In Praise of Elitism

Well, I'm back at work, plodding away at the helicopter, and I had to share a question that has been growing in strength all day: What is wrong with being one of the elite?

Specifically, it seems the national consensus has defined "elite" as educated (self or formally), knowledgeable, or intellectually curious. You may also be vulnerable to the "elite" tag if you earn an income that is significantly above the poverty line or if you appreciate nice things. If you know the difference between brie and bleu, ale and lager, latte and cappucino, and worse, care about the difference, you are elite. If you have the nerve to work hard to advance in your field, to earn a degree or certification, to get promotions, to get ahead for the benefit of yourself and your family, you are elite (By the way, somebody should have told me that I would automatically become one of the elite upon attaining my first degree. I could have quit this nonsense 13 years ago). And being elite, you are disqualified from participating in the national political dialog, or from being taken seriously if you speak up. Somehow, we are idealizing mediocrity, insisting that a politician has to be Just Folks to be considered sincere. This is utter insanity. The first part of the crazy happened long ago, when we lost our faith in the notion of public service and started to assume that every politician is selfish, deceptive and disconnected from the rest of us. The current part of the crazy is forcing politicians (who we have already condemned in crazy part 1) to pretend to be no better than anyone else. Our entire political system (probably most systems) is predicated on the notion that a person thinks they have something to contribute to the community, and can do it so much better than other people that they deserve the votes of other citizens. If you don't think you are better (or can do better), and aren't interested in giving your time to the effort, then you don't run for office. If no one runs for office, our society as we know it collapses, from town to county to state to nation.

Right now, we are in the final weeks of a presidential campaign, yet we seem to be stuck discussing the personal lives of the candidates, rather than their politics. I resisted writing about Gov. Palin because I had nothing nice to say about her personal life, and didn't know anything about her politics. Honestly, I don't want to know the details of a candidate's child-rearing practices, or their religious practices, or their commute to work, or their marital history. I want to know their thoughts on important public policies, foreign and domestic, how they would or wouldn't change our country's current stance, and how they envision the future. Where are they going to lead us, how do they expect us to contribute to the greater good, and what will we all get from it. Most of all, I want to believe that the person I am electing is intelligent and capable of navigating us through present difficulty and conflict toward a future as good as or better than now. (Insofar as possible. If the future must be worse than now, than I'd like the softest possible descent.) What I don't want is a leader who is better at pretending to be ordinary than at leading.

This is mostly our fault, not the politicians. The artificial "they" is reflecting what "we" want to hear. Instead of deriding each other for being elite, can we not acknowledge that success is a suitable reward for hard work? Education is not a liability, and knowledge of the world is not shameful. Being successful, educated and knowledgeable are not signs of elitism, snobbery, or classism, they are badges of honor.