It's been said that every society has two aristocracies. The members of the aristocracy of mind produce ideas, and pass along knowledge. The members of the aristocracy of money produce products and manage organizations. In our society these two groups happen to be engaged in a bitter conflict about everything from S.U.V.'s to presidents. You can't understand the current bitter political polarization without appreciating how it is inflamed or even driven by the civil war within the educated class.

The percentage of voters with college degrees has doubled in the past 30 years. As the educated class has grown, it has segmented. The economy has produced a large class of affluent knowledge workers — teachers, lawyers, architects, academics, journalists, therapists, decorators and so on — who live and vote differently than their equally well-educated but more business-oriented peers.

Political scientists now find it useful to distinguish between professionals and managers. Professionals, mostly these knowledge workers, tend to vote for Democrats. Over the last four presidential elections professionals have supported the Democratic candidate by an average of 52 percent to 40, according to Ruy Teixeira and John Judis, authors of "The Emerging Democratic Majority."

Managers, who tend to work for corporations, brokerage houses, real estate firms and banks, tend to vote Republican. Thanks to their numbers, George Bush still won the overall college-educated vote.

This year the Democrats will nominate the perfect embodiment of an educated-class professional. John Kerry graduated from law school and plays classical guitar. President Bush, however, went to business school and drives a pickup around his ranch. So we can watch the conflict between these two rival elites play itself out in almost crystalline form.

This educated-class rivalry has muddied the role of economics in shaping the political landscape. Republicans still have an advantage the higher you go up the income scale, but the correlation between income and voting patterns is weaker. There is, for example, this large class of affluent professionals who are solidly Democratic. DataQuick Information Systems recently put out a list of 100 ZIP code areas where the median home price was above $500,000. By my count, at least 90 of these places — from the Upper West Side to Santa Monica — elect liberal Democrats.

Instead, the contest between these elite groups is often about culture, values and, importantly, leadership skills. What sorts of people should run this country? Which virtues are most important for a leader?

Knowledge-class types are more likely to value leaders who possess what may be called university skills: the ability to read and digest large amounts of information and discuss their way through to a nuanced solution. Democratic administrations tend to value self-expression over self-discipline. Democratic candidates — from Clinton to Kerry — often run late.

Managers are more likely to value leaders whom they see as simple, straight-talking men and women of faith. They prize leaders who are good at managing people, not just ideas. They are more likely to distrust those who seem overly intellectual or narcissistically self-reflective.

Republican administrations tend to be tightly organized and calm, in a corporate sort of way, and place a higher value on loyalty and formality. George Bush says he doesn't read the papers. That's a direct assault on the knowledge class and something no Democrat would say.

Many people bitterly resent it when members of the other group hold power. Members of the knowledge class tend to think that Republican leaders are simple-minded, uncultured morons. Members of the business class tend to think that Democratic leaders are decadent elitists. In other words, along with the policy and cultural differences that divide the groups, there are disagreements on these crucial questions: Which talents should we admire most? Which path to wisdom is right? Which sort of person deserves the highest status?

That's the kind of stuff that really gets people riled up.

This contest between rival elites certainly doesn't explain everything about our politics. But with their overwhelming cultural and financial power, these elite groups do frame the choices the rest of the country must face. If not for the civil war within the educated class, this country would be far less polarized.

[1]

By the creek The necessary suffering Of love is in evidence – These waters feed the fish More religiously than most Religions can or do.

[2]

Little bird out of your nest, What is the name and shape Of the God you invoke In your squawks?

Or does the mystery, Which we foolish men Furiously partition into endless hollow Shells and rarely encounter face to face, Stand indivisible in your world?

Little bird, teach me again about The spasms you feel in your unformed wings, Those of hunger and those of love.

[3]

I come back from the afternoon into the shaded cool of this room. I was walking in a forest, urging my soul, that blunt instrument I have been given to perform the autopsy of everyday mysteries, into an awakening of itself.

I stopped at the point where Lullwater falls and saw in the shallows just behind the rock ledge a shoal of fish; silver bodies with edges tinted in crimson, dark bones in standing in relief against their flesh - they carry their shadows within their skins – travel further and further into the green woods, which were trapped in the water before it fell over rock as foam, spray and noise. One always hears water fall at the top of the hill before one sees it and then reaches it at the bottom. This perhaps is also the trick to reach God, which the mad people among us have perfected.

[1]

Your eyes hoard a few fragrant Secrets. More beautiful than you Stand your thoughts.

You talk and somewhere flowers shoot Forth. Do clouds meet the mountain Ranges, somewhere in your eyes? Even your silences are your language.

[2]

It is again that night, That night of dreams. And all night long, I shall dream of you, All night long.

Tonight in your innocent sleep If you see a dream, Summon me to that room Hidden behind the curtains Of your eyelids.

These dreams are of glass, And will pierce one’s eyes. So lift them gently with Your eye lashes.

[3]

These days my feet hardly Touch the ground. Tell me Do you ever encounter me, flying in the wind?

[4]

With simple fables and night rain The valleys are full. How strange my heart is full too!

On the trees leaves, On the leaves water, Water of tears.

Close to each other were our hearts. We had met before, But are still strangers after meetings.

It stops and pauses And then it pours, Mad rain is dancing on the clouds.

[5]

I have left some luggage Behind in your room: Some of those cold winter days And wrapped in one my letters, A night I spent your arms.

Extinguish that night. Return my things.

And from that fall, Sounds of leaves’ Footsteps I still wear Like earrings. That branch We stopped under together Is still spasming in the wind.

Cut down that branch. Return my things.

Under a single umbrella, Caught in sudden rain, We were half wet and half dry. I must have been on the left, For there is my wet heart Lying perhaps under your bed.

Send back that heart. Return my things.

Translated from Hindi Film Song Lyrics