For their part, Stalinists have tended to be fond of technical elites as well. However, I suspect that gristly examples may arise simply from the depth of the sample size; the innumerable cruelties of the premodern world, after all, we’re chiefly overseen by humanistic elites. It may be that today humanistic values are substantially more weak and “feminine” (from the perspective of their predecessors,) but this may also be part of why existing power structures are less fond of employing them.
(All this, of course, assumes this is a useful dichotomy, the primary avenues for elite recruitment under modern liberalism are business and the legal profession, which straddle the line in some ways.)
For their part, Stalinists have tended to be fond of technical elites as well. However, I suspect that gristly examples may arise simply from the depth of the sample size; the innumerable cruelties of the premodern world, after all, we’re chiefly overseen by humanistic elites. It may be that today humanistic values are substantially more weak and “feminine” (from the perspective of their predecessors,) but this may also be part of why existing power structures are less fond of employing them.
(All this, of course, assumes this is a useful dichotomy, the primary avenues for elite recruitment under modern liberalism are business and the legal profession, which straddle the line in some ways.)