In Defense of the Elite

Rating: 5 after 1 vote

Posted by Dyre42 on May 12, 2008 at 11:28pm

I've been seeing a lot of criticism of "elites" lately. And it seems to me like there is some sort of concerted effort to redefine the word. Its current definition is this...

1.	(often used with a plural verb) the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.

2.	(used with a plural verb) persons of the highest class: Only the elite were there.

3.	a group of persons exercising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group: the power elite of a major political party.

4.	a type, approximately 10-point in printing-type size, widely used in typewriters and having 12 characters to the inch. Compare pica¹.

–adjective

5.	representing the most choice or select; best: an elite group of authors.

So by definition Green Berets, Navy Seals, Pulitzer prize winners, and Nobel Prize winners are all elite in that they are the best in their field. By definition two the Rockerfellers, the Kennedys, and the Vanderbilts are elite due to their wealth and social class. By definition three Howard Dean and Mike Duncan are elite. We'll skip four.By definition five The Travelling Wilbury's, The Union of Concerned Scientists, MENSA members, and all of Denise Richards' current and ex boyfriends and husbands are elite.

At first I thought there was some confusion between the word elites and the term elitist But over the course of time the current working definition of elite in newspapers, magazines, blogs, and political sound bytes seems to be:

A person that has access to a public forum who has a either a title or an uncommon job, possesses four or more years of education, who wrote or did something that I don't like, and happens to be of a different political persuasion than I.

This definition is meant to be a slur to infer that the person accused is disconnected from the American public and thus foolish. But here is the rub, the vast majority of those who truly excel in their field are disconnected from the general public either by their talent, skill, vision, or dedication. In fact without the true elite this country would have never gotten off of the ground. Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and Monroe were far from being Joe Schmoe. They were highly educated, wealthy, and influential. Most of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence were the colonial cream of the crop. Conversely most of those being branded as elite today seem to be the chaff in the process of seperating themselves from the wheat.
In my opinion the current anti-elite screed seems to have more to do with partisanship and a resentment of those who were fortunate enough to be afforded better educations than most than it has to do with any rational and objective view of their overall contribution to society. And if the many continue to villainize those who exceed how can we hope to compete in an increasingly competitive global market in which our competitors strive to produce as many true elites as possible?

From Dyre Portents

Tags: elitism, elites, politics, blogging, elitist

3 Comments

Comment by Justin on May 13, 2008 at 11:36am: Great article! What seems particularly odd about the charges of elitism are that they usually come from other "elite" politicians -- both Bush and Kerry were in Skull and Bones, Hillary Clinton is worth tens of millions more than Obama and attended equally elite universities, etc. Similarly, those who inflame resentment towards intellectuals are either surrounded by intellectuals or are themselves intellectuals.

There have been recent books about this trend in our culture towards the suspicion of intellectual elites, but I don't see this as any recent phenomenon or even one that is uniquely American. When people aren't given the same opportunities or had the same success as others they feel resentment and aim it at those who do excel in the same system, rather than examining the system itself that allows and possibly promotes these discrepancies.

If you don't like the guy in high school who gets the girls, makes all the varsity teams, and drives the nicest car that his parents bought for him, you might just start resenting good looking, athletic, rich people. Perfectly reasonable, but you are right that this natural tendency becomes a problem when a society aims for the lowest common denominator rather than a meritocracy.

Comment by Katie on May 22, 2008 at 11:28am: I'm glad people who are feeding this anti-intellectualism in the public sphere are being taken to task at least in some sense. Bill O'Reilly is not an elite? He has a television and radio show! Anyone who is listened to by millions is at least half a level above everyone else. Let's stop kidding ourselves.

I also think it's interesting that Communism was/is also very anti-intellectual. I doubt any of the people who won't vote for Obama because they think he's a snob would want to have anything in common with a Commie.

Comment by Justin on May 30, 2008 at 3:01am: I just read a related editorial on NYTimes.com, written by Susan Jacoby, the author of The Age of American Unreason. Good background of the changing use of the term "elite":

"What was once an accolade has turned poisonous in American public life over the past 40 years, as both the left and the right have twisted it into a code word meaning “not one of us.” But the newest and most ominous wrinkle in the denigration of all things elite is that the slur is being applied to knowledge itself."

Check out the whole thing here. She also made an interesting point about how we have conflated the terms "elite" with "elitism".