Mixed feelings (4.00 / 1)

Americans have mixed feelings about the "elite". They demand the best in areas like athletics. Meritocracy is expected. We are even willing to allow those with inherited characteristics (like extreme height) to use this natural advantage, as long as they perform the best.

Imagine capping the height of basketball players since being tall was considered "elitist".

What Americans really resent in intellectualism, it's just called "elitism". They fawn over any sort of wealthy or famous person without worrying about them being part of the "elite" - just think of Trump or Paris Hilton. They only thing that makes them special is money.

The "elite" is condemned when they got to their present position because of a good education and intelligence. We even use shortcut markers like "Harvard or Wellesley" to mean intellectual.

When schools set up gifted and talented programs parents object, claiming that they are "elitist", but the same parents see nothing wrong with supporting a merit based (and usually more expensive) football program.

This anti-intellectualism has a long history, just look at all the derogatory terms used in the past: egg head, pointed headed intellectual, etc.

The country wants smart people to invent Ipods, but doesn't seem to want to use their expertise to run the place, an odd dichotomy.

Personally, I would prefer to see the smartest, best educated people in the most sensitive government positions. You know the old joke: "What do you call the person who graduates at the bottom of the class from medical school? Doctor."

Is this the guy you want operating on you? Why accept the class clown as president?  

Policies not Politics

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by: robertdfeinman @ Mon May 26, 2008 at 15:36:29 PM UTC

Know-nothingism (0.00 / 0)

No doubt about it, many Americans are threatened by too much smarts, in a way they don't seem to be threatened by their loss of power and autonomy to an unelected economic elites who believe themselves fated by their god to lord it over their inferiors.

This unfortunate anti-intellectualism has been with us since at least the early 19th Century.

While there are connections, there are also distinctions among 1) voyeuristic interest in elite celebrities like Paris Hilton; 2) resentment at intellectual achievement; 3) the economic elite the American myth says everyone has an equal chance of joining.

The political use of the term "elite" as a code word for "not like us" helps disguise the real power of the real elite. And that illusion is what must be pierced.

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by: GlennWSmith @ Mon May 26, 2008 at 18:18:15 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think you're confusing two meanings (0.00 / 0)

of the word "elite." It means "the best" and in that sense, yes it would be good to have "the best" in positions of trust.

But the word "elite" is also how the rich prefer to refer to themselves, for understandable reasons. They want to present themselves as the product of a meritocratic system (like the example you give of basketball) when in reality nothing could be further from the truth.

In reality, the rich are rich because they inherit money (except for those like McCain, who marry it). This is no way justifies their occupying positions of trust.

Montani semper liberi

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by: Sadie Baker @ Mon May 26, 2008 at 22:43:05 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The road to aristocracy (4.00 / 3)

America has been winding its way back towards having a formalized class structure.  They're mostly there from a defacto standpoint, but eventually they will want it dejure too.

It was pretty evident when Scooter Libby was facing actual prison time, that he was upper class and Versailles thinks such as him and themselves should face a different set of rules when they break the law.

If the estate tax goes, watch out.  

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by: Daniel De Groot @ Mon May 26, 2008 at 16:04:28 PM UTC