Lately I've been running into the word elitist quite a bit.  In fact, I've often been called an elitist . . . and maybe I am.  But the word elitist conjures up all sorts of images in the minds of people, most of them bad.  Maybe this is why so many people are eager to attach the word to concepts they don't like.  Jonathan Swift's comment that you can always tell when a true genius appears among us by the outcry from all the dunces who'll immediately arise in a confederacy against him is classic.  Atta boy, Jonathan!  Seldom have truer words been spoken.

No long ago I ran across a reference to something called the tall poppy syndrome.  Some New Zealand article about their Prime Minister is where I found it.  The crux of its meaning is that someone in a position of importance or authority gets tagged as an elitist because they're there, standing out like a tall poppy in a field of short ones.  It infers that the lesser poppies are jealous and suspicious of the tall ones, and maybe that's just human nature at work.  I've run across other titles lately like that, like calling a rich guy who supports socialist ideas a limousine liberal or a champagne socialist.

I don't like elitism when it comes in the form of plutocracies, where people rise to positions of power just because of wealth, social status, or family.  We've got lots of that in this country, and I hate it.  Then there's the elitism of the well-educated, the scholarly, the scientists who think they're the possessors of the right way, the enlightened way.  For the most part, I think they are.  That separates me from the mass of people who have the elitist pluralistic notion that exoteric knowledge reigns, that esoteric knowledge should be viewed with suspicion.  Remember, if you will, that esoteric means a knowledge reserved to the few who are enlightened enough to receive it, or acquire it.  My feeling is that most forms of exoteric knowledge, the common sense stuff we're all supposed to know, comes up way short of being real knowledge.  I guess that makes me an elitist, at least along those lines.

I favor systems where meritocracy is favored over the old chrony system of putting people in positions of power.  That's the good old boy system, the one based on exoteric knowledge, and it's just plain bullshit!  I'd rather tolerate the arrogance of elitism than have hacks running my government.  And the worst kind of elitism of all?  Well, it's simple and easy to detect - it's the good old boy, common folk, blue collar ethic kind of arrogance.  "God must have loved the common man 'cause he made so damn many of them."  Oh, spare me, please.  Are we going to blame God for all the dumbasses running around out there?

Now, think about that for just a minute.  Fundamentalist Christianity, in my less than humble opinion, is the most serious threat to freedom and democracy in this country, or for that matter, in any country.  Talk about elitism, this bunch of misguided yahoos seem to think they're endowed with a certain degree of marvelousness . . . just because they're members of Jesus's country club.  Yep, join up with us, and you're on the road to not only salvation of the soul but also salvation from dumbassness.  God's my main man, and he wouldn't love me in a state of confusion.  Is that real Christian principle?  Is that what Christ taught?  Pardon my blunt assessment here of all you fundamentalist Jesus people out there, but somewhere along the line I think you guys jumped the track and missed the point.

If you're starting to see that I'm tying our good old boy exoteric bank of knowledge to fundamentalist religious beliefs . . . you've caught up with me.  And I hate that kind of elitism.  Call me arrogant, or you can even call me the anti-Christ, but I'll have nothing to do with that sort of distorted thinking.  And if Jesus Christ could really come back and see what's happened to many of his people, he'd start preaching against what they stand for in this day and age.

. . . or has he already done that and we just didn't listen?  Is there an echo in here?

PMC, 4/16/08