Epstein’s case suggested the truth about elites could never be known

Evidence

Magical thinking was particularly alluring in an era when conspiracy theories seemed as plausible as the official record. The idea that the US government had long suppressed knowledge of UFOs gained credibility in 2022, when it admitted to possessing secret video evidence of unidentified aerial phenomena. Yet perhaps nothing better captured this dynamic than the life and crimes of Jeffrey Epstein—a billionaire financier whose story suggested there was no way to ever know the truth about elites’ lives. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 577

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s argument that ‘blankness’ may be an artifact of insufficient historical distance — Marx treats Epstein-era cynicism as distinctive when elites were always opaque.