Varying degrees of socialism have always appealed to smug elitists who see themselves as the apparatchiks of a strong central authority imposing its will on what they as an unsophisiticated population. What elite socialists really fear is the success of capitalism destroying their own exclusivity. Why do social critics decry McMansions and mock Applebee's? They symbolize the more successful among the working class not knowing their place.

What's the matter with Kansas? How about what's the matter with China? It took the transformation to capitalism from the world's biggest, baddest socialist experiment to lift hundreds of millions of working class out of poverty.

Capitalism appeals to elitists just as well. Party bigshots on both sides of the aisle hold the judgement and intelligence of the unwashed masses in contempt. The difference lies in whether they believe the course of the country should be steered by government or business.

HBFreddie,

You are conveniently papering over the fact that China went through a Cultural Revolution in which hundreds of thousands of educated people were humiliated, beaten, imprisoned, and otherwise terribly damaged, all for the "crime" of being educated and having independent thoughts. A similar Marxist movement in Cambodia resulted in Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge murdering hundreds of thousands of people for being educated.

It is disturbing to me that first the Republicans and now the Democrats are all jumping on the bandwagon of 'let's go beat us up some elitists today'. And our use of the term 'elitist' has gotten awfully narrow: someone who is college-educated and has independent thoughts and has managed to have an income above a certain level. I don't see Orwell's definition in play all that much anymore. And I'm sure the dictionary definition of 'elitist' just means thinking that you're better than someone else. And if that is the case, then any moderate-income born-again Christian who eats at Applebee's and shops at WalMart, but also who thinks that, just because they've accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior, then that modest-income person who's been wrapping themselves in the flag of the down-trodden, is really, at heart, an elitist.

And, frankly, Orwell's fear and loathing of elitism in 1930s Britain is a far cry from America's issues with "elitisim." The British class society is and always has been much uglier than anything America has produced. I don't see much in the way of cross-comparison, unless you're going to insist that the entire broad structure of the English land-owning society is parallel to a small sliver of the American population that lives in certain neighborhoods of the upper West and East sides of Manhattan, or in certain neighborhoods in the middle of the very vast area we refer to as Los Angeles.

Remember--we had something called an American Dream--that has been more than a 'dream' for most of America's existence--class mobility and the use of and accessibility to education as a means of getting better jobs, more income, and a better life.

Spitting on those people who've made it a priority to afford college, take out loans, and otherwise make sacrifices to move forward with their lives, is NOT an "American" attitude. It's a Marxist attitude, whether that Marxism is derived from European applications of Mr. Karl's thoughts or Asian applications of his thinking.

That our politicians, on both sides of the aisle, have over the last 20 years worked in a concerted effort to make sure the downtrodden stay downtrodden, while encouraging them to hate and loathe those who manage to make it, is the biggest joke that has been played on Americans in our history. We're being told that it's "American" to hate success, to hate effort, to hate those who make sacrifices to advance economically (rather than having it handed to them), when, in fact that's a Marxist-Commie attitude.

What a load of garbage! Elitism, my foot.

Thank you Freddie. Thank you!

jgirl:

That was absolutely fabulous! Seriously, great post. Everything that I've been wanting to say.

If we're using terms like "smug elitists" (which is kind of like saying "ATM machine") with impunity, can we say "lazy-good-for-nothings" about the "lower class?"

I mean, I'm just askin'? Tit-for-tat, right?

Jgirl,

(It suspect it was just an accidental oversight on your part, but of course, in China the Cultural Revolution did more than just beat, humiliate and damage the educated, but ended up killing about 4 - 5 million - of all classes - by most historians' accounts, all completely within the borders of China. This in addition to what happened in Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, etc.)

You bring up an interesting point. How did expertise and the educated class, the elite, get such a bad name? Well, I blame the elite themselves.

Prior to the West's Cultural Revolution, the elite considered it their duty to maintain the status quo (for better and worse) and to forward civilization as we knew it, for better and worse. The elite were the bulwark against the passions of the masses. The masses, therefore, were often found to be trying to "put on airs" and be "higher than their station." People dressed up, as an example, when going to Vaudeville, in the manner in which the elite dressed up to a night at the opera.

In a spasm of self-loathing, in a couple of generations all of this was overthrown. Due to the success of capitalism and the transfer of elitist manners to the masses, all that the West's Cultural Revolutionaries was trying to throw over had made the elite less so; it was a pretty good life for the average middle-class Western kid, going to college and vacationing in France.

Now, we live in perhaps the first time in history where the elite are trying to emulate the lower classes, to show their "authenticity," and they now wear jeans to the opera, and use foul language commonly, etc.

It was the educated elite in this country and the West in general which spat on the very concept of authority. Authority in all senses of the word. Not just political, religious, generational, or what have you, but the very concept of someone being an "authority" on a particular subject, whose opinion would be therefore held in higher regard on that subject than the lay person, was shot down.

We have come to this point where we can not tolerate the notion of someone or something above us. As Robert Bly puts it, "We have lost the upward gaze." We can not tolerate the very concept that there may be some kind of order or structure into which we might have to fit.

The elite are the ones who enacted an absolutely radical individualism, a kind of solipsism, in the West. The personal and subjective were given equal footing as the impersonal and objective. "Facts" as such, are now considered completely fungible, just the cynical viewpoint of the overlords trying to keep the rabble down. Literally, even testing children for mathmatics, as an example, is now considered by some as mere cultural bias towards those kids who can not do math.

Ironically, it is the elite which have torn down the concept of the elite, right when we need it most.