“Solidarity with the uneducated”
The editors of n+1 on the “Revolt of the Elites”:
[E]litism…usually refers to a much narrower phenomenon than just a fancy education. Recall that in 2004 the educational backgrounds of the cultural elitist John Kerry (St. Paul’s, Yale) and the cultural populist George Bush (Andover, Yale) were remarkably similar. Kerry’s elitism signified not that he had gone to such schools but that he appeared to have learned something there, including — l’inutile beauté — French. The ineducable Bush meanwhile suggested solidarity with the uneducated. A Harvard MBA merely proved that any interest he had in knowledge was purely mercenary. In a business society where mercenary motives constitute a kind of innocence — It’s my fiduciary responsibility to increase shareholder value is our I was just following orders — this much could be forgiven.
The mercenary or commercial consideration seems crucial. The elitism charge mostly exempts those who’ve been to expensive colleges so long as they’ve only learned how to make money there. This absolves not only CEOs but doctors and lawyers, provided they don’t engage in humanitarian work. (Are medicine and law considered “elitist” because rich people can afford better doctors and lawyers than the non-rich, as well as more easily become doctors and lawyers? No private tutoring required to guess the answer is no.) The term even spares Ivy-garlanded culture producers who earn a lot of money making movies and TV programs that people without a lot of money or education enjoy watching.
Who, then, is guilty of elitism, if not the elitely educated in general? The main culprits turn out to be people for whom a monied and therefore educated background lies behind the adoption of aesthetic, intellectual, or political values that demur from the money-making mandate that otherwise dominates society.
Read the whole thing here.
Loved this essay. And I think it was sitting on my shelf while we were discussing the cultural use of “elite” here — wish I’d picked it up sooner!
I think once upon a time I wrote and talked like the editors of N+1 but soon desisted since I found no one understood what I was talking about. (Maybe people still don’t) This article has many sterling thoughts but if it has a cohesive whole I missed it. I realize that I should give chapter and verss but how much work can one do without recompense. It almost has the feel of an elitist article whatever that means. I feel like an elitist just to have gotten through it. That is probably one of the reasons there will be few posts on it. If this were a simple topic like abortion people would feel free to pontificate all over the place. At any rate that is the point. The fewer comments the more elite the few posters will be. I mean I know I am not like the rest of wo/men–lazy abortion talkers, gun advocates or protesters, real presence activists, and so on. In the thread that Molly initiated on the elite the matter was nice and general so that all could fire at will. These guys at N+1 make the New Yorker look like a cakewalk. At least I understand the New Yorker articles even if I am cursing at their length. But hey, at least they are not like the pretentious elitist rich who snore through operas and concerts and send guides so you can understand their paintings because they sure do not.
Meanwhile the Atlantic Monthly has an article this month on the the “New Global Elite.” A big thing about this new elite class is, unlike the old rich class, they actually work and earn their money even if they terribly ridicule the middle class, whose jobs are going to the middle class of other countries because they charge less for their labor. Oh to be a professor or a sanitation worker where no outsources can replace. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-new-global-elite/8343/
Matt — Great post. Reminds me of Thomas Frank’s argument in One Market, Under God, about “market populism”: that we now think of the market as democratic (even though it’s anything but “one person, one vote”) and that criticism of the market is, therefore, “elitist.”
Alas (what an elitist expression), I think Bill is right — you won’t get many posts on this one. But Bill, I am a professor, and people like me, even if we’re not being “outsourced,” are certainly being proletarianized: it’s called the use of adjuncts. But then, to wail and lament about something that’s happening to everyone — and that’s happening with almost no popular opposition from the sheeple — is, I guess, elitist.
It would be interesting to compare people’s attitudes toward those considered to be elite (or toward being themselves considered elite) to their attitudes about being the elect. Is one strictly a religious categorization, and the other just social?
Elites do not exist.
Envy exists and drives people to create classes of those they call “elite”.
Pride exists and drives people to want to feel superior.
There was once a famous physics professor who said that if someone was working on research and could not explain it to a first year student entering university, they didn’t really know what they were talking about.
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Judging by the ratio of applicants to spaces, I think the Ivy League will survive.
Another riveting area is the Catholic hierarchy along with its wealthy supporters as elite. The wealth of the Sistine Chapel and those priceless paintings are of course a service to preserve the world’s culture. Cardinals are called your grace or eminence, bishops your excellency while monsignors are glorified bishops. Spellman courted the rich and was the “power house” in NY while Law ran the Lawn Party which was di rigour for any elite. Quite a subject there. I have always wrestled with Notre Dame being elite with Helsburgh at the realm. But elite it is.
Quite a bit to toss aroung there.
Speaking of cardinals, a blogger at NCROnline mentions getting an e-mail reporting that His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke’s princely attire cost $68,507.20. I inquired as to the source of this report and am hoping for a reply.
Elitism or not, if this report is accurate, then we’ll know that Raymond Burke didn’t get his fancy red duds “off the rack” for a measly $30,011.
It’s been said that money is like manure — doesn’t do any good unless it’s spread around.
Gives new meaning to the money spent on our Princes of the Church!
Nice to see a few quips on how big mney is important to the policy makers of our Church.
In our increasingly plutocratic society, as Bill observes. it’s de riguer.
David G. has an interesting piece at Politcs Daily about the Black Churc hand whether it has lost its soul to the big money game.
I think we do well to ask the same of our Church and its institutions.