like, if you're a habitual liar and thief you also tend to think everyone else is as opportunistic as you are, and sometimes you're right, but that's not why you believe it in the first place.
You are making the same mistake as the elites who are panicking: someone is trying to kill them (Or, more likely, use the capabilities they have in order to improve their situation, at the expense of the elites. Killing people is usually less an end goal than kidnapping or theft.), therefore everyone who is not a similar elite is a "violent hooligan".
A lot of things are being described as a panic at the moment, and a lot of it is really just rational risk mitigation behaviour. The factors the influence risk management decisions are all pretty straightforward. You’ve got an assessment on the likelihood of the risk causing an impact, as assessment of the potential magnitude of that impact, a judgement about how much risk you’re willing to accept, and decision about how much resource you’re willing to commit to managing the risk. The way these panic discussions tend to go is first, ignore the fact that different people/organisations have different resources available to commit to risk management, then if you disagree with any of the judgements they make, describe it as a ‘panic’, rather than what it actually is, a rational decision that you might disagree with for some reason.
Therefore, the sane person lives inside a secured enclosure with military-grade defenses, with the potential threats making of their important decisions for them.
That's the default. For most of history that was how it worked; anyone who could afford to do so built a secured enclosure and hired military-grade defenses. We've managed to establish more peaceful norms, where most people's threat models don't need to include roving bands of soldiers or brigands on the highways. But these norms aren't infinitely resilient, and can be broken by sustained periods of disorder, as we've seen in many places around the world.
If you mean 'anyone who has exploited the community around them to the point that they themselves come off as a predator and danger to the community', this would very likely explain why they could 'afford' to build a castle, but might also shed some light on WHY they might practically require a castle, or soldiers.
If you mean 'anyone who has exploited the community around them to the point that they themselves come off as a predator and danger to the community'
This is the basic trope. Many of the Kulaks were simply peasants who knew how to farm better than their neighbors.
Funny, but the same justification is used against (often non-white) store owners in disadvantaged neighborhoods, where their only "crime" was simply running a store in that neighborhood. Some genuinely good people who create value are genuinely creating value. That also doesn't mean they're exempt from receiving delusional accusations of exploitation. By the same token, there are some exploiters as well. However such judgments can only be just on the basis of individual actions.
As always, we should be on the look out for those who use overly simplistic and reductionist prejudicial assumptions to make accusations. Over time, they often turn out to be history's villains.
