"I didn't do it!"

Mass identity is a light one. You are not in charge nor responsible. Always the others or some unknown will be guilty of life. "Guilty of life" is a denomination that opens up a view to the order of things: events of life are never the ones that are wished for, therefore someone should be responsible for the misfortune and disorder you experience in everyday life. Somenone but not you.
Mass identity frees one from guilt. In case your identity comes from the mass psychology, you are free from guilt.
Intelligentsia wrote widely on the state of culture both after WWII and in the 1970s. They mirrored Immanuel Kant's judgement: most people are pueril and they behave as if they were morally minor. The complexity of life's demands stupefies people and they follow any idiot who promise any good future (or, fortune). Only the imagined depht of religion (any religion) is saluted by them with any enthusiasm; people know religion gives all the answers but demands no thinking.
In Near Eastern spirituality there is the idea that the world is rotating around a Pole, a person, that is the key to a moral life. Most of the time people don't know who the Pole is but the Pole, however, makes itself visible by the teachings and ideas s/he is emanating. The Pole is the moral conscience of the time. The Pole can be identified as was the case in Mohandas Gandhi, and then followed, or the Pole may stay undercover and be effective by the example only.
In Western countries the authority of the Pole has been relativized by the mass behavior: none can be the Pole since anyone is allowed to play the pole. Friedrich Nietzsche, Simone Weil, Henry Thoreau, Dag Hammarskiöld, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Emmanuel Levinas may have been identified as Poles but their impact is nullified by the fact that they are so many. Who could know who is the right one?
These people have in common the idea that the human being is responsible for her/his life. A person that does not realize this remains innocent. Innocence doesn't mean, however, that s/he is not guilty, untouched by the guilt made by the moral sphere that people within themselves create whenever they live together. Being together creates the moral, even if you don't recognize it. The moral designates the togetherness of people.
Moral cannot be wiped off with the help of religion or stupidity. The guilt that emerges in the everyday life with others, the inadequacy of self, and the need for others simply require an order, a standard, a codex that soothes the acute demands and challenging reproaches. Moral sense, or moral order is the tranquilizing factor. But it does not pop out of the air. Moral personalities are needed.
The word "guilt" is heavily contaminated by the religious and psychotechnical use. Still, from the poinst of view of moral, it is an impressive word. A person may feel her/himself as guilty in case s/he does not reach her/his own moral standard. That has nothing to do with a verdict given by the others (also called "guilt" and for a good reason, too). Just by growing up with other people, with no special training, constructs in us the moral sense. The life is always too complexe to be mastered well, and the sense of guilt will emerge in us.
The mass is not guilty. Mass identity protects one from guilt. Any guilt can be washed away with drugs, food, entertainment, or arrogance, or, it can be manipulated in therapy. However, there are always people who are guilty, not only for themselves but for the others, too. They are Poles that know that human being is quite pueril, naive, stupid, and dangerous without means and targets that makes her/him conscious of her/his condition.
The human condition is wrecked by the sheer stupefaction of multiplicity of life. The need for a hierarchy of moral stands must be disclosed for an open discussion. Someone must do this: be the opener. This someone is not the one who knows, the wise one, but the one who is able to picture the questions the way that even the one in deep sleep can dream them. The Pole is needed, not as a person but as a quest.
The word "elite" seems to be contaminated by the politics and the grudge many are feeling as a malice towards the "wrong elites" of any society (economical, hegemonic, or just naked power). Still, the word means the "the best ones", "those who are the chosen ones". They are not chosen in democratic procedure since the "the best" (or, the Pole) does not belong to that sphere, unfortunately. In this question we cannot rely on the political demagogue.
The insight, geniality, wisdom, and key are not distributed democratically. "The best" can be identified by other criteria. They are the people who know they are "guilty": their guilt is their being human, seeing the complexity of becoming a human, and caring for the others. Their caring for the others does not come out of the need for power over others but of love, compassion, and common future.

JV