Obama said during the campaign, “They cling to guns or religion...” This comment sure sounds elitist to me: these people are too ignorant and desperate to know what is good them i.e. a liberal agenda that will create a state where government policies will liberate people from their wrong headedness regarding reliance on guns to protect their families and their wrong headedness regarding their knowledge that God is the Creator of all and therefore all glory, honor, praise, thanksgiving, and obedience are due Him.
3
AMEN!
Thanks for being the person who finally wrote this column.
Democrats be who you are! Stand up and speak to the ideals that have made us the greatest nation on the planet.
DO NOT BE ASHAMED TO BE A DEMOCRAT!
VOTE IN 2018.
13
Susan Jacoby's column disappoints in her failure to address the following: Elites and their views are not getting rejected. The elites are failing to articulate an inclusive view of change. Today's NY Times has run a column how Bobby Kennedy was able to put together a coalition which spoke to the need for civil rights and the need for the government to advocate for working class people. The elites focus on identity politics to the exclusion of working class needs helped to put DT in the White House. Working class needs and gay rights, women's choice, police reform, and environmental protection are not incompatible. If the elites continue to cower before "the smelly orthodoxies" of the left or right, they will continue to be ignored.
56
I have met many well educated -- very well paid individuals in NYC who are completely clueless of what goes on in the rest of the USA. Elite ... maybe --- uninformed .. absolutely.
There are many who view themselves as "smart" ... but are dumb to the world.
81
"endless self-flagellation among well-educated liberals — “the elites,” in pejorative parlance — about their failure to “get” the concerns of white working-class voters"
Huh??? Is this an East Coast problem? I live in one of the most liberal, highly educated places in the country and have never witnessed any such concern by anyone.
27
I certainly agree with what's written here but think, alas, it's beside the point. Here's the point: the aunt and uncle who bought Trump's stupidity about Muslims cheering 9/11 bought it because they were irrational -- not rational -- and their unreason derived from fear and bigotry. Rational arguments -- no matter how couched (high, low, whatever) -- are not going to reach people like that. What reaches them is Trump's (and more generally the GOP's) constant drum beat of BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID. And so -- they're afraid. Frightened people don't listen. This is where fascism comes from. And this is what Trump both exploits and constantly exacerbates.
114
No one should feel ashamed of being well educated and/or well informed.
Those that attack education and information want people to be uneducated and uninformed - Uneducated and uninformed people are easier to manipulate, and we be more apt to believe lies.
It is no coincidence trump attacks the media and educated people - they are a threat to him and deception.
66
Easy enough: people stop apologizing for being privileged.
14
The guilt might come from abandoning working class Americans as millions of manufacturing jobs disappeared. Just maybe.
32
“Elites” must apologize for being elite because they can and not doing so would be worse. Seeing themselves as “elite” automatically ascribes a sentiment of “better” and entitled to more— more money, more access, more respect. Confidence, stature, and hardworking are all admirable qualities; arrogrance, self-entitlement, and laziness are not.
Should people apologize for being white or black or American or an immigrant? No, because they cannot control these circumstances. Can a person control being an “elite”? Yes, because it’s a self-ascribed societal construct, one that changes, progresses, regresses, disappears, reappears, etc. If a person said, “I’m sorry for being elite, but I can’t control being elite”; no one would believe him or her and saying so does not help. “I’m sorry for speaking down to you, not listening to what you have to say, not relating to you” would.
Speaking English is not an equalizer in many conversations all over the country and one’s mastery of a spoken language does not raise a person’s place in society. Speaking sincerely and honestly To someone instead of At someone should be the equalizer.
18
You are absolutely correct. And that is the problem with Obama and H. Clinton. They never spoke respectfully to the people whom Trump was able to attract. Obama slighted them in an offhand way by saying “they cling to guns or religion,” and H. Clinton called them the “deplorables.” Such comments belie an ingrained attitude that we who are educated and enlightened know better than you, and we will implement policies for your own good.
1
Interesting read, however, I want to remind everyone that college-educated white women voted for Donald! So much for elitism!
To paint all Liberals as elites, is wrong, just as it is wrong to paint all Conservatives as Working class folks. I'm not college educated, and spent most of my adult life voting for Republicans until George W. Bush. His flawed policies helped me to see for the first time how wrong Republicans are, especially in their "pro-life" stance.
Now I am a registered Democrat, proud to be. Especially as I watch the Republicans collude with Donald, and not stand up for our nation nor its laws!
Bottom line is: pay attention, read a variety of news, listen to a variety of media and then.....use your brain to discern what is best for our nation. You do not need a college degree for this.
64
This is so much not the problem that it's strange. I'm from the Quapaw Indian Reservation in the number one toxic site, (Picher, Oklahoma) in America. I suffered from severe heavy metal pollution as did we all in that place but our education focused in the psycho-physical values of the Arts, Sciences and physical education produced many successful professionals from that terrible environment. The difference I am convinced, was the focus on serious complex culture rather than simple vocation. I'm a classical musician and Cherokee Indian and have taught and directed American Opera in NYCity for forty years. America has become a sump of economic depravity based in a theory that only finds ultimate value in what you create as surplus from a product. Most serious products that further humanity and cultural identity are one of a kind products and cost far too much in time and energy to create a surplus. In fact they suffer from the economic problem of too high costs to make a profit. But these products are what creates a culture and a national identity. Is it any wonder that our cultural products, with the exception of very simple formulaic ones, are either technological and robotic or objects that don't disappear in the moment like music or theater? Is it any wonder that we take our music and theater more from England (language) and Russia (music and dance) in their classical forms, than we create here for ourselves? The Elite and the Tories should be ashamed.
25
There is basically a lack of respect between the two , think the elephant in the room is a lack of discourse and realizing that both sides are feeling human beings an arrogance of education and a lack of, which that group mocks the know it all muckety mucks . Both groups become entrenched in their views. Not saying this applies to everyone , but it has created that divide.
3
The most highly selective colleges (Harvard, Yale, U Chicago et al) take only 3% of their freshman classes from families with incomes in the lowest 25% quartrile. Recently accompanied my grandson on tours of some of these elite schools. Only a handful of the prospective students were minority. The elite cement their situations over the generations by means of these 20 or so institutions. Very human, but it is up to these top 20 to break down this barrier. What are the chances?
26
I was the first in my family to go to college and worked the family farm on weekends and during the summer break. I have had a great career and traveled the world thanks to that education and I am proud to admit I’m an ‘elitist ‘. If that’s what you want to call me.
25
My wife and I were the first in our families, which were poor to lower middle class, to gain a college education. We both worked at menial jobs while we did so. Today we are both professionals with a reasonably comfortable life-style...not rich, but not poor either. We contribute to a number of charities and have spent much time engaging in community service work. We started with nothing and slowly built ourselves a comfortable lifestyle...not rich, but not poor either. I became an educator after a twenty-five year career in the business world because I wanted to give something back...certainly not for the pay. We built our own house on three and a half acres of scrubland and rock. We put our daughter through school and saw her become a successful veterinarian. Now I am supposed to feel ashamed and embarrassed because I drive a nice car, we have a some property and have an education that purportedly makes us "elite". I think not. We worked hard for what we have and made a number of sacrifices to get here. If we can do it so can others. No apologies from me. Oh, and by the way, I was an immigrant at an early age to the United States.
49
What exactly is meant by the word elite? Is it the educational elite or the financial elite? Is it scholars or oligarchs? Right wing politicians and their supporting media have conditioned a large part of the public to conflate highly educated people looking out for the public interest with plutocrats seeking to fleece the public, pushing a narrative of a 'liberal elite' that offshores their jobs, floods the labor market with undocumented labor, and spits on them as racist hicks when they complain. 'Centrist' Democrats (Clintons, et al.) have reinforced this narrative, mightily, by selling out the Democratic party to the investor class, and Trump skillfully exploited it in 2016. To counter this false narrative, Democrat politicians and voters must focus on the economic issues which unite us all, and as Susan Jacoby says, the educated must speak up to people and not down to them.
15
...very nice read. thank you for writing it. should we ever run into one another I’ll promise to make you dinner. you can bring your friends I’ll bring mine. if you enjoy talking as much as you enjoy writing, I have no doubt we’ll have a wonderful evening.
best
ruppert
5
I love the irony of people like Donald Trump in the US (inherited wealth) and Boris Johnson / Jacob Mogg Rees (both inherited wealth, second titled), going in about the liberal elites. My husband and I both fall in their definition - I’m from a poor immigrant family and paid my way through university by waitressing. My husband’s parents were refugees. By any traditional or rational definition, it would normally be the millionaires with inherited wealth who are the elites, not us
40
we have something similar here in Australia. I think 'elite' is often just conservative shorthand for "people who read books voluntarily - and disagree with us".
80
Love your comment!!
13
The probability of finding an efficacious solution is often determined by how well one defines the critical parameters of the problem. To the extent well resourced people try to prescribe policy solutions involving the behavior of poorer people without walking with them in life, if not walking in their shoes for a while, the proposed policies will likely have unintended, yet foreseeable, negative consequences.
A ready case in point is the rationing of Medicare assistance for poor people by requiring them to find and maintain jobs first. To most well resourced people, the ability to find and maintain a job of some sort is a trivial consideration and a significant incentive for maintaining a job comes in the form of health care insurance benefits. They regard increasingly levels of health care coverage as luxuries to be earned, not necessities required to successfully seek, qualify for, and maintain employment.
Poor people lacking adequate nutrition and health care are more likely to suffer from physiologically driven mental, behavioral, dental, and physical health problems that position them as unattractive, unreliable, and less well performing prospective employees than those with a history of good health care and nutrition. For them, Medicare benefits are perquisite to entering and succeeding in the workforce, not a luxurious benefit to be exploited on the public dime.
Apologies won't help elites bridge this gap. Getting out of their bubbles and visiting the poor might.
18
You tell me who is elite. I went to school for 12 years then went to 8 years of college I'm still paying off. I have a house with a mortgage. I have a car with a payment. And I'm constantly training because if I don't when my current job ends I won't have the skills to get the next one.
The last time I was out of work it took me 2 and 1/2 years to find my next job. If it happens again I may not find one since I am nearing 60. That last time I was out of work I had to tap into my 401K so I could live because in this exceptional country of ours 13 weeks of unemployment at a rate that is somewhere below a full time job at Walmart is all you get.
I know people who walked out of High School barely able to balance a checkbook who went to work in the auto industry. They have incomes that would make many white collar professionals envious and fringe benefits we all would love. They spend their days waiting for some machine to break, reading, sleeping and whatever they want. They retire with the world to take care of them. And they voted for Donald Trump.
Now you explain to me who is elite. Because I'm not seeing it.
45
One doesn’t need to apologized from background or personal accomplishments, although one needs to be responsible towards others. The more one has, the more responsible to give.
7
That should be the role of taxes.
11
This is a great thesis. I believe that, until the Reagan revolution, having an elite education only roughly correlated with the acquisition of great wealth. Teachers, farmers, bankers,and doctors were all held up as role models in a community.
But something unfortunate happened. Society regressed, and the “conspicuous consumption “ of Thorstein Veblen became an honorable pursuit. Those fortunate enough to earn Ivy League degrees increasingly put their diplomas in the service of strictly wealth acquisition, often giving little back to society.
The economic classes became more polarized. As long as the Rustbelt remained viable, this was all overlooked, even admired. But when the middle class was eviscerated by economic globalism, all trust between classes was lost. The wealthy and highly educated were now met with suspicion. Someone like Trump, who seems to be one of the boys, garners more trust, as he plays immigrants as the real villains, and avoids the subject of leveling the economic playing field.
For the elite to regain influence and trust, they must speak plainly of the obligation of a society to bring everybody along. And there has to be campaign finance reform to stop the Kochs and Mercers from twisting the political dialogue to their own ends.
32
Good column but I don't think MLK using the word "folks" would have lessened the impact of his speeches. Pete Hamill said if there is a shorter word, then use it. And plain language quote unquote is a good thing. But i draw the line at bigly.
10
it's interesting to see how many people sort themselves out by class, not blood. We're just a small family spanning four generations with Jew and and Christian, but you seem to get assigned...
The first thing that comes to mind is William F. Buckley’s apt observation that “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University…”.
Smug bicoastal elitists just can’t understand why middle America doesn’t embrace the enlightened liberal big-government solutions that are to be imposed upon them. Maybe it’s because liberty, and individual freedom combined with individual responsibility, provides more benefit than liberal elitism?
We already have more liberal governance and collectivist programs/bureaucracy than is good for us, and certainly more than we can afford. We could use some more practical and effective good-old American common sense and individual liberty, instead of more failed European liberal elitism. You don’t hear much about that at Harvard...
12
See if you can pay for cancer surgery with some of that individual liberty. Tell me how successful our farmers would be without navigable waterways to haul fertilizer to them and haul grain away; or the land grant universities that freely share agricultural research. Government is a collaborative effort to make life better for more people. It works when practiced with that intention.
32
Interesting that your example is one of an wealthy well-educated socially elite conservative trashing university professors. One of those Harvard professors grew up in an extremely poor black family in my hometown.
Resentment of the elites is likely to be because of the narrative pushed by the right wing, and not because of the personal experiences of working class people. Kind of like how many Christians think there is a liberal "war on Christmas."
3
Making the intellectual the enemy is a very old strategy of autocrats and demagogues who appeal to emotions rather than facts.
Trump, his circle of mendacious sycophants and the far-right are reaping the benefits of the Republican Party’s intentional gutting of an education designed for modern competition and reinforcement of barriers to education that make access to that education difficult or almost impossible for people from those sectors of the population that now out of frustration support the autocrat. And, now, they cannot compete in labor markets, and American industry must increasingly turn toward better educated immigrants to remain competitive in global markets.
But can they see or understand that? No. Our educational system has done a great job is stripping reason and critical thinking, the ability to distinguish fact from rhetoric and demagoguery.
Those in power now may create their own versions of “bread and circuses” and fan xenophobia to exercise the anger and frustration of their supporters, but if those “disenfranchised” think that Trump and the far right care a fig for them or will elevate them, they are truly and sorely deluded.
And to ask the so-called elitists to step aside or apologize for their ability to keep America competitive is reprehensible if not quite simply stupid.
25
There is a chasm in our society between believing and understanding the label, 'elite': The disenfranchised believe the intellectually elite are responsible for their plight. The intellectually elite understand it is the financially elite that are bruiting this falsehood.
28
Some of the stupidest people I’ve met were elite intellectuals. Education is not synonymous with common sense. Being open minded and smart is not correlated with urban vs rural, coast vs midwest, college vs high school. So let’s stop with the labels and treat each other with respect.
26
Anyone who has far more than they need and doesn’t give it away to those who are in desperate need should apologize. I am sick of this “I earned it” attitude as it is a complete farce. Shame on anyone who thinks they did anything truly alone. All of us owes a debt to those around us and the lucky chance of being in the right place and time when advantages are bestowed. Americans stoke the fantasy of “making it” when they have no idea how stacked the deck is. It’s disgusting.
18
So what exactly comprises more than you need.... I'll bet you have *plenty* of things you do not _need_...... Do you have more than a few days worth of clothing? You don't _need_ more than that... one to wear one to wash... one to dry.... Do you wear makeup? You certainly don't _need_ that... Do you have more than a single plate, bowl, fork, knife etc for each person in your household? You don't _need_ those... heck - you have fingers, what do you think you even need a fork for.... Do you have a television? a smartphone? a book? a piece of jewelry? a picture on your wall? Do you ever eat something just because it tastes good? You definitely don't _need_ to do that...
12
How about apologizing not for being elite, but for being wrong, shockingly ignorant or shamelessly selfish?
For example, why not apologize for those wonderful "free trade" agreements from which everyone was going to benefit so gloriously?
Or for the invasions and bombing campaigns which would be over in a jiffy, at little to no cost, and with transfiguring results, from "shock and awe" through Hillary's "we came, we saw, he died"?
Or the great things which would come from deregulation and privatization?
Or our wonderful for-profit medical system, the "invisible hand" doing its magic?
15
Jesus taught that one cannot worship G+D and mammon. America's spoiled elites don't even aspire to the former, so they are untroubled by the conundrum.
Indeed American elites have zero sense of noblesse oblige.
My Harvard classmates of 1980 were inculcated with a detestable ideology of privilege and entitlement: that they are entitled to every perk pleasure and privilege they can finagle with their inflated salaries that reflect their usefulness to the Empire rather than their true integrity.
It horrifies me to think that these overeducated narcissists lead the country. They are incapable of leading anything, not even themselves.
American culture has devolved into a vulgar race to the bottom of the swamp of entitlement, with self love and disdain for all others the most prominent features of elitist selfishness.
15
Why do we let media marketing define who we are? Why are we listening to the political parties who throw around slogans in order to get votes. We are all individuals who either care about our fellow human being or we do not. Most people would say that elites are the people involved in this administration not the career employees but these new found money who believe that they are better than the rest of America. Elites are people who believe in the Russian dictatorship and there is one.
person who comes to mind all the time.
Education is controlled by the political groups and one knows that in order for these disgusting elites to remain in office they must lie , create culture wars so that people don't realize what the are doing Everyone wants to be engaged in life and no one wants to be invisible. Our challenge is to ensure that we don't allow these political parties to divide us and we work to discredit the political parties and work together for the sake of all Americans.
Ugh. As someone who grew up lower "blue collar" class and worked her way up and out of my upbringing- I find this article grating. It really is simple. If there are decent jobs available and you belong to the party that is providing those jobs - you will have "won" the non-elite vote. It really is that simple.
7
Since when do “parties” provide jobs? Tammany Hall is long gone.
4
“'But there’s no excuse for ignorance when you can go right down to the public library,' she often said."
Correct then, even more so today. There are no impediments to furthering one's education, except willful ignorance.
16
I tend to view elites as people who believe they have a right to dictate how government and the economy and societal trends should go because they are “right” and on “the right side of history” and the great unwashed need not be consulted. I suppose the elites could be those born wealthy or those who went to the right schools or hold the “right” opinions. I read their views every week in the opinion pages of the New York Times and in the comment section. I read all of the above, as well as news from other sources, because I believe in taking in multiple points of view, something I suspect many of the readers here do not do. I also don’t hear anyone apologizing for their background. I will not apologize for mine either. I don’t think the elites necessarily should be solely in charge of the country or the banking system or of societal trends.
12
I have never understood the disconnect in which trump voter engage regarding Donald Trump himself. He was born and raised in New York, never really lived anywhere else (OK, visits his own expensive golf clubs); posh, restrictive lower education; elite college education; avoided military service (and proud of it); uber, uber rich lifestyle. I could go on... Except he is stupid and has probably never read a book. Is that why they love him? Until this election I thought everyone aspired to be educated. I thought part of the american dream was for children to have the opportunity for more education not less. I have struggled for a year to understand this.
30
One would expect the author of a book titled "The Age of Unreason in a Culture of Lies" would be able read the results of a simple survey.
Despite your expertise the "much-cited 2017 Pew Poll" demonstrates that MORE Republicans believe that a college education helps with employment that Democrats. Furthermore, it is exactly your own inability to reason away your ideology to see the the blatant truth, contribute to a "culture of lies", and cause many to question the ideological direction that colleges seem to be leading us. Truth before ideology. - BOTH SIDES.
Loved your grandmother's story. Thanks for sharing.
9
It is important to note that a large percentage of Democrats is made up of minorities who face racism in hiring. You may be familiar with the saying, "Get a diploma, get a job at McDonald's."
2
My family’s step into elitism was paved by my great grandfather who wouldn’t let his daughter quit school and work at 14 to help support the family and her stepmother ( who was single til age 41 and insistent that a woman needed to be able to support herself) who urged my grandmother to dedicate herself to her studies so that she could win a scholarship to college. I am so grateful to these forebearers who understood the “ short term pain, long term gain” that education provided.
10
I was a liberal arts major and I always felt that learning enriches a human being. My degree did not earn me more money but it made me a much more open, curious, tolerant, confident, and humble individual. Education affects every choice an adult makes, and their lives are generally more stable and interesting and informed and productive as a result, even if their income is not increased.
An educated nation is a stable and healthy nation. The U.S. is disintegrating due to poor public K-12 education, exorbitant higher ed, and a plethora of street and prescription drugs.
Without an educated populace democracy and institutions die and demagogues fill the vacuum.
29
Any elitist worth his weight in gold does not apologize for anything, even if he/she is wrong! I've read about and know a few "elitists" or uber-rich people, and they are always right, are super-confident when they are wrong, and don;t really care what others think of them.
So I don't really know how this articles came to be written in the first place.
8
I like a lot of what the author says, but a focus on getting 'good jobs' to the exclusion of other values is part of the problem. What difference does it make if you have a 'good job' or any 'job' at all. Perhaps the highest value should be the care for the planet, and the people, animals and plants that make it up. All we need to live is food, water and warmth. A 'good job' is usually thought of as making more than someone else. Why do we compete for 'good jobs'? Shouldn't I want someone else to have that job if it's an important job and they can do it better than me? Maybe I want someone else to have it if it means they won't commit suicide from depression or something?
Everybody thinks, 'Not my problem', 'That's just the way the system is'. Maybe the system needs to change by everyone stopping their own role in the system as much as possible.
2
My mom always impressed on us the importance of getting an education. It was probably because her caretakers in Appalachia refused to let her attend school after the 8th grade but forced her to "keep house" for them. By other accounts she was very smart and crushed that she couldn't go to high school. She got her GED from New York State at the age of 56, the same year I graduated college.
She was not perfect but she was tough and filled with love for her children and grandchildren. She didn't speak with perfect grammar, but she did speak up when she felt she was being treated unfairly. Woe! Woe to the target of her wrath!
I never thought of her as an “elite”, but Jacoby’s piece opened my eyes.
10
It is supremely ironic that the elites railed against by those in the thrall of Fox News and the rest of the right wing meme machine, work tirelessly to champion laws that will improve the lives of the people who despise them. We've only got so much patience. With their slavish devotion to a 'billionaire' POTUS, who's blatantly under the influence of Putin, the interests of the 'elites' are focused on the fight to preserve the torn and tortured republic. In the end, with or without them, the 'elites' will continue to work toward the verities of the "Sermon on the Mount," even if those most likely to benefit revile them.
13
I grew up in Kansas in the 50's and 60's. I know this mistrust of intelligence. It has nothing to do with societal class. I was singled out and bullied by both kids my own age and adults for being curious and questioning authority. I remember being commanded by suspicious adults to "don't get smart with me." Even in school, by teachers. I don't feel a bit sorry for them, they choose ignorance over every other alternative. I escaped Kansas only to find on the east coast that my own Kansas origins dictated my social status. I was a hick and I'm not sure that even after 40 years in a fruitful and incredibly successful career that ever changed with certain "elites" I encountered. The "elites" were just as closed minded as the "hicks" I so desperately wanted to get away from. I managed, in my life, to jump up both the economic and social ladder by huge leaps. I often say with much irony that "I brought myself from nothing to a state of extreme poverty", quoting Groucho, but there is a shred of truth in it, according to the assessment of the "elites" in my world. I was never really any good because of where I came from. It was all just a mirage. These "elites" do not feel remorse for their "elite" assessment either, they simply think they are doing what "elites" do, looking down their collective noses at everyone else. I don't think absolving "elites" of their guilt is the right track, I jumped on the ladder but they purposely did not see it. I was treated badly on both ends
20
The "elite" dilemma is yet another example of the fulfillment of what the late Paul Fussell called "prole drift" (in essence, how culture, which was meant to elevate humanity, has been dumbed down to the level of the lowest common denominator) 35 years ago in his book "Class." "Elite" in recent decades has acquired a stigma of snobbery and even, subtly, racism. Fox News Network (whose viewers frequently are warned of the adversarial "elite liberal media") and USA Today, unsurprisingly proud of their mass appeal, tend to be in demand--and certainly are most vigorously sold to--the type of person likely to ask of another "Do you think you're better than me?" (a question no mature, rational adult should ask, and to which the only workable answer is "I do now"). In other words, the confusion of democracy with egalitarianism, and death to aspiration.
8
Although this article works to counter what it perceives as a reductionist and unqualified narrative about elites versus the working class, it dangerously ignores the driving and reifying factors and stark reality of this problem. There is such a "thing" as institutional elitism, especially in education. Using examples from education, such as an immigrant student who "makes it" is not a representative picture of the problem, as the majority of working class students do not have access to elite education. This is exceptionalism, which undermines the truth.
Rather than framing the problem from the oppressor perspective: "elites are being made to feel guilty about the working class and they have no reason to feel guilty," why is it not framed the oppressed perspective: institutional elitism. This defines the problem and pernicious outcomes in its full scope and depth.
Only until we embrace this problem as structural and institutional versus one of individualized mindsets as the author claims, can it be adequately addressed.
2
I invite those resenting people who live on the coasts to spend a week in their place - and I mean the average person’s life - commuting, high cost of living, housing, and day care. The real elites are those controlling the narrative - the talk show hosts making millions sowing unrest and now inhabiting the White House. Strange that Trump supporters love his elite’s life style - gold toilets, golfing weekends, corporate jets, first class travel on the tax payers. And all with mouth of a hood. There must be some justification- but from one of the many that realized a college education offered broader horizons - no apologies from me - that $7 May be the buffer to a 2 or 3 hr commute. No time for the egg, bacon, pancake, home fries breakfast that probably costs the same.
8
The author in significant measure represents the argument against elitism. It is not anti-intellectual. Indeed, the anti-elite argument is frequently more respectful of genuine understanding and learning. Examples:
College campuses have become places where students fearful of views with which they don't agree have come to ban the airing of those views, and to demand safe spaces. What could be more anti-intellectual?
Any understanding or consideration of a western religious text (other than the Quran) is regarded as sinking in the swamp. Too many supposed intellectuals have demonstrated a lack of capacity to grapple with the Jewish or Christian canonical texts in any meaningful way other than to (anti-intellectually) denigrate anyone who considers those texts as hopeless fundamentalists. As a Jew with some education, I'm quite aware of the ways in which elements of the Hebrew Bible are, to be delicate, outdated; but there is much that is powerful and enduring.
In the political sphere, arguments are frequently shut down by epithets. You know them: "racitst"; "homophobe" etc. Discussion closed. Again, what could be more anti-intellectual?
So, elites - consider whether your own prejudices are blinding you, and whether your education has led to the ability to reason as well as feel.
14
I don't understand who the "elites" are that we're supposed to hate so much.
The "over" educated? I know lots of them, and they exert exactly NO power over anyone else. College professors may annoy you, but they have no influence over any laws that get passed. In fact, they're just about the least influential group out there.
The over wealthy? They seem like the ones to worry about. And it seems to me that they're mostly Republicans. I know very few rich Democrats. I don't know the stats, but I would venture to guess that a huge majority of Wall Street investors are Republicans. The old joke is that poor people are Democrats until they make money, and then they become Republicans. I know that was true of my father-in-law.
15
Then why do the uber rich mostly donate to Democrats. See Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
Thank you for speaking up about the value of education and the pressing need to extend its benefits to everyone.
I have resented the many lectures from pundits who scold educated people for causing the resentment among uneducated people that contributed to the installation of the sociopath in the White House. As I watch the polls of public opinion continue to improve for the illegitimate incumbent, my resentment grows. Those who do not regret their vote are unaware of the consequences of their poor choice or they are incapable of understanding the consequences of the bad decisions being made on a daily basis.
Those who are taking responsibility for being informed about what is happening have nothing to apologize for. Those who have put their heads in the sand should be apologizing to us for what they have done. I resent their ignorance, just as much as they resent our knowledge. If we don’t get just as angry as they are, our passivity will ensure the continuation of this debacle.
11
Meanwhile, the "other side" keeps degrading language, turning the meanings of words and phrases on their heads. We can present all the facts we want, muslims in Jersey City weren't really out dancing in the streets, but when they define rich as poor, educated as "out of touch," and as I hear more and more often, cheaper as better, ignoring them or even going on as we are, i.e. ignoring them, is a losing proposition, especially for them.
4
Gran is absolutely correct
“'But there’s no excuse for ignorance when you can go right down to the public library'"
But Americans are so lazy that they take at face value the news they get from their preferred source, be it Fox News or NPR. One would think that with a search engine at our fingertips it would be so easy to double check stories we hear, especially inflammatory stories. We don't even have to go to the public library....
3
Nobody understands everything that it doen by the government. For example few people understand central banking. For the "lower classes" the number of issues that they understand is higher. But they still often can smell a rat when there is one.
Trump appealed to many of the issues where they feel that things are going wrong. Sure, Trump "forgot" those promises as soon as he gained power. But who else should they have voted for? With Clinton and the other Republican candidates they were sure that there voice wouldn't be heard. With Trump there was at least a chance.
The article becomes disingenuous when it discusses the affair of 9/11 and Muslims. It suggests that all the reasons that people had to vote for Trump were fake and that the elite should just have done better explaining. In fact many of those reasons were very real.
2
Thank you for penning such an inspirational article.
4
If you ever find yourself referring to "the elites" (or some other group) when you're angry you need to pause and reflect on your own self "The elites" didn't cause what makes you angry. "They" don't hold you down literally, metaphorically, financially, or spiritually. You are responsible for your life and can make any fixes you want as long as you don't infringe on the rights of your neighbors to live their lives too. Blaming some group of others, "elites," immigrants, "rednecks," whatever, is simply lazy.
8
You are equating elites with class even as you try to say that they should not. There are homeless elites in this country and there are those with doctorates who are stunningly ignorant.
5
Dear Susan: Bravo. If I didn't wake up in my teenage years to the importance of education, then later went to college and got a Ph.D. degree, I would never have made it as a successful international marketing consultant over the last 38 years. I love your phrase on pursuing excellence instead of money or credentials. Anyone can start learning at any time. No approval needed. The result will be self improvement and happiness.
9
It's not the "elites" who should apologize. It's the hypocritical elites who should do so.
Whom am I referring to?
Folks like Bernie Sanders who take part in radical activities in Chicago and then flee to Vermont (97% white at the time and currently about 94% white). He will chastise other white folks who move to a suburb that looks like Vermont. He marches for racial integration when the middle-class and lower middle-class folks just want their neighborhoods to "look like Vermont" - nothing wrong with that is there Bernie?
Paul Krugman who rants against the folks of West Virginia for being racist while he lives in a city with one of the most racially segregated public school systems. Other public schools systems were subjected to busing to remedy the situation. New York remains untouched.
The good folks of San Francisco. Your city is looking less and less like Oakland.
Working class folks who have suffered from negative impact of various social engineering programs will call out "elites" who preach those practices but are insulated from any participation in or impact by those programs.
Those are the "elites" who should apologize.
17
The term was invented by the Right so as to assuage the bruised feelings of its base who seem to live in a state of continuous rage and regret for a time past when their white skin was the main ticket for social and economic success. It still is, unfortunately, but things have changed a bit for the better. Easier though to blame The Other for all problems, real and imagined.
12
Painting everyone who does not agree with as ignorant is elitist. Islam does have a problem with sexism and the promotion of hatred against non Muslims. The left's love of the trans ideology in which women are presented as a thought in a man's head is good either. Many people live in communities where illegals have taken resources not intended for them to the detriment of locals.
This is why Dems lose elections because they don't want to admit the other side has a point.
10
I don't agree with you on everything but I do think you have some good points. You seem to be stereotyping Democrats, though. That sounds like a way to avoid admitting that the other side has a point. Have you followed your own advice?
2
There are elites in the GOP too.
5
Indeed. And if we are qualifying elites by education/training but mostly money; this administration is the elitist of the elite.
2
It is far better to have made something for yourself and your family than to be a whiner.
6
Sure but if you start on third base, don't lay claim to a home run.
4
Yes, stop apologizing. We're sick of your empty words and meaningless gestures. Just like the shooting victims are sick and tired of your "thoughts and prayers."
Start behaving better. Start repenting. Start DOING SOMETHING! No one resents the elites. What we resent is elitism. The snobbery, the contempt, and the endless gum flapping. You'd think a college professor should know the difference between elite -- material success -- and elitism -- moral failure. I'm glad you were able to rise higher than your grandmother. But when you slam the door of opportunity shut behind you, you deserve all the anger and resentment thrown your way.
Yes, stop apologizing, and open the door so we can all become elites.
4
Who exactly slammed what door and what is holding you back?
6
Forget education - Trump went to Wharton, W graduated from Yale and Harvard - Kushner bought his way into Harvard - Cleary all sorts of Charlatans or getting into these “elite” schools and these institutions are now witnessing the results - their is only a difference between the curious and the willfully ignorant - and, unfortunately, the latter are now in charge
8
Don't forget education! You can go to a real school and get a real education. You can attend in person or on-line. You can seek out teachers or teach yourself. Choose to be curious and learn as much as you can!
1
I live in a liberal elite community, supported Bernie, voted for Hillary, but I now loathe liberals almost as much as I hate conservatives. Why? Because they can't practice what they preach. They dump horrible developments and megachurches, noise, traffic and illegal parking on working class / minority neighborhoods, and treat whites and the wealthy very differently from how they treat the rest of us. They lecture us about sustainability and being a "green" city (we are not a city, but a suburb) while they breed like rabbits, drive SUVs, and have almost as many school buses as school children, much of it because of real estate racism. Uptown, which is whiter, has special traffic lights, quiet zone for trains, strict zoning laws - downtown, I can't even get a defective light fixed in a school zone. I'm now being asked to pay the same taxes on my teardown home as a woman with a 22-room mansion. My African-American neighbors are paying the highest taxes on the block. It's the hypocrisy that is making us sick. At least a conservative is an honest enemy. You know where he stands and you can fight it. A liberal is the proverbial wolf is sheep's clothing. They smell like Trump to me. They are just more polite about hiding their real feelings.
13
As an emigre from Montclair I fully agree. I don't know how anyone can afford to live there and there's no resistance to the ridiculous pensions (and salaries) paid to city and county workers.
5
Perhaps the author could next write an article exploring the co-opted popular redefinition of the term 'liberal'.
2
I wasn't invited to the secret meeting where the Elites threw ashes on their heads and rent their clothing in penance. Figures!
As a non-elite, I haven't heard any apologies yet-- maybe they are still filtering down to us "masses"?-- but I do hear a lot of proclamations about how ignorant, xenophobic, and small-minded we are for objecting to hardships that occur outside the ivory towers and gated communities.
So it's not really the apologies so much as the ultra-liberal notions that the Davos, open-borders, globalization crowd is into that irritate us proles. Because your generosity toward everyone BUT American workers is a slap in the face. And this silly article tilting at strawmen does nothing to change that!
9
If you can understand Davos, open-borders, and globalization, use the word "proles", and call yourself "Trilby" ("once viewed as the rich man's favored hat") then you're an elite and shouldn't expect your complaints to be taken seriously. Your willingness to parrot the elitist Conservative propaganda suggests that you're only hoping to profit from it.
5
Excuse me?!?!
Trilby happens to be the name of a novel by George de Maurier, named for the wonder main character, an artists' model who falls under the spell of Svengali for a time.
ttps://www.amazon.com/Trilby-Oxford-Worlds-Classics-Maurier/dp/0199538808
I am well educated but far from being an elite. I am a proud deplorable. You don't know me!
2
Isnt this a false flag? Isn’t it more about racism than elitism?
Wow - that story about the Muslim protest just shows how out of touch you are - you think that's representative of why Trump won. Trump won because of illegal immigration and the Democratic Party's overt anti-democratic corrupt participation in it. And it's not racism - it's law and order vs. chaos - the chaos of the democratic cities like Detroit and San Francisco.
9
No apology foe "elite", no apology for "liberal".
3
The vast majority, and maybe all, of that which plagues the underclass and working-class in 2018, has been brought to them courtesy of the elites, so called. For a glaring metaphor of what the over-educated, self-congratulatory, pompous, crony-capitalist, tribalist, soft-handed class has wrought, just take a look at the bridge collapse in Florida. There it is in a ball of dust and death and blood and bone. While slapping one another on their backs as they sipped from their wine flutes, the Ph.D. engineers (along with politicians and university administrators) referred to their own work as a marvel of engineering. Drink up.
5
Are we beyond Ms Jacoby's plea to treat the ignorant masses with respect? Sadly, I think we might be. AND in all honesty I am tired of being the generous one. Why as a culture do we glorify the ignorant man and his masculinity? I say let them all die in their ignorance- unless they kill us all first with their guns.
9
“DOUBLETHINK means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously,
and accepting both of them.”
George Orwell’s book “1984”.
KELLYANNE CONWAY: “Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts.”
CHUCK TODD: “Look, alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods.”
Jan 22, 2017: Kellyanne Conway’s interview with Chuck Todd at “Meet the Press”, regarding facts on the inauguration crowd.
2
first, let's be perfectly clear. when Republicans and their extreme rightwing brethren use the terms "elite", or "coastal elite", what they clearly mean is snobby, powerful, wealthy, distant people unlike themselves or anybody they know, unkike anybody who lives where they live, anybody who frequents the churches, bars, and Klan type hate clubs they belong to, people who get their news from mainstream sources like the Times and don't believe every co cocamamie thjng they hear on Fox News, people who are critical of the cultural ignorance and stupidity they prize because it validates their lives.
they mean Jews.
the slant is slightly updated, but the scapegoating hatred is the same old same thing.
5
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
"The believing mind is externally impervious to evidence. The most that can be accomplished with it is to induce it to substitute one delusion for another. It rejects all overt evidence as wicked."
"Any kind of handicap, save one, may be overcome by a resolute spirit—blindness, crippling, poverty. The history of humanity is a history of just such overcomings. But no spirit can overcome the handicap of stupidity. The person who believes what is palpably not true is hopeless."
H.L. Mencken 1880-1956
12
...it is also true that human beings frequently do change their minds — about everything from sexual behavior to marijuana to gun laws — if they are treated respectfully by those presenting the evidence.
One aspect about the "deplorables" that the "elites" fail to recognize is that they can tell when you are peeing down their leg and telling them it is raining. You can't just speak to them respectfully, you need to respect them. A problem that the elites have is that they believe that they are superior and it shows. This editorial is chock-a-block full of smarmy superiority. Something that the "deplorables" have discovered is that the while the "elites" may have superior knowledge, they don't have superior judgement. One should not assume education will result in a "progressive" view of the world.
8
I personally believe that we need to elevate the role of American citizen, with its rights and responsibilities. More leaders constantly refer to the American people, without pointing out that citizenship itself is the foundational bedrock of our society.
5
I've begun to believe that the dumbest, most socially unconscious people on the planet are those who inherited wealth/status and were educated in private/elite schools.
Just look at The Con Don if you don't believe it.
7
The first lesson in Timothy Snyder's great little book "On Tryanny: Twenty lessions from the twentieth century" is: "Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do." I think that apologizing for being elite is in this category. We see that Trump supporters do not like the elite and rather than trying to demonstrate the value of the elites, we try to curry favor with the other side by apologizing and trying to "speak their language". People are much more likely to respond to peer pressure than to facts. We need to work to improve the societal impression of education and the benefits it provides, since only when most people agree with this will the rest come around. Saying that the elites are at fault is giving up without a fight.
8
And being "elite" comes with responsibilities. I particularly support the efforts, in my college and elsewhere, to educate new generations on digital literacy. Notice that many misinformed people are also educated (e.g. those who choose not to vaccinate their children are likely to have a college degree), but the education we all need is that which includes critical, scientific thinking. This involves taking the brave stance that sometimes one might be wrong. This is not an easy thing to swallow, but one that we should always be ready for.
9
Ms. Jacoby,
There is a significant portion of the US population who have little interest in self-improvement through education, whether that entails vocational or academic learning. Their expectations are that they will be provided employment when they want in return for the minimum level of education they are willing to offer. Admittedly, these individuals may have personal, familial and societal hurdles to overcome, but these are often the result of the multi-generational intransigence of these expectations. Unfortunately, as the adage goes, you can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, especially in a democracy. And while a democracy may be willing to wait for these individuals to drink, an economy simply will move on without them.
8
I am an elite, I have been able to retire at 60 and live in a nice home, have a great wife, and two beautiful cars. Between the years of 23 and 27 I worked as many as three jobs to attain this elite status. I was a picture framer, a handyman on a farm, and I wrote computer code at night. Of all of those, my handyman job paid the highest wage, I got $22.50 an hour in 1979. At 32 1/2 I became "elite," I was hired by Educational Testing Service as a Lead Systems Engineer. This was the most fortunate "accident" in my life. If that had not happened, I'm sure I'd still be working, maybe even more than one job.
I appreciate all that I've had the good fortune to have and experience. I did work hard for that overnight success at becoming "elite." Some may have this handed to them, others work really hard.
What I found difficult at times is how some people who worked hard resented me and what I had. Should I explain how 10 years earlier I busted my hump on up to three jobs? No, their reality is theirs to experience. It is our job to ensure that there is the opportunity to achieve. Many lack that opportunity, it is that we "elites" need to work ever harder to assure for our fellow Americans.
This started to seriously break down during the Reagan administration and has reached a crescendo pitch with tRump administration. We must work to right our country and return things to normal. That means voting in November. We can do it, we must do it. We must lead the way back to normal.
21
So much of what you write is true. You have missed a much bigger point where the disconnect comes in for the folks you describe like the couple from MIchigan. There has been much psychological information studied that has consistently shown that marriage can survive and weather all forms of anger, miscommunication and inconsiderate behavior. What is does not survive is contempt. That is issue that deserves the most careful analysis and response on the part of elites. Most especially where the voter is concerned.
4
Contempt cuts both ways. I’m a college educated citizen who grew up on food stamps. I’ve worked as a manual laborer, and as a dish washer, fry cook, bus boy, bar back, and an endless parade of jobs that requires uniforms and punching a time card. I also was encouraged to get an education by parents and a family who saw it as an important way of contributing to society as well as a way to better ourselves financially, civically and intellectually. The flames of contempt toward so called “elites” by the supposed “folks” who voted against their own class and economic interests in the last presidential election has consistently been fueled by the interests of the real elites in our country, a greedy and shadowy group of oligarchs. Lets get real, the contempt that these cynical oligarchs have is for Democracy.
4
Opportunity gap, the experiences and viewpoints I was exposed to as a kid and that I am able to provide for my own children are a privilege. Can people with less opportunity succeed, of course they can, but it is harder, free museums, libraries, take time that a parent working two jobs to put food on the table may not have, and most Americans are not walking distance to these resources. I think our society under provides the public good of education and viewpoints of opportunity to children. Sure it can be overcome, but I believe access to education, quality childcare and healthcare would give everyone a much better life. Is it impossible to climb the social ladder, no, but from other articles here and elsewhere it seems to be getting harder, the top of society has more and the bottom less, this widening gap is an issue this article seems to miss entirely.
6
I grew up working class--my father a mechanic, and my mother a secretary. One thing I hate more than anything else is this "working class hero" myth that so many people with my background adhere to, as if working with your hands is inherently harder and more honorable than working with your mind.
Let me tell you something: I can fix cars, frame walls, run electric and plumbing, drywall, frame-in windows and doors, and dig holes for foundations and piers. That's not hard work: it's easy for me and I enjoy it. The hardest thing I EVER did was go to night school and earn my college degree.
Hard work is not a particular set of activities, it is whatever thing YOU find difficult, challenging, or unintuitive. My honest opinion of many of the tradespeople I grew up around is that they were profoundly LAZY--unwilling and afraid to put the effort into doing something they didn't grasp automatically and with ease.
This also happens to be the defining characteristic of our president: laziness. He is physically, intellectually, and morally LAZY.
No wonder they love him. King of the lazy, he is.
36
Don't you overstate your argument a bit? There is a difference in learning something that is difficult and something that is outside one's abilities. I might try my hands at all the physical labors you mentioned as "easy". But some are outside my physical strength, others are impossible for me to do due to a lack of eye-hand coordination, and some of the activities just don't interest me. Shouldn't the same apply to intellectual pursuits?
As to our President, I don't think his admirers elected him specifically because he is lazy.
2
I should add that experiments have demonstrated a correlation between conservatism and brain response to fear stimulus. That is: people that are "conservative," when set up to believe that they are physically immune from harm, *instantly* become far less conservative on a huge range of (seemingly) unrelated issues.
Given this correlation, it's possible that it is actually fear of failure, not laziness that motivates conservatives to reject education. Or, you know, it could be some combination. Whatever.
What is a shame is that the *real* elites--rich conservative manipulators--have figured out that if they frame education as something disgusting and "other," then people will thank and love them, because they no longer have to feel shame for not even trying.
4
Appears to me that we should all read or re-read The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions (1899), Thorstein Veblen and come up with a new rendition that accommodates the concept of "elite."
3
This is the one book that every student should read, and yes, an update for our modern age might be nice.
1
I recall being perplexed back when GW Bush was elected and then re-elected by people who claimed “He’s someone I can see myself having a beer with.” Would they also choose, say, their heart surgeon the same way? If not, why not? Whether it be for running one of the most influential and powerful countries on the planet or repairing my heart, I’d like someone (I don’t care their financial origins) who values knowledge and by their education and skill set, is elite.
30
I also remember Bush accusing people of engaging in class warfare. Calling someone an elitist is the same thing.
6
Let's not forget that plenty of affluent people voted for Trump. It's a condescending misrepresentation of the working class to think that only those lacking a college degree voted him in.
26
A lot of "educated" people very well off voted for our destroyer in chief. Smart maybe, but not terribly wise.
4
Hmm. When did “the elites”, become “pejorative parlance...for well-educated liberals” as the author believes? As a guilt-free, unapologetic college-educated blue-collar populist, the Elites (no “air quotes”, thank you), have always been a reference to the ruling class, the aristocracy, the moneyed corporations that Jefferson warned us “which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength”
I haven’t read all 600+ comments, but I haven’t seen being a populist as part of the conversation.
Those who voted for Trump and those of us who supported Bernie identify as populists which is the opposite of being elitist. It’s not a left or right identity, it’s about people at the top and people at the bottom.
6
First, if you are posting here, YOU ARE NOT ELITE.
We are just people posting our thoughts. It is a part of the modern cult of narcissism to call oneself elite over something as common as education . The Left has learned to exploit this narcissism for the last 100 years. Just as hucksters who sold reincarnation told the rubes they were a royal in their former life, the Left learned that telling everyone with a degree that they are part of the elite has resonated . 30% of the US adults have a college degree and 88% have a high school diploma, so having education is fairly universal in the US ...and YOU ARE NOT ELITE.
Nearly everyone in the US has comparable functional education and training. You may have college while others have technical education but both are functionally equivalent. The person who does accounting is not intellectually superior than the person who fixes cars as both are now highly technical .
The irony of the the "paper chase" crowd --that having more pieces of paper makes one more elite in the sense of being some superior human is just another form of sad bigotry.
10
Ben Franklin quote…hopefully somewhat correct: “Genius without education is like silver in the mine.”
I would extend it a bit adding critical thinking skills—which are very tough to define— and are as important as any formal education.
We all have our limits with many of those limits unrelated to education level, but too many people unable to vet fake news from real news. Global warming is a reasonable example as the topic is replete with high levels of ignorance and willful ignorance. Formal and informal education are important. When anyone thinks they know it all and no longer need to strive for more knowledge, ideologies and bias take over with little chance of change.
By the way, we use more than 10% of our brain….
2
Look, I was born in North Carolina to a mom who turned 16 four days after I was born, and a dad who turned 18 one month later. A white, working class railroad and textile marriage. These “kids” raised me and my sister with so much help from their own parents (who later in life I’ve learned weren’t all that thrilled with the courtship!) that even after their divorce and subsequent drama, our extended family has remained very tight.
Much of that is because of the stories we enjoyed hearing from our great grandparents (yeah, we lucked out because of our parents’ youthful indiscretions), our grandparents and, not always reliable, parents.
My sister and I are healthy, educated (not home, sarcastic folks!) with BA’s and good careers.
However, we were raised to read. And learned to enjoy it.
“Charlotte’s Web?”
Im not really sure I’ve ever recovered!
5
"The American dream has never been about denigrating education but about seeing that the next generation has greater access to learning."
It used to be like that. Somehow, it has gotten corrupted into sort of a pride in ignorance that confers "authenticity" only on those who seem plain spoken.
I liked your example of Martin Luther King Jr. and using patterns of speech that makes listeners think. As American culture has gotten more vulgar, and "elitism" is scorned as condescension, I long for the politicians whose speeches incorporated poetry as well as prose.
What we lose when we de-value education is hope. Hope that learning can change our lives. Like many posters, I'm often called an obnoxious "liberal elite," as if the two words are adjoined at the hip.
When did learning new things, or checking facts-- or refusing to accept at face value what you're told, just "because" it must be true--get such a bad name?
I think it's when politicians decided they could get more votes by encouraging this notion that education breeds contempt, instead of the other way around.
In the words of educator Henry James, look at the word "prejudice"--contempt prior to investigation.
13
Richard Hofstadler’s 1964 Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Anti-intellectualism in American Life”, indicates being a thinking person has never been viewed as an asset in our culture. We value education, but only as a means to materialism. Our educational system is designed to serve industry, supplying needed workers. Knowledge for the sake of understanding the world you live in, or other “nonproductive” reasons, is held in contempt, especially by the uneducated. This attitude has received new life in recent years with the emphasis on STEM programs and the demise of the arts in our schools. We think of poverty strictly in terms of money, without recognizing the impoverishment that comes from having knowledge only in a very narrow slice of our lives. Being trained as a doctor or CPA is not the same as being educated. Until we learn to value art, literature, and the internal beauty of humanity, our greed along with our disrespect for the nonmaterial, will continue to grow.
23
Amen. I have been trying to explain this to my grandchildren who seem to think education is just about a job.
3
Excellent comment! Thank you!
3
Thank you best comment of the day by far.
1
People who achieve a measure of economic success have different concerns and attitudes of those who live, struggling, worrying about how they will pay their bills and what they would do with a job loss or a major illness. Those who succeed live not only behind the shield of assets, which could be sold in an emergency, but also behind a shield of robust health insurance and multiple contacts if they lose a job. Those at the lower end know their contacts might help them get another dead end, low paying job.
Why shouldn't people who make less than 50K per year feel left out of the grand success called America? If there is no known prospect of change or improvement, their struggles of today are likely to be the same in decades ahead.
There is a real divide between those who have pursued academic education and those who stopped at high school or below. How wide that divide is depends in part on the social capabilities of those on both sides, whether resentment is felt most strongly by one, or a sense of superiority is felt and exhibited by the other.
Too much of this debate centers on the 2016 presidential race. In truth, what "changed in America" was that the Dems nominated a poor candidate in Hillary Clinton. She had been demonized by Republicans for a quarter of a century and she was anything but a natural politician. Like Romney before her, she exemplified divisions in America and she could not bridge them as someone never quite comfortable her assigned role of candidate.
11
I reflect back as you did, on the ways teachers in secondary schools address their pupils. At the Boston Latin School it was Mr so and so. At another more technical and working class or middle class venue it was by last name..or even worse, by some nickname the teacher concocted. I think the premise of your article is important to understand who we are now in USA. On the other hand, there was a time when plumbers did rather well over English teachers.
1
Yes, I feel guilty, especially since I now live in a predominantly blue collar community. I see that the piece was written by someone from very modest roots, as are many of the comments. My forebears were rich. Although the families have long since lost their money, the attitude that we are better than people who work with their hands for a living lives on. I try to overcome the behaviors tied to the educated elites but such things as my vocabulary and food choices give away my background. We have always given generously to charity, too, but this is a double-edged sword--yes, it helps those in need, but is regarded as elitist so by many who cannot afford such generosity.
2
It's certainly a fine thing to use one's social advantages to help those without them, but it's a mistake to believe that individual merit or equality of opportunity in any combination determine class structure in capitalist political economies. That's determined by ownership of the means of production, distribution, transportation and communication, and that in turn is determined mostly by birth and inheritance combined with luck and control of state power, not primarily by education, intellect, ability or "merit". If suddenly every working class person of every ethnicity in the US had a college degree but nothing else changed there would be no competitive advantage for anyone with such a degree and the pre-existing distribution of wealth would remain the same. Individual education, intellect, or ability by themselves do nothing to alter the patiently unjust structures of class power in capitalist societies. Collective self-organization and mass struggle by working class people of all ethnicities and backgrounds does that. Educated "elites" can choose to aid these collective struggles against white supremacy, gender hierarchy and capitalist exploitation, to oppose them, or to remain indifferent to them. Their choice in this matter - which side are you on? - is the only meaningful way to "stop apologizing for being elite."
2
education is not an elitest concept. education is a wonderful thing and i know many people both on the left and the right who are well educated. we are free to pursue as much education as we want in this country. the challenge is we confuse intellectualism with wisdom. if you are blessed to be well educated your to only serve yourself it is unwise and not intelligent. the problem is we need some humble intellectual people and when one puts their identity in their intelligence that is hard to come by.
1
H.G. Wells once said: "More and more history is a race between catastrophe and education." At times, it appears that catastrophe is winning. So many of the comments here are first-person narratives about how the writers strove mightily and self-sacrificingly to achieve--and those stories are laudable, many quite touching. Yes, we should not be ashamed of working hard and striving to learn. But let us not forget what we are up against here: almost non-stop pandering and hectoring by Fox News and the like. As Habermas has written, we are facing serious legitimation crises these days--the traditional sources of legitimate information has been attacked and undermined for decades and we are suffering from that onslaught of misinformation and discrediting. Who has gained from this denigration of learning and achievement? We know who has benefitted from the "Great Simplification." And we know who has lost: all or us.
6
The 'elite' should be ashamed of not working harder to help the poor. They should be ashamed of being leaders in a corrosive and corrupt society of grotesque inequality. They should be ashamed of being as self-interested as the 'working class', but more capable of reaping the benefits of a dog-eat-dog capitalistic system that rewards the few.
Billionaires are bad for democracy. We're too greedy to say that. It's destructive of community and the greater good and a more perfect Union. We're lost; including, and led by the elite.
We sell 'freedom' to dominate with billions, millions, lawyers, lobbyists, hate media, super-PACs, politicians and judges. Freedom to annihilate equality.
We are the worst generation; and that includes the elite.
72
We have "no leaders in a corrosive and corrupt society". We have no leaders and no leadership. We live in a highly competitive, super rich nation where almost everyone is out to grab as much for themselves as they can get.
One can certainly argue, for example, that professors in the academic world should have developed some ideas for solutions to our lingering, monstrous problems and imparted those to students going forth into the world. No, academia in America is itself a fevered competition where one of the prime goals is to achieve a comfortable life for self and spouse by delving ever deeper into smaller and smaller topics, the better to avoid controversy, get tenure. Those who claim to know too much about big topics risk ridicule and exile. Obscurantism as a path to survival.
Political "leaders" are mainly people sniffing the morning breeze to see what polices and proposals they can get away with or which will achieve wide support.
It was once said that poets were the unofficial legislators of the world, people who brought attention to the unseen and forgotten. We have thrown away poetry and the narratives that catch our attention are manufactured by the movie business and young men and women desperate for fame and money through pop music. What could go wrong?
Mark Twain said that the California gold rush changed the character of America, bringing out greediness as a lifelong cause. Now, 150 yrs. later, it could be we are stuck in the same phase, greed without end.
15
The successful create lots of jobs.
Who makes the stuff big money buys for the rich? Formless amoebas? Aliens? No, actual workers in factories, etc, Actual waiters & cooks. Auto workers.
3
Substitute "Republicans" for "elite," and you'll have it right.
4
Why is it that the "well-educated liberals" believe that middle class conservatives are not educated? That is the real question. A college degree doesn't necessarily mean you are "wicked smart".
The world has more than enough academics and lawyers. The "wicked smart" folks become plumbers, welders, and electricians. Without the debt.
5
Language matters.
1
ok, stop aplogizing, but please, oh, please stop nattering at the rest of us who fly coach intsead of gulfstream 5...we're the ones on the bikes you pass as you limo up from soho to broadway...some of on our way to sing and dance for you.
and while you're at it please call off hi!!ary who has, once more, trashed another basketful of us, the white women who vote "under pressure from their husbands or bosses," which, btw, includes a lot of lgbt wives as well.
so, again, no need to apologize for achievemnt, but, at least, pick up after your pets.
5
No, there might've been a few weeks after the election when urban progressives wondered why a vote for Bernie Sanders was not really evidence of mutual interest with blue collar white male midwestern former steelworker gun-toting pickup-driving Bud drinkers. That didn't last very long and now, after over a year of Trump and still no impeachment or embarrassing total collapse of the executive branch, the progressives are back to denigrating the deplorables and believing that the Democrats will win if they reject moderation and adopt the progressive agenda - identity politics and higher taxes and the whole thing - and to hell with those blue collar ignorants who still don't know what's best for themselves.
1
I don't mind identity politics, it's the taxes that are killing me.
In high school in the late 1960s, we had to take a library course. When we asked why it was necessary, we were told that it would teach us how to teach ourselves later in life. Fast forward to the present: We have search engines for research, and we can prove or disprove ideas in a matter of minutes. But based on what I see so-called "citizens" babbling online, it seems like half of Americans never use the available resources. So, I've defined "elitist" as someone who gives a damn about truth. That has nothing to do with social class.
8
The problem is not that " deplorables" are anti intellectual,but leftist who push socialism under the guise intellectualism.
4
What exactly constitutes pushing socialism under the guise of intellectualism? Presumably you mean anything that dares question the self-righteous, maudlin jingoism that pervades what Faux & Friends presents as heartland America.
Some of us think everyone is entitled to health care. If that makes me a socialist , so be it.
2
There are things here I don’t quite agree with. But there is one terrific thing about it: she quotes a black American intellectual as an example everyone should look up to . He isn’t listed as usual as third in a list preceded by whites. He isn’t an athlete or entertainment figure. We need so much more of that from white people. And it puts to shame bruni and kristof and brooks who have proven themselves incapable of this simple decency.
2
Personally I'm not impressed with anyone's fame or fortune. What I look for in anyone is that they don't think they are the smartest person in the world, and that have compassion for others. You can see it the moment they speak, and the manners and the respect that they have for everyone they come in contact with.......it's no secret, just open your mind, eyes and ears and observe!!! There are no elitists in the world, only people that are hiding their inferiority complexes, though hype, and smoke and mirrors....Peace
5
As a Hispanic cancer surgeon w/ a liberal education, advanced degrees in molecular biology & Hispanic parents who pushed education & respect above all, I am heartened by your call for standing up for the “elites”. This country was founded by the humanist elites at a time when many Americans could hardly read or write. The diminution of education, good manners, compassion & magananimity as displayed by our POTUS remains a threat to our democracy.
14
education=elite? how far have we fallen as a nation in just a few decades.
6
All the evidence shows that well-educated people earn more money as well. Would the author also say that the "1%" should stop apologizing for THEIR success? I doubt it. Only successful people with a liberal mindset need apply.
4
This was a nice round view. Well done.
1
I’m surprised at how many people write here that they refuse to apologize for having advanced degrees. How clueless. Who has asked anyone to apologize for having a post graduate degree? Now people are trying to act like victims because some imaginary people want them to apologize for their education.
8
Precisely! Very well said.
1
Imaginary eh? Would you deny that "nerds" aka the smart kids get picked on...
I don't know where you grew up, but for a lot of us our childhoods were full of people who wanted us down at their level and would be happy to if not outright bully, ostracize kids who were smarter than they. We spent our entire childhoods feeling like people wanted us to apologize - for being smarter and/or working harder
In the large city where I grew up, I saw so many smart girls pretend to be dumb because being smart meant being outside - and smarter than the boys - even worse. I saw young women throw away their earliest opportunities by dropping out of advanced classes, not taking higher level math and science just to fit in.
My husband tells me the same thing went on in the small town that he lived in even amongst the boys. Kids from certain social classes did the same thing - they didn't feel it was their place to learn, their "friends" would mock them for being snobby if they wanted to learn about computers or take the chemistry classes or have aspirations to actually leave their small town.
It's *worse* than apologizing - it is succumbing to peer pressure to limit yourself at a very early age. I can only feel lucky that my parents *never* reinforced any of this to me and that I was a very independent, sassy little kid who really wanted to learn everything possible, no understanding that I could ever pretend to be something I was not and confident enough to not be easily bullied.
5
Take a look at the rampant anti-intellectualism that pervades Breitbart’s comment section where colleges and universities push socialism to snowflakes who don’t have a clue about what happens in the so-called real world of work.
1
When others acknowledge they are willfully uninformed and ignorant, consumed with false beliefs about ethnic superiority, unable or unwilling to discern fact from fiction, and mad at the world for decisions they made, I will admit I generally consider myself with few exceptions the smartest person in the room, not necessarily the most accomplished. I will never apologize for being well-read, educated or able to differentiate points of view. I will never pander to those who don't make the effort.
As for sharing, before you can share anything the other party must want a taste. Why taste something you're certain you won't like it? After all, it might upset your belief system. No Tums for that!
3
I agree....'educators must help turn students into educated voters'. It seems we don't have to worry about the stand-up kids in Parkland, Florida who survived the latest school massacre. Listen to them speak. Their parents and teachers must be proud. Logical thinking is a great key to success and so is evaluation of of everything you read, hear and discuss.
I'm 83 and still seeking to learn..every day. My father, (son of immigrants from Italy), believed the greatest gift a parent can give his children is a good education. I thank him to this day. Call me 'elite' all you want and whoever you are. The meaning of 'elite' has been made into a derogatory political slam word to appease some for their vote. What a shame.
3
A college education is no guarantee of a high income, but it can widen your horizon about life and therefore give you a better perspective on your own experience. It also cannot guarantee the ability to suss out the con men or con women that we meet.
I have a friend with three degrees who taught at Wharton and he knows almost nothing about history. When you ask him what he thinks he will give you a summary of the various points of view but seems completely unable to take a position about any of them and fails to understand that being neutral in the face of lies is not admirable. It undermines morals and ethics and orderly society. And that is the situation we find ourselves in today: the con men accuse the elites of bias, but the response is not to throw the lie back but to question themselves. Bunkum for everyone and destruction for norms of ethics and morality. So, neither is college a cure for sheer stupidity and lack of common sense.
62
I think there is something lost here.
The 'elitists' that many can't relate to is not based on education, or social status.
It is based on an arrogant attitude of superiority.
6
Liberal elitism has more to do with tone and egotism than education, and this column provides a stark example of these failings.
65
Perhaps perceptions of egoism depend just as much upon the audience?
6
Liberal elitism is economic. Period. Ask all of us poor liberals who are being driven out of blue states and have to move to red states.
3
Stop Apologizing for Being Liberal and Educated would be a better title for the article.
Elite has nothing to do with reality, but "liberal elitism" was developed as a caricature by talented right-wing propagandists. As someone who was forced to listen to Rush Limbaugh in the 1980's, I saw exactly how the concept was promulgated.
9
For years, the Republican Party has made the “liberal elite” the boogeyman.
The Republican voters are mad at the liberal elite like me.
I learned I was the liberal elite in the Bush election of 2000.
I grew up in a blue collar family, first generation in my family to go to college.
I worked my way through high school and college, going to a state university in math and computers which I paid for myself. Saved my money and got a masters in engineering which I paid for myself.
But Bush was the regular guy even though he is third generation multi-millionaire, whose family paid for him to go to Yale and then to Harvard.
And what makes Republicans call me a liberal is that I want to help people less fortunate than myself.
Kind of sounds like a Christian but so many Christians I know go to church on Sunday and say buyer beware Monday through Friday.
I want to pay more taxes to help those factory workers with retraining and health care.
But for them, I am the liberal elite and the bad guy.
Go figure.
Obviously, the Republicans have great marketing. In fact, it is Orwellian.
19
All true, but equally Orwellian is the rich liberal elite's way of messing with black people's hoods "for their own good." Both sides are wrong. And both sides benefit from Trumpism. The ultimate irony.
1
As the first college graduate in my extended large family, I fully appreciate this article. My parents did not finish high school but were highly educated by their love of learning and their political activities and by the people surrounding them. They eventually did go back to school and finished their education by taking all the required classes not just taking the GED. They supported and helped five of their children go on to complete college (three with master's degrees). All have had successful careers.
3
Still not getting it. The sin is not having a good education, a good job, wide and varying interests. The sin is the sneering contempt seen on these pages for anyone who dares to disagree with the obvious correctness of the progressive view point. The sin is adopting policies that penalize the vast majority of people. The sin is abandoning the middle class and working people to cater to the moneyed interests on the coasts.
It is not a sin to have a good education and money, it is an opportunity and a responsibility. It is your opportunity and responsibility to use that education and influence to lift people up, to empower the powerless, to help the downtrodden become successful. You were gifted with that insight and success in order to help others, not for your own glorification.
This is where Trump is completely blowing it. He has been given an extraordinary opportunity to change and embolden a fossilized political establishment and he is completely wasting it on self glorification and due to ineptitude.
The dichotomy, is that if you use your education, influence and power to lift people up and make them successful, you will gain more glory than by simply being rich and educated. The real irony comes in when you realize that it is through the success of others that you become successful.
12
this is a terrific piece...
great reminder of what we can all do to help ourselves and one another be better citizens and people.
4
If ever there were a societal precedent for reinvesting in education, it's anti-elitism.
Is it not plainly clear we should all prefer brain surgery be done by a neurosurgeon rather than a landscaper?
In the civilization we've created, none of us can any longer perform every task we'll need accomplished. That's what specialization is for. We all outsource those tasks we cannot or do not know how to perform to those elites who chose to study in that field.
That exchange is the basis of our now service-driven economy. Our country would crumble in a matter of weeks if we all become isolationist in our own lives. We don't all grow our own food - that's where farmers and grocery stores have room to exist and operate. We can't all fix an internal combustion engine, hence mechanics. We can't all legally defend ourselves or treat cancer without help from people better informed than ourselves.
The sense of community - the idea that however I've chosen to make my income, it is still in service to the rest of my countrymen - has been forgotten. Teaching people, both young and old, that we're all in this together could start the ball rolling back toward mutual benefit and shared responsibility. But we can't stop with teaching empathy. We also need to teach critical thinking, inference, theory of knowledge, debate, history and research skills far better than we do currently.
10
It is important to speak up in defense of reason and the role of education in achieving it. I think it might be worthwhile, though, to recall some of the history that got us to this "elites vs Real Americans" impass--it started with us boomers. Part of the narrative of student protests in the 60's and 70's was that everyone over 40 was suspect, that youthful energy and creativity required the overthrow of "the establishment," and that education had to become "relevant." No more forcing everyone into the old moldy molds of the past. With that pressure, schools limited then stopped requiring every undergraduate to learn something about philosophy, literature, history, art, social science, math and science. That had given us a variety of tools for critical thinking and understanding those we disagreed with. Instead, "relevance" became education directed only by our own interests, which ultimately devolved into college-as-job training (to get a good job...). So: a generation or three on, even most teachers only knew what they had to know to do their job, and could only teach from a narrowed perspective colored by the particular values and beliefs of their own communities. We ended up with kids in Kansas and kids in Connecticut leaving school with barely any common ground of knowledge, human priorities or ways of even talking to each other.
We need to revisit the basic idea of the purpose of education--not to get a job but to be a human--before anything can change.
10
Apparently the author did not read the Pew study she referenced. It finds 62% of Republican leaning respondents said college had a positive impact on students future prospects.
4
Is 62% a good number?
Shouldn't it be 100%?
2
Maybe the 48 % found out that college hadn't fulfilled the promise of of great opportunities and their future prospects remained rather grim while drowning in debt.
1
"[E]ducators must help turn students into educated voters. Too many schools fail to provide students with tools of logic that would enable them to assess the quality of information they absorb from every screen. All schools, for example, should have a curriculum that teaches children how to evaluate online information."
-----------------
Amen to that. We are awash is baseless opinion, blatant lies presented as truth, and hate-baiting language. The capacity for critical thinking is more crucially important now than ever before.
8
To feel like being a member of a real "elite," just check how many NYT posters "recommend" your posts.
The fewer the better you should feel about yourself.
Whether readers "don't get" your point, or (more likely) don't want to hear your voice, you should feel proud. (Mildly, of course, because after all, who pays attention to what's on these threads?)
Right or wrong your observations may be, but at least you're not running with the mob.
4
Elite: "a group of persons exercising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group". By this definition Fox News is among the most powered elite and I don't hear them apologizing.
9
Elite? A clique on a grand scale is nonetheless a clique. Many of the comments are claims to be of the elite, no matter the consequence. This "People Like Us" mindset got us where we are today, no matter what you have or where you went.
6
Good points. And the elite, educated, thoughtful amongst us should continue to add to our dialogue about policy, speak out about justice and liberty, and hold those in power accountable. But elitism itself is a scourge on our electoral process and blinds otherwise thoughtful people to a bigger, less divisive path forward. The author says “I never saw her alone without a book or newspaper in hand” in reference to her uneducated grandmother. Through an elitist lens this somehow justifies the elitist approach which basically says “they should know better and need to educate themselves.” But in reality many of them are simply not interested in a book or a newspaper. The author is blinded by her own elitist lens. I had uneducated grandparents too and they never read books! Instead of condemning them by our elitist and false expectations, lets embrace them and find common ground. We can stand together if we try. Trump supporters will turn on him if they see a better path. They see his faults. Make this about them, not Trump, shine the light, stand united and compromise!
I really have a problem with the word “elite”. It became common usage because of the Republican’s very skillful way with twisting words (“pro-life”, “death tax”, etc.). Elite means superior. Being educated and successful give one many advantages, but it doesn’t make anyone inherently superior and often it’s the result of birth and luck. And it’s now inextricably tied to “liberal”. We need to stop using it. And btw, I hope people realize that there are liberals out there who don’t have degrees and wealth.
I am liberal and I’m also well educated. Neither parent had degrees—Dad dropped out of college to marry Mom who went to vocational high school and started working full time at 16 to help support her very poor family. Maybe it was my compassionate mother who taught me never to feel better than anyone else. This is where elitism becomes a problem—when people feel they are superior, they condescend and any chance of connecting ends.
My husband and I argue about liberal elitism because he doesn’t believe it exists and I do. I often see it in the NYT comments—people looking down on the flyover states as if we are all morons, people making sanctimonious statements (re Weinstein—“boycott Marchesa”), taking political correctness to the extreme of jumping people for making simple blunders. It doesn’t help the liberal cause for people to think we look down on them. I won’t apologize for being liberal, but I’ll never be an elitist.
8
Tragically, it’s not a problem of language, as you point out, Ms Jacoby.
It’s a problem of reasoning and being unwilling to accept facts that aren’t appealing.
And it’s true, the right seems to be swallowing an awful lot of absurd whoppers, hook, line, and sinker.
But let’s not pretend the the left is perfect either.
Upset about police killings of unarmed citizens? What decent person isn’t?
And what are the facts? Black men are at the greatest per capita risk of being unarmed and killed by police. Followed by white men. Far, far behind are women, both black and white.
Yet point out that police killings are primarily a gender and NOT a race issue and you are a racist. For the reading challenged, I didn’t say race wasn’t an issue, it’s just not the primary one.
Didn’t vote for Clinton? Or just don’t like her? Obviously you are a sexist. Whatever rationale you might give, the real underlying fact is that you are a misogynist.
Would you prefer a less open immigration policy? It’s clearly because you hate immigrants and are a xenophobe. Of course, the fact that César Chávez also strongly opposed illegal immigration for its negative effects on labor organizing is inconvenient, but whatever, we can ignore that. You are still a hater.
Being unwilling to listen, being unwilling and even unable to incorporate unpleasant facts, it’s a problem across every part of American society. More so on the right, for sure, but let’s not pretend our house isn’t awfully glassy as well.
8
Hillary lost because of Sanders the Russian stooge's cry baby naive idiotic tantrum throwing little voters who wouldn't support her and apathetic stay-at-home voters who complain yet won't lift a finger to change anything. Also, you are not an elite and neither am I. I'm a working class child who is well educated and accomplished. The word elite is self-rewarding and pathetic. I mean elite at what? In addition anyone who uses the word "intellectual" is clueless. The word intellectual only applies to those who can't achieve as in "He may be loser, but he's an intellectual" God save us. It sounds like my sister-in-law trying to defend her useless excuse for a husband.
1
Hillary lost because of the lousy electoral college system (Hamilton deserved to be shot for giving this to us). Ditto Bush Jr. Most white working class people voted for Al Gore & Hillary Clinton.
1
I will never forget the time when my politically conservative brother-in-law (who considers Bill O'Reilly a good historian) accused me of being an elitist......because I read the newspaper! Sad!
9
Elites see finite resources, therefore they cannot share. Hopefully their short sightedness will change as the liar in chief steals everything....
I love this article. Self justification of the liberal. "I'm smart, blah blah blah, why won't they listen me telling you how to live their lives?" If you want to win elections, vote for who you want, and STAY OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE'S BUSINESS. As soon as you start yapping, immediate hatred. President behavior doesn't matter, there is absolute hatred of your face talking at people about how to live. This will be in the DNA forever, as the originals were trailblazers and shot each other for "treading on me".
1
Intellectual elite: Believe they have all the answers. Not necessarily the liberal elite there are conservatives who are elitist. The liberal elitist will site statistics as the truth forgetting statistics might be biased by those creating them and even when they are not they are often misinterpreted. They don't believe in God because science can't prove he exist. They think people are stupid and mentally ill if disagreed with. Believe they are the moral consciousness of the world and refuse to accept what they consider harmless isn't.
The elite believes money is more important than the nation.
2
Wow. More misplaced noble feelings convoluted by intelligence while doing harm to truth. The election was a sexist farce, plain and simple. Don't take people at their word when the outcome is as ugly and shameful as donald trump. Don't entwine desperation and honorable feelings like our poor Othello, leaving yourself open to the Iago's of the world. And my, there are too many of those.
1
Share the wealth
4
This article is such an own goal i don't even know where to start.
Though I am an activist on behalf of diversity, the Trump regime has made me appreciate the "elites" who are better educated, have more life experience, do critical thinking, set high standards. Enough with the low-class deplorables.
4
You can say that in NC because you aren't paying the high taxes to support liberalism. I was a liberal for decades. Now I'm just a radical who despises both conservatives and the rich liberals who are, ironically, benefitting from Trumpism.
1
What do you mean by elitist? Do you mean educated? America was supposed to be a land of equal opportunity, not equal results. You can't teach folks that won't be taught. People that believed Trump's assertion that he actually saw thousands of New Jersey's Muslims cheering when the twin towers went down can't be taught. They're stupid for believing such an obvious lie. It's still possible to get educated in America if that's what you want. My father never made it through elementary school, could barely read or write. My mother was a high school graduate. But my brother and I went to college and got further professional education. How did that happen? Because we wanted it, worked hard, and got it. So did a lot of other folks. But frankly, you can't fix stupid.
5
Right on!
"Blue-collar workers speak English."
Another bogus fact from the elites in the media. SOME blue-collar workers speak English. Why not leave the East Coast for awhile and come visit us in Texas, where you will find a significant minority of blue-collar workers who speak Spanish, not English?
1
She was mocking the idea that educated people need to simplify how they talk or the ideas they hold so that they can communicate with the working class. It wasn’t even up for consideration that the language would be English.
1
Thank you!
The cheering event is a fact but it was embellished. "Thousands" did not cheer the burning of the World Trade Center, only a few, in Liberty State Park. They were not Muslim, they were Israeli (students). Their odd actions caused the police to be notified and they were arrested. They worked for a Jersey City moving and storage company owned by a Mossad agent, who slipped out of the country. No explanation for their behavior was offered. I'm sure this story was covered by the Times.
1
Exactly.
Since the dawn of America, U.S. government officials, especially within the military and police, have easily and intentionally used racist slang to describe people. That new terms are being created to ridicule and goad divisions between whites is simply a continuation of this long, sad history. Name calling is as American as Apple pie.
Recently, very high ranking political leaders in Washington D.C. belittled our Prime Minister. Insults roll off their tongues like raw sewage into the ocean. Grow up and save the world from your disgusting habits.
4
"All schools, for example, should have a curriculum that teaches children how to evaluate online information"
^ THIS
2
I have found the outrageous racist misogynist or plainly stupid comments and letters that appear in local news sources quite educational. Poor spelling, punctuation, senseless syntax could be emanating from those Russian trolls or sulking unsupervised teens but more likely our own failed high school dropouts.
6
Anyone who voted for this ignorant sociopathic grifter we now have as a manchild-in-chief is responsible -not only for destroying their own chance at prosperity BUT for lowering the bar of our national discourse to levels that are simply pathetic.
They are ignorant deplorable victims of propaganda -Sheep being led to the slaughter.
An exception to this sad state of self inflicted damage is of course understandable as it relates to the rich who are just feathering there own nests as "more money" is their guiding worldview AND the grifter-in-chief is the perfect self serving -nakedly selfish - psycho narcissist to aid and abet them in their objectives.
It's time for the progressive elites ( educated and objective and rational) to stop trying to cater to the self destructive rabble!
Build those blue walls higher and just watch the deplorables self destruct with their booze and drugs and lousy schools and unwanted job skills.
3
That's very sweet, but what happens when working class liberals who are sick to death of being back stabbed by rich liberals are driven out of their homes and forced to move to red states?
1
I'm not apologizing and I pay taxes. White guilt is a curse that cripples a culture and country.
4
We need teachers, plumbers, forest rangers, mechanics, doctors, scientists, coders, builders, engineers, physical therapists, retail cashiers and customer service people, cooks, waitresses, bowling pin machine operators, truck drivers, soldiers, military support staff, government employees from clerk to President. We also need these people to be paid a living wage and to have an opportunity to move up in their chosen professions - buy a car, buy a house, have children, be consumers.
I have never understood the “Wal-Mart” logic where companies won’t pay their employees enough for them to actually live well and be consumers. If Americans can’t afford to shop in America, American corporations will go out of business. People should count more than corporations. Every person in this country should be important. Every person should have access to education and healthcare. It should be available to all even if some don’t take advantage of it.
13
Why can't my mechanic be considered elite? He knows a helluva lot more about how things work than I do, with my high income and graduate degree. What about the young woman at Nordstrom's who pulls together the perfect outfit for a middle aged lady because she has a great eye for size and color? She's as talented in her own way, and certainly more useful to society, than a designer of haute couture. Yes, those scientists at LIGO are figuring out how the universe was formed and that's important and purposeful, but will they be there to rescue us from a burning house or keep us alive in an ambulance? Please. People who run around defining themselves as "elite" or feeling guilty about it need to get over themselves. How about we give the clerks, and mechanics, and firefighters and nurses, etc. higher salaries and let them be the "elite" for a change.
4
The "tortuous apologies" take the place of "sharing the fruits of those advantages" , by design.
1
"Just because you're intelligent doesn't mean you're smart." Some of the least savvy people I know have PhD after their name. Accept that simple truth and our so-called (because they are self-nominated) elites can stop feeling superior to those educated by the school of hard knocks, a much harsher teacher than the echo chambers of academia.
5
The human mind seems to be vulnerable to viruses that are contagious and sometimes infect us in large numbers. Infections like this can take a long time to heal. Worries about "elites" are symptoms of these kinds of viruses. It's better then to focus on observable or measurable things in communities, like wealth inequality, health metrics, air quality, etc. Otherwise it is too easy to waste a lot of time and resources dealing with a bunch of nonsense.
3
What is sad or frustrating is that many working class people looking at liberals, Democrats, or higher education as being elitists when the people than identify with (Republicans politicians) are highly educated and pawn themselves off as "common folks" to con the working class voters into believing the Republicans are the only political party that serve the best interests of the working class.
The reason why government has stopped working for the working class is that Republicans control more and more of it and the Democrats have compromised so much with the Republicans that their policies are more conservative than liberal.
As the liberal Texan writer Hightower said (and I may be paraphrasing):
"The only thing in the middle of the road are dead Armadillos".
7
Best comment today. Thanks.
1
This article (and many comments) hinges on a fundamental confusion and distinction of character: to be "elite" is fine; to be "elitist" isn't. The former need not imply the latter.
4
In my direct family I can count 8 masters’ degrees in scientific disciplines, 4 PhD’s and two MBAs. None of us got their degrees through inheritance or by paying for them. We all worked and studied really hard to achieve our goals, with self-discipline and dedication.
Today’s general disdain for the “educated elites” has been created and promoted by those illiberal, anti-democratic populist forces that see the manipulation of the less educated masses as their best chance to gain power.
Their tools are disinformation, false propaganda, and demonization of “knowledge” and “experts”, promoting the false equivalence that the opinion of an unskilled manual laborer on economics and policy is just as valid as that of someone who has spent his or her entire career working hard on these subjects. And the populists are winning: we can see Trump’s election, Brexit, Italy’s electoral chaos, Austria’s election of an extreme right wing populist and France’s near-miss with Le Pen’s fascists as clear evidence of the “power of ignorance” hijacking the democratic process.
The “elites” might be guilty of arrogance, hubris, superiority and detachment from the common man, this is all true: but it is also true that even the most fervent populist won’t let an unskilled person perform surgery, fly a plane or design a skyscraper. The hypocrisy of the Bannons and Trumps of this world is obvious, they need to be exposed for the charlatans they are.
10
The War of the Elites is between Know-It-Alls and Own-It-Alls.
3
I wonder if Ben Carson's $31,000 dining room table or Tom Price's first class air travel are proof of their elitism?
Oh wait, no. Those are just two more examples of the other epithet being hurled by the right wing--fake news.
5
I have a Masters degree from a well-respected university. I have spent my career helping disabled people in various settings, currently adults with developmental disabilities. Some might consider me "elite" because of my education. However, I do not consider myself elite. I do not earn an elite salary, and do not have elitist props (luxury car, large modern home, vacations in Europe, etc.). I think money (which also equates to political power) is what makes "elites" elite. But Fox and others don't want to promote that narrative. They would be indicting themselves.
10
My own personal favorite putdown for those who put me down for being a member of the "educated coastal elite" is to reply that I can tell that they are NOT members.
4
How about defining exactly what "elite" is?
Instead of just using the term as a blanket for all sorts of things and then randomly opining about them.
Sloppy use of language and sloppy use of thoughts and ideas pave the way for all sorts of mischief. Ask George Orwell!
7
How about having read a book? Would that qualify one as being elite?
3
Ed Rendell the former Mayor of Philadelphia and Governor of PA said it best the day after the 2016 election when he said that, "Pennsylvania will never elect a woman president"
I did not understand it then but I do now. A lot of these rust belt men are angry that their women earn more than they do...they can no longer be the bread winner with the skills they have and they are too old to change - they have been left behind and they have to blame someone.
Fox News knows this well as they always have a female to punch down in every segment. They railed against Hillary for 30 years and now that she is gone Nancy Pelosi is the boogieman. Next up Elizabeth Warren and Kamila Harris.
24
Good piece on difficult subject. Thank you.
6
When you have a group of people who have been brainwashed by Fox News and talk radio ideologues for YEARS, you have a group of people who ridicule and disdain education. They use the word "elite" as a jeer and distance themselves from education. You're asking educated people to deprogram anti-education people when they have clearly rejected the whole notion that education has value to them. I feel fortunate to have had my education but really don't see how I can make a difference to those who not only don't aspire to one themselves -- but sneer at mine.
12
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
-Isaac Asimov
9
I work with teachers who feel profound dismay that often they make minimal impact on their students. I tell them to remember to do what they can, because they only have them 6 hours a day. The other 18, they are out of range of the teacher's influence. It's the same here. The article misses the reality that educated people can only affect a small number of people. Maybe. The reality is you're fighting against decades of vicious right wing talk radio from over 2000 stations, let alone Fox News and a DT administration that is attacking daily truth and facts.
5
Good Afternoon: George Washington was elite. William Faulkner was elite. Duke Ellington was elite. Emily Dickinson was elite. Chuck Berry, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Babe Ruth, Stephen Hawking, Thomas Edison, Ralph Ellison, Slinging Sammy Baugh, Vince Lombardi, Madame Curie, Thurgood Marshall, Joe Montana, Willie Mays, both Roosevelts, Martin Luther King, Meryl Streep, Sarah Vaughn, Groucho Marx, your family dentist, your tax preparer if you hire one, et cetera!!, were or are elite.
I would like to be elite.
6
The denigration of elites is a shadow of Intelligenzaktion, the murder of 100,000 Polish academics from 1939-1941. The academics were seen as a threat for their ability to organize the masses to revolt against their German overlords. Who is threatened by today's elites?
18
Define it however you want, but for the rest of us, a "coastal elite" is a pretentious snob who thinks their affluence or education makes them smarter than the rest of us yokels who voted to prevent a completely corrupt career politician from becoming president.
Elites are dumbfounded when millions of people reject them, their values, and their group-think ideas.
They should go have a $7 latte and get over themselves.
45
Hey, I did not inherit my masters’ degree in engineering or my MBA. I studied hard. I did not goof off. I wasn’t rich. What I did, ANY kid my age could have done, with self-discipline and will power.
And if you think I had it easy as a white kid, I have a former colleague who grew up in the slums of Detroit, was about to join a latino gang but instead he went to college and is now a senior engineer for a major automotive company. Same for a friend who was raised by his grandmother in gang-infested south side Chicago. He studied hard, ignored the temptations and even got an Ivy-League masters’ degree!
It’s all about attitude. Educated people are not “entitled”. We have worked harder than anyone else to improve our intellect and ourselves. We DO NOT feel ashamed for our broader culture, better income or for our drinking cappuccinos.
277
There you go again spouting nonsense. Hillary Clinton was not corrupt by any stretch. Sean and Rush and Honeybee saying it simply don’t make it so. Oh, and if corruption is a concern, why aren’t you outraged by President Trump?
What makes a snob, anyway? Is it a simple demand for factual support for your argument? Is it insisting on facts or opinions from people who have spent literally years studying a problem when you bring up the ravings of generalist pundits who are more interested in generating ratings and book sales than they are in getting at the truth?
Frankly, Honeybee, I’ve stopped spending much time with people like you who seem to start out with the smug assumption that your values are either universal or they should be. I’ve found it to be a complete waste of time to argue with people who refuse to read or study. The fact is that what I know, I’ve learned from careful study and a strict application of the scientific method. The fact is that I am willing to change my mind if you can provide arguments well supported by data and not only by anecdote. How do you know what you know? And are you willing to change your mind like I am when confronted by data and empirical fact contrary to what you already believe?
I start off with an assumption that every person is entitled to respect, regardless of whether I agree with him or her, and regardless of whether I share his or her values. I only wish people like you would respect me and my journey in return.
66
I resent that, my latte costs $4.25.
35
Is "elite" just another word for critical thinking ability? If so, let me plead guilty as charged.
Believing every empty promise a demagogue feeds you, because long ago you decided the country owed you everything, as you drained its resources and got hooked on opioids, really is pretty deplorable. Bootstrapping seems to have gone out of fashion. Whining, starting with the Whiner-in-Chief, is being enabled. As long as he can stoke anger and resentment, he gets votes. And they can't, or won't, see how they're being manipulated.
14
Ms. Jacoby, It seams to me that the title “elite” is synonymous and interchangeable with the (implied denigrating) terms “Democrat” or “Liberal Democrat”. Wealth and privilege are also major factors in assuming the label since I know of zero homeless elitists. Where the title is applied just depends on which conservative cable news program or website you are viewing.
How do you explain social and voter assignment of the scornful title “elitist”? Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both have Harvard degrees and are considered elite. Both have a history of consensus builders rather than elitists.
George W Bush was and is considered to be a humble regular guy though his family oil wealth granted him degrees from Yale and Harvard, ownership of the “Texas Rangers”, and arguably the means to buy public office. President Trump is championed by working white men (and women) as a self made man even as he attended Wharton, inherited millions to build his real estate conglomerate, and used bankruptcy to shield his own failing ventures. Yet, neither man is labeled elite.
Elitists need re-branding. Personally I want moderate elitists in government. I feel the need to have leaders with some self-doubt about their intellect so they will seek consul and consensus, especially in times of crisis. I want leaders that will not thoughtlessly, faithfully, and confidently take us to war or financial ruin.
10
Yes, one of the funniest-saddest things I read in 2001 was an interview in which George W. Bush claimed that he was never rich until he sold the Texas Rangers.
Great. Well now we have the answer to poverty! Everyone should buy and sell a professional sports team.
4
BRAVO, Ms. Jacoby!
2
Thanks for this column that emphasizes the Golden Rule.
2
The problem is not elitism. The problem is insulting those who don't agree with you. Whether it's "clinging to guns and religion" or "deplorables," people don't like to be insulted.
Of course, Hillary Clinton is still blaming her defeat on racists, weak women who let their husbands tell them how to vote, and other "backwards" Americans. (All from her recent talk in Mumbai.) Stop insulting and maybe Democrats will win elections.
100
If you actually bother to read her remarks, Hillary said "I won the places that represent two-thirds of America's gross domestic product. So, I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward. And his whole campaign, 'Make America Great Again,' was looking backwards."
The use of the word 'again' DOES in fact indicate a backward-looking nostalgia. Hillary did not make this up. And she never called a single PERSON "backwards"; she just noted the MAGA sentiment is backward-looking. She expressed love for her supporters (Does DJT not do this?) and made a frank observation about her haters (Does DJT not do this?). But the anti-Hillary world is gleefully twisting her comments into a sneering insult and this just shows that we are still not ready to understand what "really" happened in the 2016 election. When we're finally ready to acknowledge the obscene double-standard to which women are subjected, only then will we, as society, start to heal from the Clinton/Trump debacle.
21
You should view the comments section of any "article" on Breitbart.com. It's a Masters Class in vitriol and insult.
13
PDR, I was agreeably nodding along with what you were saying until you made it about gender.
You don’t seriously believe that, in these United States, men twist around the comments of women more than women twist around the comments of men, do you?
Twisting around the comments of one’s interlocutor seems like the first go to move in debate for much of the political left.
Are there good empirical studies on whether one gender, more often than the other, twists around the words spoken or written by people of the other gender? If not, why assume there’s a double standard about this that favors men?
But perhaps you meant Clinton lost because women, generally, are held to a different standard. In which case we still need data. The political right has vilified her for years, but it also successfully vilified her husband, Al Gore, Obama, and Pelosi. Three of those five people are men.
And I do think the working class is tired of being insulted.
So basically if we were all educated and knew logic everyone would vote Democrat.
Well, I'm an MIT-educated super elite white transgender woman and I don't vote Democrat. I believe the Democrats have lost their way, and I used my hyper elite education to deduce that opinion.
I believe that white poor people and black poor people have more in common than poor white people and rich white people. The recent article on a Bobby Kennedy style Democratic coalition mentioned this for the first time I think ever in the NYT.
I believe educated elites are suffocating in dogmatic bubbles that prevent them from thinking outside the orthodox both.
As an independent, like the vast majority of Americans, I use my education and logic every year to make political choices. I own an AR-15 and believe more in personal responsibility than in protecting our citizenry from having to exercise personal responsibility. I also believe in regulated socialism and universal healthcare.
Am I just not exercising logic and reason when I make choices regarding who I vote for? Or am I not exercising Democratic reasoning and logic when I make choices regarding who I voted for?
58
Historically, in this nation, a certain type of "elites" always managed to convince poor Whites that they had more in common with rich Whites, than any Blacks. Interesting.
12
You may believe 'white poor people and black poor people' have more in common, but too many white "poor" people insist they have nothing in common with poor black people, and that justifies unyielding enmity. Oh, one thing. As a MIT-educated super elite white transgender woman, you may end up needing that AR-15.
17
You’re absolutely right that poor blacks and poor whites have more in common than poor blacks and rich whites. It’s just that rich whites have been able to convince poor whites that they ought to pay attention to “elitist” attacks on their culture instead of the 40 years of highway robbery that has been going on while they have been trying to get prayer back in school.
14
As an MIT-trained engineer, I just cringe at how with some parties in some states (the Republicans in Texas, for instance), critical thinking skills have been rejected out of hand. With this as a backdrop, how can the "elites" be evaluated impartially when important thinking skills are overtly denigrated in the populace?
For instance, see:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects...
Best,
--Keith
@KeithDPatch
4
Uh, excuse me, apologizing is free, but sharing is going to cost you something. And this is, after all, America, the land of look out for number one.
2
Did the earliest elite to share their wisdom with us institute the electoral college?
1
Thank you. That's why were are in this mess. If only Aaron Burr had shot Hamilton much much earlier than he did. Electoral college got us Bush Jr. & Trump. White working class voters supported Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.
I don't know how "elite" is defined. Anyone can read, take an interest in the world, and other people, have an open mind. Learn. Be a decent human being, advanced degree not required. "Elite" has become a word thrown around like an orangutan flinging food around a cage to see what sticks. That's how it's used, and weaponized. And it's meaningless.
11
The generic criticism of "elites" is not high achievement - it is the placing of dictates upon others that don't apply to themselves. See Al Climate Change Gore flying in a jet using more fuel than 100 average Joes. Or multi-millionaires like Hillary Clinton lecturing on the wealth gap.
6
And why don't Republicans address the wealth gap?
There seem to be plenty of dictates put on Democrats, women in politics, and "liberals" that are never applied to Republicans, men in politics, or "conservatives".
There is a huge double standard here.
1
If you are having difficulty stopping apologizing for being elite, take some lessons from Hillary Clinton. According to her she may have lost the election but she " won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward"..and she " won in counties that produce two-thirds of the economic output in the United States." In other words the won with the elite, not the deplorables.
4
The elites are people living in a sheltered bubble while they give away jobs to foreigners (illegal and legal). They push for policies that devastate lives with dismissive tones like ‘you should have prepared better’. So Trump voters send out the same message, ‘you should have prepared better’. The World is Flat has now met rampant Nationalism, high physical and virtual Walls and its here to stay. UBI is the only way elites can get some respect back.
4
The elite aren't your kid's teacher or those who speak cultured English. They are the 1% of the 1% who own the media, own Hollywood, dazzle the ignorant with their rich and famous lifestyles, and generally set the tone in this country.
Our Presidential candidates frequently come from these heights, but campaign by slumming, eg. by parking trucks (cf. Bush I). Just plain folks. But, the most recent candidate of the liberal half of the elite gave away the ranch by revealing her caste's utter contempt for us deplorables out here in Flyover. Ie, from Appalachia to the Sierra.
Marx was right on target in portraying the attitude of the present article as: the bourgeoisie is the bourgeoisie for the benefit of......of......of the proletariat.
Second topic. C'mon out to Flyover. Hear the masses speak their anger. In my region of Appalachia, everyone voted for Trump. Except me: I voted for my dog Nelly.
Flyover is hollowed-out America.
I hitch-hiked across the US in 1960, and was amazed that the modern production colossus of the big cities was mirrored by the prosperous smaller factory towns of (eg) Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, for openers.
Now, those towns are slum-ridden and the industrial buildings are collapsing or else have become museums to show what was done when people had jobs.
Remember the poster "Uncle Sam Wants You"? The index finger followed your eyes? Out here in Flyover, there's a similar one, but the finger is the middle one.
8
Well, at some schools saying “ladies and gentlemen” is now totally unacceptable.
7
I would like to see a law passed which would par federal payments to schools that give preference in admission to relatives of alumni. It would help stop ridiculously unqualified people like George W. Bush from infesting the halls of Yale and Harvard and would send a message to the children of the uneducated that they will get a chance if they have the brains and work ethic to seize it.
Dan Kravitz
Dan Kravitz
7
I'm elite, and not petite. Get over it. Seriously.
5
The author is correct that educated people should not surround their institutions with moats.
I keep thinking back to the Raj Chetty data released last year about the 38 colleges in the US that have a greater percentage of students from the top 1% of income than from the entire bottom 60%. These colleges have deliberately chosen to exclude low income students. The following colleges have less than 12% of their students from the bottom 60% of family income (Pell eligible):
Washington University in St. Louis (only 6%!!!!!)
Washington & Lee
Elon
Notre Dame
Lafayette
Colorado College
Muhlenberg
Colby
Cal Tech
Tufts
5
TRUMP: “I love the poorly educated.”
February 23, 2016: Trump’s speech at the Nevada Caucus.
TRUMP: “I could stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot somebody,
and I wouldn’t lose votes [or followers].”
Jan 23, 2016: Trump’s speech in Sioux Center, Iowa. Trump believes the loyalty of his followers is strong & blind.
6
I will NEVER apologize for being smart... if that makes me an "elite" so be it, but I refuse, absolutely refuse to go along with something that is wrong just to fit in...
People believe and continue to repeat totally made up junk like "muslims cheering the Sept. 11 attacks" not necessarily because they are stupid, but because of peer pressure and social conformity. They are afraid that speaking out will mean they are mocked or rejected by their peers and that unfortunately scares them much more than willingly spreading misinformation...
6
My deceased father told me many years ago that the only way you will ever have money is if you earn it yourself. My father and mother were living proof of this. My father was determined to get a college degree and went to school nights and worked during the day while married with children in Boston. He was even accepted into the Harvard graduate program which was quite an accomplishment for a son of Irish immigrants.
I have always been very proud of my parents and their accomplishments in life. They were kind, generous, and very honest people who helped those less fortunate by doing volunteer work in their community. They are my role models and I would not have what I do today if if was not for their fine example.
7
There has always been a strong anti-intellectual streak here. America is one of the last bastions in the developed world of 'Creationism.'
9
Most of the comments put down the rural white culture, claiming it is anti-education. This is without any acknowledgement of the difficulties faced, including lack of broadband access (in 2018, in central Virginia!) and distances to schools and libraries without any public transportation. Yet I see no similar negative comments regarding some elements of urban black culture that also put down education as a 'tool of the white man'. In fact, the NYT reports elite NYC high schools are now asked to admit students who choose not to take free study classes and qualify by test scores merely because they are the 'right' minority. (ie: black or Hispanic instead of Asian or Jewish).
3
Elite means you have no idea what most of the citizens this country deals with on a daily basis. You have no friends who struggle to pay their bills every week. You thought another 4 years of Obama’s policies would be a fine idea. Sound familiar??
6
Don't forget that Obama failed to get rid of the health insurance companies, failed to close Gitmo, failed to end the endless wars, and signed the Monsanto Protection Act. A prof here calls Obama "a good Republican president."
The irony of this column is that I feel that the author is speaking down to her audience. How about a tone of suggestion or advice (like, "apologizing is not helpful because x, y, z"), rather than command ("stop apologizing")? It seems to me that if some elites want to apologize, that is their business. They may be wrong, but I am sure they have their reasons. Anyway, if this were therapy, I don't think hating the people (elites) who hate themselves is going to get us anywhere. And then, the author has to invoke her grandmother too, as if her own scoffing were not enough!
Is the author trying to make up for the apologizers with her own uncompromising tone? Seems like overcompensation to me. In any case, whatever you think the appropriate tone should be, I want to point out two inaccuracies here: (1) blue-collar workers may speak English, but I am 100% sure that the average academic social science article would be a frustrating read for them (i.e. if you think there is no cultural gap here, you are crazy); (2) I think there is evidence that training in logic does very little to impact deeply held (often "illogical") values and political preferences (but please, be my guest and get out there to impose your idea of logic on kids everywhere).
"it is also true that human beings frequently do change their minds — about everything from sexual behavior to marijuana to gun laws — if they are treated respectfully by those presenting the evidence."
This seems to be a one way lecturing by the 'elite' to the ignorant Trump-supporters who, obviously, have nothing to contribute to a debate/conversation.
1
There is nothing more hypocritical than elites and other do-gooders who support and praise all immigrants, including illegals and refugees, yet NEVER work or commute on public transport with, live in the same towns or neighborhoods, send their kids to the same schools, fraternize at the same clubs, attend the same houses of worship nor see the same medical providers, etc.
This is what a lot of lower classes have to compete and deal with on a daily basis and we are told by the elites that we are all racists. Selective diversity for them but not for the rest of society. Try sending your kid(s) today to college if you are middle class and white. Elites have and show a strong disdain towards poorer whites. They'll help all others but them.
3
Ms. Jacoby, or is it Dr.?
You might consider checking your elitist assumption that using the term "folks" is talking down to people.
Michiganders of all education levels use the term. Instead of generalizing or mistaking degrees for intelligence, it's important to actually get to know foks or campaign among those who live in the Midwest instead of treating it like flyover-rustbelt-whatever.
I see right through those that place themselves as better than.
2
The working class doesn't resent the plutocracy for being educated, or for being rich. They resent the plutocracy because, for the last 50 years, the ruling class has stood with their boot on the working class neck.
8
THANK YOU!
Thanks for a great column, Susan Jacoby!
What is far more difficult to teach than critical thinking is critical questioning. People will not progress until they start asking themselves "What is true and what is false? How do I know the difference? What are the criteria for truth and falsehood?"
4
We have become the Vatican of mediocrity. How many times have I been advised that the nail that stands up gets hammered down.
1
It's no coincidence that the disarmament of public education began in earnest during the Reagan presidency. Republicans eager to strip teachers' access to collective bargaining to lubricate their bogus arguments for low taxes, recognized that low educational outcomes aligned nicely with their fantasy world views; witness trickle-down economics, just say no, Christian fundamentalism, abortion as homicide, war on drugs, anti-LGBT rights, HIV as god's punishment; addiction as moral failure, just to name a few. Without Reagan, Trump would today be irrelevant, scamming harmlessly around the sleazy margins of commercial real estate.
5
We get there from different perspectives, and what we think it looks like in practice differs, we agree on this important concept:
“The energy expended by many “elitists” on constructing tortuous apologies for their advantages would be better invested in sharing the fruits of those advantages.”
My education may appear elitist, but my roots remain firmly sunk in red state Mississippi River mud. On the other hand, when I speak of the political elite, I include plenty of Republicans.
However, I think the “fruits” can be shared much more directly than you suggest. A few months ago, I imagined what would happen if the hundreds of college-age young men and women showing up simultaneously at statues and monuments they never really noticed before, to tear down and deface them, or at least get some live video of them kicking them, had instead met in the poorest community in their counties, $50 bill in hand to give to the first resident they found and asked how they could help. Home repair, groceries, transportation, child care, tutoring, help with forms and job applications for those that don’t speak English well, school supplies, clothes and shoes—the list of ways to help is lengthy.
I’ve been accused by NeverTrumpers of being racist and elitist. At times I’ve asked my attackers how many poor minority children within 5 miles of their homes they knew by name and face. With the exception of a very progressive friend that truly walks her talk, the response has been...crickets
3
Excellent article. The copy desk should re-write the hed. When I was young, 40+ years ago, I worked for the largest AFL-CIO labor union. I came from a union background. I told one of the organizers one day that the most important goal it seemed to me was MORE MONEY for the members. "you're wrong" , he said, "it's respect." I didn't initially accept that but soon found it was true. Money is nice, but respect is what makes it nice. And the author is correct, actual working class people value education. And as a personal note, I laughed out loud "with respect" at her grandmother's comment in the first graf. Beannachtaí na Féile Padraig.
2
Thank you for this. Also, perhaps blue collar America could consider whether considering themselves "the real Americans" is a bit elitist sounding, especially to those of us who were in Manhattan on 9/11.
6
So beautifully put. Thank you for your insight.
I moved to Boulder, Colorado about 20 years ago. I was fresh out of school, jobless, and barely had enough money to make ends meet. I distinctly remember sitting in a coffee shop one day in November. The people at other tables were casually talking about their holiday travel plans. Surfing in Nicaragua, trekking in Patagonia, visiting the deserts in Morocco, etc. They seemed so arrogant, so awful, so elitist. In the years since that day, I’ve become successful. I’m highly educated; I own a profitable company doing business in 12 countries; I live in a nice house; I shop at Whole Foods. And I like to travel to far off corners of the world. By all means, I’ve become the same person I once despised. Some would say – elitist. But I realize now, the problem 20 years ago was not them; it was me. I mistook their means for something bad. I was envious. Make no mistake – there are plenty of condescending jerks in this world. But I’m not one of them and I make no apologies for being successful. I’ve worked extremely hard to get where I am now, and I dedicate a lot of my time helping those less fortunate than myself. If someone wants to look down on me for being successful, so be it. That’s their problem, not mine.
4
I feel really bad because I was not able to convince all my liberal friends that Hillary Clinton mishandled Top Secret classified materials and repeatedly lied about it. Then again, why should I feel bad when they choose to ignore overwhelming evidence--and they think of themselves as the "elite."
2
In most cases, another word for "elite" is "excellent." And no one should apologize for being that way. I have no respect for those who defend laziness and ignorance by deriding those who strive for better, claiming that they're "elitists."
2
There are all kinds of elites. it was the elites that got us into Iraq and they can't get us out of Afghanistan. Highly educated, IVY leaguers like George W. Bush, lawyers and Ph. D's in political science. And then there were the manipulators of public opinion, all highly educated.
6
Today's high school students are going to change everything. Not just gun control. Look for a new organized labor movement that will set America's right wing back on their heels.
2
Feeling guilty and apologizing is not going to do anything about the 'elite' problem. Neither is insinuating well-paying jobs are for those who aren't lazy. I have very little money and very little "education". I still budget for a NYT subscription and I still go to the library on weekends. This is not, however, your grandmother's America. Picking yourself up by your bootstraps, while admirable, does not work for the majority of people trying to get a living wage without college.
There has been an awful lot of hand-wringing and distress lately from 'elites' and men because their opposites are pointing out behavior that isn't fair. Rather than whine about how they're a victim, I'd like to see a little less laziness from those who have more than enough to give.
4
A confusing column with 3 salient points depicted as widely held, none very persuasive: "Self flagellation among well-educated liberals"; "American working class is...victimized"; "'elites' must...[work to] better the quality of life for all." Jacoby also asserts a 4th point: working stiffs are troglodytes who, if college educated, are a step away from being liberal.
With so many moving parts the author can be forgiven for her slippery use of the word "elites" and her muddling takeway that elites instead of guilt should "fight to make college more affordable for others". Jacoby uses "elites" to mean liberal, highly educated, intellectual, rich, informed, and the self-taught who aren't rich but are "positive elitism." Her glib use of "elites" masks how these other words are easily mutually exclusive.
I haven't met one liberal who professes any responsibility for Trump's election. Berkeley, the peak bastion of liberals and leftwards, is totally bereft of self-blame over 90,000 Michiganders, no more culpable than the 22,000 in Wisconsin or the 44,000 in Pennsylvania who tipped their states for Trump.
Liberals I know value public education and support California's affordable three-tier public university system.
They also know the vote was against Hillary, not for Trump.
Voters prefer the taller male candidate. A short, 20 year GOP-trashed woman did better than she should have against the looming Trump.
It wasn't about the voters. It was about the candidates.
4
My grandmother who was born in the l890s also had to leave school because her father died and she had to work in the family business. Even with only a 7th-grade education, she was well read and rarely made an error in grammar. Well into her late eighties she read the entire New York Times daily. Times are different.
While the author thinks the school system should teach critical thinking, they barely teach basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. Even young contestants on Jeopardy say, "Me and my friend went to the mall". These are supposedly educated speakers. The college kids mispronounce words they should know; archipelago pronounced arch-a pel-LAG-o. I don't hold out much hope for better education at poorer schools when even the "elite" schools are lacking. I had noticed this before I heard a Jeopardy writer say that common knowledge is not common anymore. With the massive amount of information literally at their fingertips, the young should be a storehouse of information. They are not. We learned a lot by rote but we also learned how to think and look up information. What are they teaching in school these days?
5
"Elites" should not assume they are smarter, only they may know something that whoever they are speaking to doesn't.
2
Let's see, I've been a public servant now for over 25 years, first as a paramedic in the largest city in the US, and now as an administrator with the public hospital system, in both jobs serving the most destitute and unfortunate in society. I have a masters degree and I currently work 3 jobs. Our household income, along with my spouse who is also a health care practitioner serving mostly under served populations, puts us in the top 3% of earners in the US according to CNN.
But wait a second, we're not liberal left-wing progressive Democrats... can't possibly be intellectuals, can't possibly be reasonable educated voters.. oh for god's sake we legally own firearms!
Forget about us, we clearly don't matter..
2
I erased my original comment because it was verbose and the most important thing I want to say is that education to whatever level one is able to achieve is what leads to the most happiness for the most years that one is lucky to have. Whatever ugliness life may throw at you if you can escape even temporarily into a book, magazine, movie or conversation, life will always look better even if only for a short time.
5
Gandhi's seven deadly social sins:
1. Wealth without work.
2. Politics without principle.
3. Commerce without morality.
4. Science without humanity.
5. Pleasure without conscience.
6. Education without character.
7. Worship without sacrifice.
4
The article seems to divide the society in E and Non-E, like Nancy Mitford's U and Non-U, attributing to at least some of the E a feeling of undeserving of their status.
Belonging to the E-class may be either a genetically inherited or acquired characteristic, but there is no undifferentiated society. Perhaps the world, with all the new developments, approaches the system of eugenically created castes, like in "Brave New World" of Aldous Huxley.
1
"my German grandmother, MInnie...was forced to quit school at age 14"
"my grandparents were a butcher, a cobbler, a rancher and a seamstress"
"my Grandmother was pulled out of school at 11 and sent to work in the factory".
Sorry, but in the great arc of grandmother's history, that isn't too shabby.
One beloved grandmother of mine was, starved, tortured and sexually abused from age 6, forced into (multiple) death marches through the middle east, then saved by an orphanage.
One was actually "owned" and enslaved during the same time after, all but one, child were murdered along with other family members.
Many working class european american's really don't seem to grasp the level of trauma and atrocity experienced by other groups/cultures/races (hello american slavery). The stories of sod houses and factories don't anoint you with the right to arrogance
- "I refuse to not see my family's story of hard work and educational success as evidence that we are superior!" Oh yay.
5
Oh, please. So your grandparents' hardships were worse than my grandparents'. But that doesn't mean that their life wasn't hard.
My grandparents weren't interned in Auschwitz. I'm glad.
Does your young grandmother's having been enslaved give you the right to sneer at others for admiring their families?
No B, that is just the point. I'm not on here framing myself as an "elite" who deserves to gloat because my grandma suffered (not to mention a lot more familial suffering after that). Actually some people's backgrounds are harder than others- none of it should lead to arrogance. It is you who is sneering. I'm specifically saying one should not use a narrative of so-called struggle to assert superiority.
3
This article should have been named. “I’ve Got A Chip On My Shoulder”.
I’d probably qualify as an elite. I have a Rhodes Scholar grandfather and an Ivy League father. My other grandfather attended Notre Dame.My mother has a master’s degree from a legendary art school. Even my depression era grandmother went to college.
But my grandfather and father grew up in a small midwestern town that was shifting from rural to suburban. He practiced law but represented the local working class of the town. My father went to the local high school with the farmers’ children who often left early to work. The didn’t live in a bubble. They were sharing dinner tables with the people with dirt on their hands.
And that’s what makes this article tone deaf. Its a soap box piece about why “we shouldn’t feel guilty because we got smart”. Well, therein lies the problem. I never sensed that any working class voter resented me for my education. They felt that people like me simply weren’t listening when people like me frowned upon them for not “buying organic” or “buying local”. There is the assumption by the “elite” that everyone has the choice to live on a budget that allows for it, that it’s just a matter of preference when you shop. Or that to pursue a trade or join the military is an merely just an option over attending even a modest private liberal arts college, even if a higher education is preferred.
Spend some time listening instead of preaching. You might find that you’ll make a friend.
8
Some excellent research published in last Sunday's paper (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/obama-trump-voters-dem... showed that the number of white so-called "working-class" voters that switched from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 (84% white) could have been almost completely offset by Obama 2012 voters who did not vote.
The numbers bear it out: the Democrats do not need to court these white so-called "working-class" voters. They are not the future. The Democrats simply need to focus on turning out Democrats to vote.
Any voters who look around their 99.9% white towns and neighborhoods and proclaim "I don't see color therefore I am not a racist" are not the future.
Any voters who loudly proclaim their pride in the ignorance that their lack of education affords them are not the future.
I remember when Adlai Stevenson was called an "egghead" - disparaging his intellectual characteristics.
2
The concept of "elites" is not rocket science. Elites are intellectual and accomplished people, not necessarily wealthy, with at least a bachelor's degree or the equivalence in self-education, or college dropouts such as Bill Gates. My own and dictionary definitions of "elite" do not include a habit of looking down on people simply because they're less successful or less educated. I do, however, look down on malevolent ignoramuses, such as the two rednecks I saw in a video chasing a mountain lion up a tree and firing at it with handguns, or Donald Trump.
3
Maybe we need an elite's support group for those who feel overwhelmed by the burden of being entitled. Elites can be victims too you know. Just because you may be rich, bossy and attenuated doesn't mean you don't know what pain and suffering are theoretically like.
3
Your piece, Ms. Jacoby, was manna in the wilderness. Thank you.
And your grandmother reminds me--vividly. . .
. . .of Dad.
Both his parents were British born. Came over (as they say) on the boat. Dad's dad (like your grandmother's dad) was alcoholic. He separated from his wife and died when Dad was five.
That left Dad's mom with a passel of youngsters. Very little money. So Dad went to work. Like his brothers and his one sister. And then he experienced. . . well, what?
A longing to know more. A thirst for education. And so--to the shock of his family--he went back to high school. In his thirties! He attended a private school--and graduated at the top of his class.
College came next. And then--a career in radio. Then another career--as a magazine editor. Dad ended up as an English and writing professor in a small liberal arts college.
Despise learning? Despise the liberal arts? Despise (if you will) the accouterments of learning--caps and gowns, diplomas composed in that stately Latin you find only in college diplomas?
Not my Dad!
But there was more. Conservative Dad certainly was--but he was not mean. Or narrow-minded. Or bigoted. Or racist. He had a heart for people. He was loving and compassionate.
He was the finest man I have ever known.
He must have been just like your grandmother, Ms. Jacoby.
So thank you. Thank you for sharing.
2
Our new concern is the dismantling of our republic; our freedoms by global
autocracies....
so..
will there be Public Libraries...for future downtrodden peoples.
We are fighting to preserve our republic...now...so the review of the past is
not our present worry...it is the global ...fight of democracy versus autocracies.
and you just need to think about this now...and let the past be prescient .
4
The term has been over- and mis-used.
A) If one DID something to become a member of "the elite," s/he has the right to be proud of that accomplishment and feel no guilt.
B) If not, then one has as much right to be proud as a tall person of being tall, or a member of an ethnie of being born into a group, or race, for that matter.
Examples for A: Andy Grove, Mother Theresa, Bill Gates,et al.
Examples for B: Just look at the bumper-stickers and T-shirts around you.
3
What is often forgotten is that many Americans were working class before they were professionals. I am an example. My father was first a farmer and later a mechanic, and I was not raised in a fancy neighborhood. That wonderful instrument of social mobility called the GI Bill enabled me to climb the ladder.
And I can still speak working class English.
2
I generally agree with this author, but there are deeper levels to this game.
The true "elites" in this society are those with most of the money, which they use to buy most of the political power. The Walton family has has more money than 120 million of the poorest Americans combined. A few thousand people own more than half of the world's wealth, while they encourage the other 7 billion of us to fight over the other half.
The 1% makes 90% of political donations and owns 75% of stocks, including in mass news organizations, whose worldview they control.
These actual elites like to get credit for the good things that happen and like to call themselves "job creators" and "risk takers," but even though they created the system we live within, they don't want responsibility for the hunger, violence, pollution, miseducation, corruption, etc. that their policies create.
On top of that, many of them are on a mission to redirect public education dollars (not to mention other public dollars) to their bank accounts.
So instead of taking responsibility as "Masters of the Universe" for what they do, they pretend that they are not the elites.
Instead they call educators and the celebrities that work for them "elites," while they pretend they can't speak proper English (see Bush and Trump.)
They fund Fox and hate groups, who attack teachers mercilessly, as they drive wedges into every crack they can find in our society.
They have convinced many that thinking is bad.
Fight Back.
7
The "elites" of either party are totally to blame for their isolation. Much of it is societal, shaped by our constant advertising directed at consumerism in a capitalist society that depends on constant flow of money. Few people who have expendable wealth think first of charity or altruism (unless their tax lawyers suggest it). We are inundated through almost half of every network TV program with ads of luxurious products, getaways and lifestyles. Our social media, which has taken over our brains, targets our citizens at ever earlier ages. Our sports arenas no longer carry the names of outstanding heroes but rather corporations. I went to a play once at a county owned venue, and the TOILET had a plaque on it.
There are a very few really wealthy persons in our country who are true philanthropists. We fight tax increases because we don't understand that if things are better for everyone, we all live more securely. That one I understand since the tax cuts are political and have shown that those who could afford an increase are those who are most unwilling to pay...even if the benefits from those taxes made possible their rise to wealth.
Few among us would give the shirt off our back for our fellow man. The more populated we become, and the richer as a whole, the less charitable and compassionate. When you have the bucks in your pocket, you don't see those who are "beneath" economically. How many remember the face of the homeless beggar in the street?
4
Let me tell you something. As a nurse of many years, this may come as a surprise, but basically humans are all made the same, with of course some exceptions. In order to operate we basically have the same type brain tissue, heart tissue, internal organs, etc.
When push comes to shove, line us up in a hospital, and it really doesn’t matter how much money we have, what our backgrounds are, who are
We don’t need to be elite or otherwise. What we need to be is humane. What we need to think is “do unto others as we would have them to unto us.” And not in a mere religious way.
If a person is on the side of the road with a flat tire - their wealth or lack thereof doesn’t matter. They could still use help. If a kid struggles in school, it doesn’t matter what his parents do for a living or what kind of house he/she lives in, help is still needed. If a patient in a hospital is a millionaire or homeless, they still require the same kind of care for exactly the same problem.
If we can teach or behave in such a way that exemplifies kindness, and empathy, and respect for all, no matter economic status, gender preference, cultural differences, religion, education, - all that, couldn’t we just be humans to make better lives?
Maybe we should all just pretend we’re patients. Maybe that would make us more equal. Maybe then we could just call each other ladies and gentlemen - and make a point. It’s called basic respect.
12
Yes we all bleed. But the rich get the best healthcare money can by, while the poor have to wait until they are sick enough to go to the emergency room.
4
I'm pretty tired of political wordsmiths weaponizing our vocabulary.
Who doesn't want their country protected by an elite military?
Who didn't enjoy watching the elite athletes during the Olympics?
Who wouldn't want their child tended by an elite medical team in an emergency?
Elite is an honor earned through hard work and demonstrated excellence.
Stop ruining our language.
10
Well put.
The ignorant have delivered us Trump but I think we can forgive them.
It is the willfully ignorant that deserve our strongest rebuke-- those who have the ability, but not the desire, to think it all through. For those whose rejoinder is always 'what? I should have voted for HER?' a pox on their houses.
2
"Her" works for the same people that created this mess. She took money from Trump, and she took money from the global banks, while she makes excuses for why we can't tax them and we can't have universal healthcare, and we need charter schools and wars.
Until you centrist Democrats realize that the Clintons, who have left the Democratic Party losing 2/3 of all elections are not on your side, you will vote against your interests the same way poor Republicans vote against theirs
Millions of us on the left told you over and over, we will not vote for Clintons, but you thought that calling us misogynists and dupes of Fox News was going to change our minds?
The Clintons and their allies keep pushing Republican policies, attacking the left (often with police violence: Google the declassified documents about what Obama's Homeland Security did to Occupy, for example) and telling us there is no money, when there is plenty of money, but they refuse to tax the the people that have it. Chuck Schumer takes millions from hedge funds then pushes for corporate tax cuts.
If all of you centrist Democrats joined the Republican Party, so that the left could have a real party, the world would be better off, because then people would have a real choice, instead of a choice between the greater evil and the lesser evil.
You think that halfway between Trump and Bernie is good policy? Go tell Republicans that the grown up thing to do is capitulate for a while.
Please.
1
Trump is a true genius at inspiring many unpleasant emotions... just not inadequacy. No wonder he is a true blue, white working class hero- what man doesn't feel confident upon listening to him that if he'd only been lucky enough to inherit 150 million 30 years ago he could be a billionaire too?
Most tradesmen I know are actually more articulate than our president and if they weren't I might not hire them.
A problem with a meritocracy over rigid aristocracy is that there are fewer excuses for a lack of accomplishment. How nice of our right wing, politically active plutocrats to increase legitimate excuses for those who might be ashamed of not measuring up.
Blame the bad schools in poorer neighborhoods, blame the declining number of union jobs and other lower skill jobs with high enough wages for a decent life. Blame the criminal justice system for its war on the impoverished, imprisoning thousands for lack of bail. And blame those coastal elitists because Rupert Murdoch tells you to.
3
Wonderful. There is a vast chasm between uneducated and willful ignorance. The " election " of Trump is the most severe manifestation of that truth. We Democrats need to stop chasing the votes of the willfully ignorant. It's a complete waste of time, money and tears. Get to work now, especially with younger people. Put down the Facebook, and pick up a voter registration form. When we VOTE, we WIN.
3
There’s a lot here about what “elites” can do for college-bound youth. But the anti-elitists on the right are older and not pursuing any further education.
1
Elite progressives should begin by telling the truth and taking responsibility. All of this talk about elites not recognizing the needs and feelings of the blue collar worker really kind of continues to diminish them and their intelligence. With regard to the last election, the facts are that Hillary Clinton was a terribly flawed candidate plagued by a legitimate scandal over her handling of emails while Secretary of State. Her response to this problem was handled by her and her campaign with arrogance and a good bit of lying. She ran a terrible campaign and never visited Wisconsin for seven months prior to the election. That isn't being elite - it is being stupid and taking people's votes for granted. The entire tone of her campaign was arrogant. A self-aggrandizing campaign slogan of, "I'm With Her" instead of "She's With Me" just defies every precept of Marketing 101. There was, in fact, massive deceit and cronyism within the Democratic National Committee and that was on display for all to see during the election. And we had a progressive President at the time that was asleep at the wheel and did virtually nothing to intervene and stop the Russian meddling in our election, because he arrogantly assumed that Hillary Clinton would win. To win over blue collar voters, most important is not to insult their intelligence, don't lie to them and admit your own shortcomings. That would be a great start for those of us who are Democrats.
4
Thank you. The DNC's first mistake was getting rid of Sanders. Altho' the founders' first mistake was the electoral college which gave us Bush Jr & Trump.
I grew up poor and eventually worked my way through college and into graduate school, eventually to get a PhD in chemistry. It helped that I was in chemistry because they give teaching and research fellowships and tuition waivers for advanced degrees in the hard sciences.
No one I knew ever encouraged me to do this. In fact my entire family and everyone else I knew were very negative about my efforts. They often said that I thought I was better than everyone else. It is a sad truth that many people are brainwashed to think that getting an education is something to be ashamed of. I knew they were wrong and that they had been brainwashed to be failures. It is just one of those American truths that no one admits. There are great numbers of people who would be too ashamed to get an education.
6
Well, good. I heartily agree that educational success should be celebrated.
But I've never heard anyone apologize for being "elite". Anyone who actually think of themselves this way is either a narcissist or teetering on the edge of narcissism. No, "elite" is something someone says about someone else and in this case it's being said to drive a wedge.
GOP, the party of divisiveness because their policies are not generally popular.
3
Anti-elitism isn't new, but the idea has gathered steam since Richard Nixon attacked Adlai Stevenson for his intellectualistic tendencies by calling him an "egghead." I have witnessed this downslide in my lifetime, and it has become far worse in the last 15 years or so. We went from a society that valued and wanted higher education, not just for its value as an increaser of future earnings, but for knowledge that opened our minds, to what we have now: extremely expensive schools that make us fit to be corporate slaves. In my opinion, those last entities are the ones that are truly deserving of the epithet.
3
I guess the intellectuals (elites) has grown wary of people over time. The history is full of examples where elites were exorcised mercilessly as witches and demons. Unfortunately, education has not helped very much in ameliorating the persecution of wise.
1
I ardently dispute the main contention that Trump was elected by disaffected blue dollar disenfranchisement from the elites. No, no, no! Trump was elected in these critical states by Bernie or Bust millennial “progressives” that either voted for Trump directly as an expression of their deep nihilistic impulses typified by Susan Sarandon’s rallying cry to “Bring on the revolution”, or casting their protest vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson. I have hashed out the numbers more than a few times in these comments sections in these critical state that indisputably demonstrate this as fact. And BTW, both the Sanders and Stein campaigns have also come under very credible scrutiny that there was Moscow involvement with them as well.
3
What classifies one as an elitist? I am a high school drop out who returned via night school to finish high school, get an undergraduate, degree, and complete law school. During that time I spent 2 years in the Army, one in Vietnam, 15 years working in a factory as a laborer, welder, crane operator and rigger. While I am a lawyer today, my background defines me more than my profession ever will. Those who judge an educated person as an elitist cannot complain when an uneducated person is judged a buffoon.
9
Thank you for writing this! It is such a waste when good fortune is not enjoyed because it means it is not truly enjoyed. It is like a good wine. If you are drinking it but you feel guilty about it, someone else is still not getting any, and it is not being drunk to its full reward. Also, many elite behave as though feeling guilty is hard enough and don't have the energy to actually be helpful.
To most working class people, among whom I count myself, elitism is not characterized by education or success, but rather by a dismissive sense of contempt for those with neither.
I agree with the author’s grandmother that there’s no excuse for ignorance, even in the absence of educational opportunities, but especially in their abundance. And for the enlightened of society to scorn those still consigned to the dark is one of the most egregious civic failures imaginable.
The pageantry of class guilt is just wasted energy, designed to assuage the emotions of the privileged, and typical of the self-absorption that characterizes elitism. Better to be Promethean than pompous or self-pitying.
1
Let's not forget that the voter turnout in this country leaves to be desired. On average only about 50% of US voting age population ends up voting.
Getting tired of hearing that only the country bumpkins voted for Trump. Let's be real, democrat voters didn't show up and now we have the president we deserve.
2
I reject the entire self-proud atmosphere surrounding our ''betters'' because I have watched them for long enough to know the hypocrisy that drives them.
They assure us that they only mean the best but then, like a Hillary, they completely come apart when their little charade collapses. The studied false excellence of these who judge others as Not Qualifying simply reveals the utter emptiness of their message and intentions.
The handful of political operatives who used their positions to destroy Mr. Trump, Gen. Flynn, and even minor children are the perfect models for the abusers I always found when studying this population.
1
I am not sure what 'elite' is any more and whether this article answers that question, maybe because the answer is not so direct or easy. Does higher education make someone elite ? Graduating from a top ranking school ? Having an advanced degree from a low ranking school ? Enjoying alot of money that you did not earn from working ? While I graduated from one of the most 'elite' colleges in the country and have (supposedly) a very high IQ, it hasn't made me rich nor protected me from catastrophic losses. Do I feel superior to those who are less educated ? Not really. Do I feel superior to those who have earned millions via greed and explotation ? I certainly do. Perhaps 'elitism' is defined more by content of character, intelligence and integrity than social standing and net worth. In that regard do I feel superior to Trump and those who support him? You bet I do, with no apologies.
8
Right on, Ms. Jacoby. Proud to be called an elite big-city-dweller. Getting here from the bayou didn't come easy.
4
I volunteer with the opposite of the elite: illiterate inmates. It has revised my view of intelligence. The human mind is brilliant, even in the slowest learner. It wants to shine and contribute.
We have a rapidly narrowing educated class that only fosters its own. Less educated classes have less access to knowledge. These meet with failure and expulsion, and frequently, deep humiliation, in school.
I have 50 year old students who understand complex language perfectly but are too ashamed to speak because of embarrassment. Think of that, when we talk of elitism.
I grew up in rural 1960s Ohio, K-12 in one modest building, nobody, outside of a crisis, left school without graduating. Everyone, of every station, agreed that illiteracy was unacceptable. Knowledge was the patriotic dream, because it was the principle agent of equality.
We need to wholesomely, enthusiastically, vigorously, and skillfully offer education and cultural knowledge to everyone as if our very culture depended on it, because it does.
Educational equality is the fundamental principle of fairness, that feeds our culture, fosters positive competition and resolves our deepest problems.
We live in a cultural war because there isn't fair access to culture. The only way to forge a peace is to forget the complications and distractions and make equal education our urgent priority.
Either fix it, or become foreign to the basis of our history and culture because only a handful know of it.
5
"Evidence-based thinking" is what the American Association for the Advancement of Science tries to have its 120,000 members promote across all strata of society. "Critical thinking" (i.e., inquiry and venturing of thought) in education generally (K-12) is the correlate.
If those aspects of life were promoted intensively through mainstream media as intensely as predatory marketing promotes passive entertainment, we would have better lives all around, more democracy—and immoveable demand by the public that the U.S. comply with the Paris Climate Agreement.
The magic potion: more higher education for more folks (thus educational excellence in K-12 education—END POLITICAL NEGLECT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION), and more time given to meaningful free time, rather than passive leisure. READ. It's better than video.
3
I was a late in life baby for momma, she was born in 1912.
She was from a big family of recently immigrated Europeans - English and Dutch mostly. My grandmother's name was Henderika Wilhelmina Houghchult. My grandfather -"Big Papa" was a Todd. He worked at Bethlehem steel for many years, retiring with a few of his fingers left, and having to sleep sitting up in a chair because his lungs had been burned out in the mills.
The whole family recognized my mother's academic gifts, she was their hope for a better education for at least one member of the family - a dream of a college education - and she received a full scholarship to both the University of Chicago and Loyola.
Sadly, she graduated high school in 1929, at 17, at the beginning of the Great Depression. She had to go to work to help support her family, and give up her dreams of a college education. She learned to type and take dictation and worked in menial but honorable jobs for men, for her working life.
She demanded the best work my sister and I could do academically - which was pretty good - and after she put us both through college (we contributed with earned scholarships and had jobs all through school), at age 65, she went back to college to a small but prestigious college near our hometown. She learned to drive so she could get there.
She died 4 months after enrolling.
My mom's college degree was never to be, but never expect me to apologize for my pride in my education.
15
I'm a semi-retired blue collar worker, raised Republican in Indiana, and I'm as elite as they come. I never graduated from college, but I read widely in order to educate myself. I'm so elite that I sometimes disagree with just about everybody in the room--conservative or liberal. One of my heroes is Thoreau, the elite of the elite in his one room cabin that he built with a borrowed ax.
The day that "elite" became an insult is the day that integrity, independent thinking, and a passion for truth lost their luster. It's the day that politics won.
14
America's elite are defined in English and American dictionaries as middle class. We are called by the GOP, NRA and Donald Trump as the the elite. We are the scapegoat used by so called conservatives to deflect from who is really responsible for America's inequality gap.
Members of the middle class are educated, and responsible. You pay most of the taxes and in 2018 you are the segment of society under attack. You work harder than anyone else in the world to make your citizens with too many dysfunctional governments and too many people ill equipped for today's reality able to live in dignity.
There is a civil war in America and the middle class is in grave danger of being overwhelmed. You allow ideologues who gave up thinking in high to control government, the judiciary and the much of the media.
My children and grandchildren are America's elite, they work too hard for simply a fair share of America's bounty. They speak many languages and represent America's best educated and most dignified face to the world.
I am Canadian and the reason we are still a democracy is because the people who run our country are the middle class, people just like us who strive for the best education possible and have middle class values.
8
I'm 61, recently retired, a lifelong Democratic NYer, an NYU PhD, a former executive for several international data/analytic businesses, deep into the 1%, completely unapologetic for my success, and I simply cannot tolerate "well-educated liberals". And they cannot be convinced by logic to change. Team Trump is galvanizing their groupthink and hardening their worldview; their pity on the middle class, the suburban right and Christians is turning darker. I no longer count any as friends and vastly prefer to read a book alone on a Saturday night than plan a get together with one. It is difficult to avoid them in Manhattan but one tries. I've found not drinking in public can provide some relief. It will get worse before it gets better. Good luck to you.
4
Your analysis is spot on. Our nation must somehow pull itself out of the anti-intellectualism that permeates our culture. The popular perception of intelligent individuals as “nerds”, “eggheads” and “elitists” is in great part responsible for our need to find scientists, engineers, doctors and researchers from other countries to fill positions In this country. It is also responsible for the deplorable lack of knowledge about our country’s history and form of government.
8
When I hear people complaining about "elites" I don't hear them complaining about education, I hear them complaining about people who push policies that, for the most part, benefit the "elites" but cause real harm to "non-elites". As one example, the progressive elites push illegal immigration as an unmitigated good. But their children never have to go to schools whose budgets are being decimated by the requirement to provide ESL and other services to the children of these immigrants. Well paid construction jobs barely exist because they have been taken over by these illegal immigrants. In other words, it is the elite that push policies that either do them no harm or actually benefit them (cheap nannies and gardeners for example) that makes non- elites despise them. BTW, by the author's description, I would probably fall into the elite category.
110
Interesting choice of an example. Another example of people pushing policies that, for the most part, benefit the "elites" but cause real harm to "non-elites" would be the recent tax cut.
16
Your assertions are simply false. Do some research, read real studies.
Illegal immigrants pay payroll taxes, even though they can't benefit from them later. They pay income taxes and sales taxes. They do not take jobs away from Americans, though they do often compete for jobs for those who have just immigrated before them (both legal and illegal). They are less likely to engage in criminal activity than Americans, despite what the President wants us to believe. They are not crowding out our schools.
I know of no "elite" who is pushing for illegal immigration, but I know plenty of people who view the Gestapo tactics of ICE officials to be disruptive, cruel, unChristian and far removed from the family values espoused by Republican elites. We need to reform our immigration system to make it safer, transparent, and more efficient, but we have benefited tremendously as an immigrant based society. Immigrants are more entrepreneurial, more ambitious and more conservative than native born Americans.
But Trump has shown us how much easier it is to say ignorant and inaccurate things about foreigners, immigrants, both legal and illegal. We feel better about ourselves, morally superior even, when we can blame the "others" for problems (e.g., lack of spending on education) created by White, native born Americans, like the greedy Republicans tearing our country apart.
15
You got some really good points here. Thanks.
2
I refuse to apologize for my education. my father joined the Navy to escape depression-era Appalachia; my mother didn't finish high school; my maternal grandfather was an Italian immigrant stonemason; my GI bill, from my own Navy enlistment, paid for that part of my BA that Pell Grants didn't. to presume that "I don't understand the plight" of the "poor, working whites" is to defame me, as those are the EXACT background I come from. my family HONORED education: my maternal grandmother finished 3 separate years of 8th grade because there was no high school where she lived, but she certainly did avail herself of library books - as soon as a library was built. my family has fundamentalist Christians, mainstream protestants, Roman Catholics, Latter-Day Saints, Jewish converts, Ayn Randians, avowed atheists, and searching agnostics. some of us now have college degrees; some have not. some are professionals, some are unemployed, some are addicts, some are homeschoolers, and several of us are veterans. but to say that somehow *my* BA means I'm an "elitist" who needs to *apologize* to Trump supporters - yes, we have some in my family, too - is insulting not just ME, but my family as well. because we ALL speak the same language: and for us, it was the language of survival, service, stewardship, and society. I do not accept the pundits' judgment.
10
I love your comment. It expresses the universal experience of most Americans, certainly white Americans. Trump and the pundits that try to explain him are the ones tearing us apart, inventing differences that don't exist. Thank you.
2
The fabric of "elitism" is a complex weave. The objection of our "Appalachia" brothers and sisters might have to do with access. Access to resources and education not only for themselves, but their progeny.
Have you and your family handsomely profited from the massive generation of wealth aggregated through equity markets? Do you own property in booming metropolitan areas? How has deindustrialization impacted your livelihood? What do you think about the impact of globalization?
Elitism operates along a continuum and too many of our fellow American are suffering for some very wrong reasons.
51
You say one narrative of blue collar workers is that "American working class is so victimized that almost none of its members are capable of accepting the responsibility of civic self-education."
Oh, brother. That statement pretty much confirms the first narrative, Ms. Jacoby, that you (the elitists) do not "get" the working class. What blue collar worker ever said, I don't feel "capable of accepting the responsibility of civic self-education."
7
Joseph, please try to go beyond your own prejudices and biases and understand her point. (You must be a very sensitive person to be so upset by her phrasing...)
I do blame some people, particularly many Fox News viewers, for being so gullible and yes, lazy, for not bothering to find out what the facts are, to show no curiosity or skepticism about crazy assertions or conspiracy theories. That's what I'd call "not accepting civic responsibility." That isn't elite sweetheart. It's common sense.
2
Thank you, Ms. Jacoby, for reminding us -- however unwittingly -- that intelligence quotient does not equal emotional quotient.
1
i woud like to have somebody come up with a definitive definition of an elitist.
education, money, family, where they live, proper grammar, not using youse or...
happy to see ms jacoby mention 'folks'. the term drives me crazy.
it really struck me when, i think it was bush2, was talking about terrorists and said something like, 'those folks are trying to kill us'.
incongruous, to me at least, to see folks used in that situation.
3
I have always like Susan Jacoby's way of thinking.
But who's an "elite"?
I was a Windsor Terrace kid before Windsor Terrace got onto real estate brokers' radar. When in the mid-1970s my bike was stolen off our front porch, I chased the guy right into Prospect Park. Had I caught up with him, he would have been sorry. Was he underprivileged or "just" a thief? Who cares? I am not that liberal.
I went on to get an M.A. in English and just by luck managed to get a job. I don't forget where I came from. Like a lot of people from blue-collar families, I fly my American flag on holidays. (It took a long time after Trump was elected for me to put out my flag without feeling that somehow I was endorsing him, that self-undulgent, lying traitor).
Now in my mid-sixties, I worked for forty years.
Elite? I don't think so. And I don't feel guilty, either, for believing that education is a good thing or for having had a job all my life -- or for feeling disgusted that some Americans are more interested in their private parts and in their guns than in their brains. Inner-city or heartland people, they've had a big hand in defeating themselves.
When did education get so stigmatized? It wasn't so when my parents were in high school and studied their hearts out but couldn't afford college. And it wasn't so for our World War II veterans who were able to go to college on the GI Bill.
Do tell me, what is an "elite"?
6
As someone at Notre Dame, the school in your picture, and living in the Trump hotbed of Indiana, I can assure you that the greatest beef that the white working class have with so-called elites is the heartfelt belief that elites not only do not value them, but actively denigrate their values and culture. I can not say that they are entirely wrong in this belief.
It is almost impossible to persuade anyone of anything if they believe that you are hostile and do not respect them. In my opinion, this explains most of the 2016 election.
5
Very well written. Now, we need to get DEMOCRATS to read this essay and stop thinking they need to apologize for their acceptance and understanding of the importance of forward thinking:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/democrats-distance-themselves-f...
2
I think that this piece is a reflection on income inequality. Those who don't have much income, don't save, spend all their money on motorcycles, boats, drugs, booze, multiple marriages, high interest mortgages, etc., are envious of those of us who didn't do these things, who stuck it out. I've only taken about 3 real vacations in 50 years, spent most of my time working and reading- I don't watch TV much- and am happy and contented. The "others", as described above, are not content, and probably never will be. They're comparing their insides to somebody else's outsides, always a losing proposition. The guy with the ultra fancy car may have more problems than you can imagine. Mine's 13 years old, 168,000k, and paid for. This materialistic society is making us all crazy.
3
You have not addressed why highly educated, privileged, gated-community billionaires are not "elite" as long as they're also conservative Republicans. Right now the extremely elite Betsy de Vos is on a dedicated mission to destroy public education in America and the deplorables are cheering her on.
14
Having been accused of being, and probably acting, like both (decently degree'd, work construction 25 years), I hope you are aware of how lame the argument sounds. The large questions are couched in the smallest terminology. I do not doubt your morality or desire to make the world better, but I profoundly doubt your ability to define what elite or working class means.
2
To most working class people, among whom I count myself, elitism is not characterized by education or success, but rather by a dismissive sense of contempt for those who lack them.
I agree with the author’s grandmother that there’s no excuse for ignorance, even in the absence of educational opportunities, but especially in their presence. And for the enlightened of society to scorn those still consigned to the dark is one of the most egregious civic failures imaginable. Just look where it’s gotten us.
The pageantry of class guilt is just wasted energy, designed to assuage the emotions of the privileged, and typical of the self-absorption that characterizes elitism. Better to be Promethean than pompous or self-pitying.
87
I agree with your definition and would add that who has more contempt for people who lack success than our president?
4
I don't care if you're smarter than me, have a PhD, have a nicer house and more money. Just pay your fair share of the taxes, and stop dumping on my 'hood. That's all. I don't even care about being segregated. It's when you come in and start interfering, messing with us all the time, that it drives me crazy. Just leave us alone and pay your fair share. Thanks!
1
Finally. Someone who will speak out against Trump voters for whom education is a filthy word. Who will speak out against Trump voters who wear their ignorance like a badge of honor. Who denigrate the accomplishments of those of us working hard at any number of professions and occupations to better ourselves, and to provide a better future for our children.
We are the ones who want to see a better America, an America with more opportunities for our young people. On the other hand, Trump voters simply want to bring the rest of us down to their level. The gloves really need to come off when talking about Trump voters. They weren't "hoodwinked" by a slick talking candidate. They are willfully ignorant people who disdain any kind of education. This is all they are, and this is all they ever were.
Those of us who want a better future for our children did not follow the paths of Trump voters. We worked hard, many of us pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. I'm in an ethnic minority group and paid my way through college and law school. My spouse is an immigrant, also paying his way and starting a business literally on a shoestring. Like many other Americans, we worked hard, year in and year out. We now have an adult child who is completing a PhD at one of the Ivies, something that was out of our reach many years ago. But this is what America is supposed to be - one in which our children may do better than we did. And that America requires a respect for education.
3
Ms. Jacoby, well-said. But what about the “working class (that seems) in-capable of accepting the responsibility of civic self-education”? What about the committed Breitbart reader or the daily “Fox and Friends” viewer (yes, including him)? What can we do if the civic self-education is a regular diet of tripe and spin, and there are enough of them to elect a buffoon for president? Forget the elites’ angst for a moment, what about the proliferation of civic ignorance, and the media machine that fosters it? What would you do if your grandmother watched Hannity every day?
4
If by “elite,” you are describing people who teach in universities, they’re barely valued by their own instituons. Many are poorly paid and their work situation is unstable.
7
Thank you. The desire for quality education does not translate to highly deserved professional wages and respect for those who provide it. Adjunct professors, in particular, are amoung the most exploited and abused 'workers' in America.
5
There is such a gulf of inequality in universities, between tenured profs, adjuncts, and the people who do the real work of housekeeping, ie "Harvard Works Because We Do."
4
Susan Jacoby's THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON is as relevant today, if not more so, as it was when first published in 2008. An absolute must-read for a historical and comtemporary understanding of anti-intellectualism in the United States.
3
Being ashamed is free. Sharing the proceeds...now thats never going to happen unless it is through taxation.
2
Precisely. The "elite" is what all of the Trump voters wish they were and hope their children become. If they say otherwise, then they are lying.
1
"The Elite" is a propaganda phrase designed to promote division in this nation. Anyone who doesn't vote for Trump, has at least a high school education, and is able to see through the Fox News veil of lies is considered "elite". It is in fact, a badge of honor!
2
This piece felt a bit all over the place to me, and so it was hard for me to really get the underlying message. But I will say this… I do believe that a large part of the problem in the US currently, is the divide which social media has not only enabled, but exacerbated. It’s become far too easy to shout at those who think differently than us…who are complete strangers to us…and for us to imagine that we ‘know’ them…that they are all clones of one another. And both sides (particularly the extremists on both sides) are guilty of this.
As a liberal, most of my friends are also liberal, and yet I’ve been really astonished at some of their behaviors. Some of them clearly consider those on the other side of any given liberal stance to be racist, hateful, uneducated, nationalist, sexist, and plain obtuse. Some of them actually Unfriended anyone that voted for Trump. Seriously?? While I myself don’t like Trump, at the same time I am open-minded and aware enough to understand that, just like my voting for Hillary (who I wasn’t particularly crazy over, or agreed with all her past behaviors), so too should it be with those who may have voted for Trump. I’m sure there are endless reasons why some chose Trump over Hillary, just as there were reasons why some chose Hillary over Trump. We are not all 100% alike in our beliefs, one side or the other. We are all, each of us, more complex than the other side may give any of us credit for.
(1 of 2...)
97
The problem is economic. Period.
Maybe the lesson to be learned is simply to stop being so judgmental.
While there are many hard-working, smart students, there is also a lot of grade inflation now---what do grades and diplomas really mean anymore? Some of the sharpest people I know do not have a degree, and I also know a few bigoted, low-information degree-holders who are labelled "elite." And some of the hardest workers, who perform some of our most difficult tasks, get the worst pay and the least respect.
Stop being judgmental.
Start respecting the hard work of others.
7
People don't like professionals for good reasons, sometimes. The way professionalism has developed in recent decades (encouraged by the higher education industry) encourages a sense of entitlement, and a false narrative in which baldfaced self-interest is cloaked as 'service.' True elitism is humble. Arrogance and ambition are flaws, not strengths. True elitism is incompatible with arrogance, ambition, and social snobbery. If you are arrogant and ambitious, and spend your whole life trying to figure out how to be a rich doctor or a lawyer, you don't deserve to lead others. We need to return to valuing experience over credentials (hopefully the two are not mutually exclusive). That's a first step to reconciliation. Also, when schools cost $65,000 per year, they no longer serve the public. Period. Spare us the Mother Theresa rhetoric.
2
Education and Elitism and Arrogance should not be confused. Holier-Than-Thou opinions drive people crazy. The problem may have more to do with communication skills and message delivery.
2
If everyone was like me the world would be a boring place. Labels are easy and lazy and never account for the great diversity of humanity. We miss so much of the depth of life when we resort to generalizations.
3
The “kids” from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, leading the current national gun control effort are, thankfully, “elitists,” coming, it is imagined, from prosperous families. They’re highly educated and articulate. Without the elitism of their class it impossible to imagine their spectacular leadership effort to severely control guns getting off the ground. This is what a prosperous middle class does to America. It creates elites who can easily sense pluralism as the future, not a future of some dumbed-down gun loving authoritarianism with its always prevalent streak of racism. Thank God for the American elites. Hopefully, they will raise more children like the “kids” of Parkland.
5
Apologize for instituting a political economy that allows the strong to victimize the weak. Apologize for reducing wealth transfers to education so the literate and numerate can exploit the illiterate and innumerate. Apologize for the wars and mass murders you have wrought on peoples who inhabit coveted lands. Finally, recognize inequality always ends in the destruction of wealth through rebellion, that your greed has popularized demagoguery, and initiated the rule of tyrants.
3
Susan Jacoby has highlighted a story common to families all over the US about grandmothers or great-grandmothers forced to leave school early but blessed with intellectual curiosity who inspired future generations to continue to learn. We as women-- we as a society-- owe a great deal to the women like Minnie Rothenhoefer who gave her children a life-long hunger for reading and knowledge.
Unfortunately, I cannot prevent myself from inserting a political comment that if Trump's German immigrant ancestors had the same love of learning to pass on, his presidency would be much different than it is.
We seem to get so caught up in the "credential" earning race that our love of learning and our hunger for knowledge are lost. Some of us are given the luxury of time to recover those attributes in retirement; some of us play golf!
Early on as I was struggling to pay student loans, I had second jobs (in addition to teaching) with people who did not have loans because they did not consider college a possibility. Other than my time in college our lives and values were pretty similar: we all were looking for a good future for our families. It is distressing to me that in the 45 plus years since many of the same people turned into people who attend Trump rallies and are people who say like Saccone in PA "Democrats hate G-d".
I don't apologize for my education. I do hope I would still hunger for learning even if I had been denied a formal one ending in credentials.
3
I have a Ph. D. from an Ivy League university, but in some ways, my experience has been more akin to that of the working class than that of say, the typical Ivy League undergraduate who is a "legacy" student, the child of an alum. I grew up in a family where meals at the end of the month were heavy on canned soup.
I spent three years as an adjunct before landing a full-time academic job, doing both clerical and industrial temp work during vacation periods, but I never told my fellow workers about my background. If asked, I was an unemployed teacher, which was not a lie.
In its own way, this experience, miserable as it was, was highly educational. I developed a gut-level understanding of poverty, so that snide suggestions of "Why don't they just...?" from people who have been comfortable all their lives infuriate me. I learned first-hand about the imbalances, injustices, and inefficiencies in American business.
Still, I am also annoyed by those who suggest that people like me are "in a bubble" and that only working-class white people, especially those in small towns, are "real Americans" and the only ones who need to be understood.
I've lived on both coasts, the Midwest, and overseas, have done temp work, held academic jobs, and started a business, and I'm in a bubble because I can't understand how anyone who wasn't ignorant (not the same as stupid), bigoted, or terminally greedy could have voted for the current Republican president?
508
Thank you!! I grew up in an environment that was devoid of monetary wealth but full of intellectual wealth. I worked my tail off in school and am now a comfortable "elite" but I work with the poorest of the poor (in other countries) who fully understand that education and entrepreneurship are the keys to the financial success of their children. Why "working class" white Americans believe the key to THEIR success is to elect a leader who can hate and blame the loudest rather than actually produce policies that close the education/income gap is beyond me.
13
Especially the last.
3
Being elite at this moment means being responsible for the global environmental, economic and violence crisis you have caused.
haha! Just kidding! This article shows how the elite excuse themselves from their authoritarianism. They have failed upward to achieve all they have achieved, and will cover up any evidence that proves this.
1
Where are you writing from? Moved out West from NoVa DC bubble, I contend with freaked out suspicion of my doctoral liberal elite status, it leaks out, one cannot contain it.
Like just two days ago, in a bar in Salem OR, with people watching basketball (not me so much) someone mentioned that kids could now skip college and go to NBA. I said was good because the college basketball players I had in class at VCU never had time to attend and do schoolwork and were cheated out of an education.
Then after a few questions they were hostile towards me. I travel a lot in rural areas and believe me you have to be very guarded, which I hate, but it is true.
5
When I was 15 in a blue-collar, de facto segregated town in California, I worked my butt off to get out of that place and see the world by spending every day trying to excel. There were few books in my home, but education was prized. I went to the library. In high school I preferred independent research to party going. I joined every club to enhance my resume.
That work paid off. I became one of those "elites" and raised three more of them. No apologies. The Trump know-nothingism is a recurring anomaly in America and should be voted/shouted down every time it rears up.
The American oligarchs, such as Trump, are ignorant and superficial. The quest for riches and celebrity ruins lives that could be spent pursuing better goals and undercuts our society by creating complex systems in place of efficient ones. The privatizing of education and health care is an abomination.
We are down on all indices of advancement in society compared to truly enlightened states such as Finland and even Costa Rica.
Ignorance is not bliss and blue-collar life is not preferable to advancement in science, arts, and enlightenment. I have no romantic notions about Trump voters, because they cut across the socio-economic spectrum. I have a horror of ignorance. And so should you.
6
No resents people with an education.
People resent the smug and the arrogant who think that they know better.
East Coast and Ivy Leaguers in DC and Wall Street have driven economic inequality to the breaking point and now they are offended that millions of Americans are no longer buying their "we know better" nonsense.
8
I don't even resent their wealth, I just resent their high taxes and the way they destroy minority neighborhoods for the good of the liberal elite. They don't want to live with us, but they also don't want to give us a fair price for our homes so we can move away.
1
Isaac Asimov put it this way in 1981: There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
7
The very word 'elite' means vastly different things to different people. Instead, let's us the term 'intentionally educated', and compare them to the 'willfully ignorant.'
No amount of dialog can change the trajectory of a populace who subject themselves to the constant barrage of conservative nonsense and truly 'fake news' from Fox and hate radio. Propaganda is very, very powerful. That's why it's a key tool for dictators and strongmen. It convinces low-info voters that they're the 'real' victims, so they stay depressed, angry, and resentful. Until these people stop listening to it, they will not find solace in education or anything else.
4
Initially repulsed by the intent and title, 'deplorables' - now, not so much. A dedication to ignorance, and a strong sense of white entitlement deserves the the descriptor. Those who complain about PC language shouldn't mind some of their own back. And no, I do not think that a formal education inoculates one from being 'deplorable' -- witness the rise of groups like the Proud Boys. The economically privileged coupled with bigotry and race entitlement are the most repulsive of the 'deplorables'.
3
First of all, thank you for this article. It was about time!
Secondly, I am taking the liberty of re-posting here a comment left a while ago in another NYT article by a reader who identified himself as Jack Connolly, from Shamokin, PA. I quote him because he expresses what is currently happening -a pride in ignorance, and a condescending attitude towards knowledge- much better than I could ever do:
"As a teacher, I struggle every day with the "stupid is cool" attitude that possesses too many of my students. Learning anything, thinking critically, expressing oneself with eloquence, and (God forbid!) READING are dismissed as the abode of geeks, nerds, and other losers. Willful ignorance is seen as the mark of a "real" person. In Donald Trump, those students have found their avatar--a man who wears his ignorance proudly and defiantly, a man who dismisses knowledge as "fake news," a man who openly admits he has not read a book in 20 YEARS. 60 million voters bought into his schtick. They listen to his incoherent ramblings and conclude, "He's one of us!" They steadfastly ignore that he is a billionaire who has absolutely no understanding of their plight. They watch him on TV and read him on Twitter and think, "He's talking directly to ME!" In 1951, Cyril Kornbluth wrote a short story called "The Marching Morons," depicting a future in which people joyfully embrace ignorance. That story has come true, with the triumph of Trump and his supporters. May God have mercy on us all."
10
As a person who holds a J.D. and an M.B.A., but deal with Middle Class and lower class individuals on a daily basis, my experience tells me this article is asinine.
First, some of the most patriotic and devoted Americans are from the Middle Class. They love America and all of its history. They do not look down at our history but are smart enough to understand that our history, when read in relation to other countries at the time, demonstrate our exceptionalism. Yes, we enslaved individuals and every country in Africa did the same thing. Great Britain had slavery as well. Yes, we massacred Native Americans and were massacred by them. We overcame obstacles that other countries could not. For the lefty's out there howling, consider the moral component of abortion. The left argues it is justified to end a human life at 20 weeks, but wrong to stop someone acting suspicious or who runs away from the police as soons as they see the police; wrong to require non-citizens follow our immigration laws; wrong to allow Americans to exercise their explicit 2nd Amendment rights; and wrong to seek to protect fellow Americans first.
2
Elites: by all means do NOT apologize for your eliteness!
Shout it from the rooftops:
"I went to college! I can read! My ideas and beliefs are clearly superior!"
6
Elite, schmelite! Just another deplorable propaganda word from the Trump, Fox, Breitbart wrecking crew. The Democrats lost in 2016 because their candidate totally forgot about the core ethic of progressivism, uplifting labor and workers to where they too can be secure in their livelihoods, have aspirations, and raise children that will exceed their accomplishments. As Conor Lamb just demonstrated, money can’t buy you love.
7
Intellectual. Elite. Master's Degree. From a middle-class background with unusual perks. The Arts and Entertainment. Read. Everything that came my way. Went to girls' schools for the last four years of high school. Worked with my parents. Worked during college. Volunteered. Two bits are most important to me: Education. My foundation which allows me to think and search for information. Empathy. When I cannot recognize the life that I am in, it is over. I rescue animals. I carry big plastic bags in my car to pick up dead animals from roads and highways because I cannot think of them getting run over again. I talk to people. Last year I canvassed to get a governor elected. Young people, Old people, Asian people. Latinos. African-Americans. Odd how similar we can be. Not really. I do not aggrandize what I have or what I am. It is alll used to live kindly, honestly, generously. With humor and wit and foolishness and the ability to laugh at myself. Just don't get me angry. Then I wanna go all Mafia on ya! Education. Education. Read. Read. Question. Question.
139
laurel
Can I be your friend? Anyone who is so humane to carry a plastic bag to pick up dead animals so they don’t get run over again, is my hero.
This is what I mean. Let’s just start a Humane Party. You can lead the way! Thank you for your post. The best I’ve read, and most heartfelt. Run for President! Got my vote.
MIMA
4
It would be more humane to pick the animals off the streets BEFORE they get killed. That's how I got most of my "pets."
oh yeah,that'll work.keep up the fiction that
the so called,self styled elites whose arrogant,self entitled attitudes, as embodied
in the Clinton campaign (we don't need the
white male vote)will somehow save this
country from Trump. THEY HELPED TO CREATE HIM.I have seldom been more angry
reading an op ed piece in the ny times as Iam
now. the quickest way to re elect Trump is to
have the elites at the forefront of another
national campaign. didn't Pennsylvania 18
just prove that ? in the words of the Pete
Server folk song:when will they ever learn?
3
obviously, I was so angry that I
misspelled the great Pete Seeger' s
name.
1
“Elite” means “the best.” That is nothing to apologize for.
4
The majority of voters with college degrees voted for Trump. The majority of voters who lack a high school diploma voted for Hillary.
What is delightfully entertaining about the tone of the article is that the author seems to believe that the poor slubs who voted for Trump were the uneducated and it is a tragedy that the educated liberal elite were incapable of communicating to their poor, ignorant, cousins what was good for them.
The median Trump voter is better educated and more prosperous than the median Hillary voter. The less education people have, the greater the appeal of being one of the elite is. Gruber was right.
5
What is the source of the information in your first paragraph? Among people I know who would discuss it, the opposite was true.
Problem is, is that poor Americans are urged to hate themselves.
6
I thought this a thoughtful and 'sympa' (as they say in France) article.
Although on this side of the pond I don't recognise the heart wringing among liberal elite that your writer seems to think prevails in the US. Over here they appear to be a self serving class who do not take kindly to criticism...on your side of the Atlantic, they rather appear to flirt with incitement (judging by the content in the New York Times) that appears to be just this side of restraint when it comes to surgical strikes’ against Idaho and Montana or wherever those pesky back scratching, log rolling folks live. Judging by the vitriol heaped on Trump in the comments section of your paper your 'elites' do not appear to be in deep contemplation before they take to the sword in a verbal slash and burn of the enemy, Trump. What of that elite dynasty the Clintons', Bill, God bless him, has been a hard dog to keep on the porch, which puts the Stormy Daniels saga in perspective. Post-Modern politics has duped us into the concept of the ‘lesser evil’. One must, in other words, always be ready to accept the elites like Clinton, whose heart wringing or any largesse seem to be only extended to those singing to their elite hymn book as opposed to that other side of the tracks army of deplorables who marshal themselves alongside your President, Donald Trump.
1
Actually the problem in the US is that the rich of both parties refuse to pay their taxes. There is more inequality in the US than in the UK. I wish you had put more energy into defeating the rebels of 1776 who were nothing more than self-serving, racist, classist propagandists for an equality they didn't believe in. They were tax evading slaveholders who founded the electoral college because they were too snobby to give the average person a vote. Hamilton, Washington and Jefferson paved the way for Trump.
I held out hope until the very end that you would tell us that the professor's aunt and uncle finally realized that trump had lied.
2
I'd love to be in the elite work.
Having a good education does not make one “elite.”
How does that education make you feel?
Grateful? Humble? Generous?
Or...
Superior? Entitled? Self-made?
5
Whoa Susan I haven't heard an elite apologize for anything lately. Could you refer me to some NYTs articles I must have missed them.
p.s. the elites are silent waiting for their taxes to decrease in greater proportion than at any time in American history.
2
The problem isn't so much that there's a highly educated 'elite' class. The problem is that these 'elites' tend to take a parochial view of non-elites, often denigrating them with slurs such as "populist" or "hick".
The elites are the class that brought us white flight, deprivation of public schools by placing their precious progeny into private schools, condescending to blue-collar communities as being "too lazy to adapt", excluding the children of working-class families via legacy admissions preferences and making high SAT/ACT scores a priority for college applicants, the refusal to resist the growing crowding effect of International Students "subsidizing" working-class students by replacing them in the admitted student body, etc. etc.
That doesn't even get into the complete and utter failure of the elites' precious "evidence based policy" of free trade. Apparently the elites don't consider the blighted condition of Detroit, Flint and Cleveland to be appropriate evidence to challenge their gleeful adherence to misguided economic policy. They'd rather just blame the victims for "not adapting" to the globalization that the elites THEMSELVES wrought.
I wish I had the same economic privileges growing up that most of the current elites have. But I, like most people, actually have to work our way up rather than sit on family laurels and prestige.
4
I have several degrees and speak three languages. I came from nothing...grew up in a small, rural town and would still be there but for a teacher. Joined the Marine Corps to get out and used the GI bill to get my first degree. I apologize to nobody because I am educated. Education is a choice. If you chose ignorance, then so be it. Just don't label me for making a different choice.
8
Certainly the author is right that one should never be ashamed or apologize for intelligence, hard work, sophistication, achievement, and especially wisdom; and that it is a very big problem that we, as a society, do not appreciate or aspire to those qualities as we once did. The problem that she does not seem to understand (or perhaps chooses not to consider) is how such qualities have been directed in recent decades. This is clear from everything to the frighteningly high percentage of Ivy graduates who go into finance and investment banking to the endless pandering and opportunistic calculations of the chattering and political classes. To the extent those qualities serve the corrupt neoliberal order that is doing so much harm to ordinary people here and around the world--which I believe is a lot of what people mean by "elitism" these days--they are wasted, or worse. Not to get too particular, but I don't think many people referred to Bernie Sanders as "elitist" in a negative way, and he at least as smart and sophisticated as anyone on the national scene. I believe the failure of "elites" like Ms. Jacoby to "get" this is one of the main reasons we have a moronic huxter as a president.
6
I'm educated, my parents were educated, and my kids are educated. I don't have a working class background. I respect everyone and am not judgmental. Nothing to feel ashamed of here.
7
The Intellectual elites are pretty much always the ones that are purged first after an authoritarian coup. That is how the lower classes debate, because arguments they can't win with reason they resolve with force. I used to blame the corrupt leadership for manipulating base human instinct, but now I think envy and resentment for those who have advanced intellectually starts at a very early age and is the core base human instinct these con artists manipulate. Intellectual elites have always sought to advance all of mankjind, but some people would really rather eliminate the competition.
350
yep...lenin's police killed thousands more in defense of "the people's revolution" than tsar nicolas 2's agencies ever did.
1
The classic SNL skit pitting the inventive "smart" Steve Martin who announces things like having invented the wheel because "I am smart" against the low IQ Bill Murray who gets angrier and angrier until he sneaks up behind Martin and clubs him to death. Murray then proclaims, "Now I am smart."
2
There is a long history of anti-intellectualism in American life. Some think the roots lie in our colonial European and evangelical Protestant heritage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism_in_American_Life ("Anti-intellectualism in American Life," by Richard Hofstadter, published in 1963 and won the Pulitzer in 1964).
The work can be used to help explain some recent developments, including the Tea Party: https://archives.cjr.org/second_read/richard_hofstadter_tea_party.php ("The Tea Party is Timeless," by Nicholas Lemann, Columbia Journalism Review, originally appeared in Sept/Oct 2014 issue with the title "The American Way").
Lehmann wrote:
"To Hofstadter, intellectualism is not at all the same as intelligence. It is a distinctive habit of mind and thought that actually forbids the kind of complete self-assurance we often associate with very smart people."
3
The "elites" are not the main problem (unless they insist on masochistically flogging themselves for not being (or not being able to "speak the language of") a plumber or bus driver). As Ms. Jacoby said, there is no excuse (except in the most extreme circumstances) for ignorance in the USA.
3
Thank you for this essay, Ms. Jacoby. I have enjoyed and learned from every one of your books. My mother was able to attend a community college when she was 54. She received top grades and became a registered nurse, a profession she loved. My father was an immigrant from Scotland, who started in the WV coal mines after his high school graduation. My parents taught me to love education, and I went on to earn 5 university degrees, all in physics and engineering, which includes 2 master degrees from MIT. How did I afford it? My first degree was financed via a competitive New York State Regents exam, open to all NY state high school seniors. I was commissioned via Air Force ROTC, and during my 22 year USAF career, I was sent to NYU, MIT, and my last 3 years were spent in charge of an ROTC unit at the University of Washington, where I held the honorary title of Professor and Department chairman. Where there’s a will, there is a way. During my high school years, I worked as a paperboy, a caddy and a bowling alley pinboy. Is this a great country or what? God bless America.
5
The problem isn't being elite. It's that being elite has closed off too many ears to the legitimate and real concerns that a large swath of voters have with how the country is treating them economically, and the unresponsiveness of their government to the real problems this has created, mostly in heartland states. What percentage of workers with relevant skills are over age 50 at Google or Facebook?
Being more highly educated and successful doesn't equate with listening or empathy.
10
"Elite", the term used by those without education and self-confidence to put down those who do.
I come from family of hard-working grandparents who had three intelligent sons. The eldest was probably the brightest and most street smart. He was the least educated, but respected it. His kids and grandkids mostly did not (to their chagrin later in life), but some were outstanding in the trades.
The middle brother went to college and was successful salesman, but did not forget his roots. His kids and grandkids mostly went to college, and their lives show it.
Little brother got a PhD and became a professor. His kids all have Masters (but don't forget their roots). The older brothers openly admired their little brother's achievements. The nieces and nephews were uncomfortable about it (but had many offers of tutoring and help for the taking that went unclaimed).
As the son of the little brother, I got all sorts of needling about doing well in school, reading "too much", having a "desk job", and being a "college boy". Being younger than my cousins, it initially bothered me. Now, I don't care. Being called "elite" is nothing to be ashamed of, and is mainly due to regret in not doing better in school, and comparative lack of self-confidence around those who have achieved (not that some haven't).
But I do see a privilege filter where there is a disconnect between an "elite" life, and that of one that is different. Have some empathy, awareness, and it won't be so pejorative.
4
Thank you so much for this, Ms. Jacoby. Finally, someone cutting through the condescension inherent in the "misunderstood white working class" narrative, the same bigotry of low expectations that liberals finally debunked when it applied to students of color.
No one objects to elite professionals when they are choosing a doctor, boarding a plane, applying to college, hiring a business manager, or, yes, running a successful farm. We like people who know what they are doing. Too bad we have abandoned that standard for presidents.
I would add to your list of tasks the teaching of civics and critical thinking, not just evaluation of media. But I agree that every educated person should take on some small Teach America project of their own. Help people in whatever small way to become “elite.” Isn’t that the foundational aspiration of our country?
11
Elite is an adjective, not a noun. That said, I grew up in an extended family where education mattered. I knew who was smart (most) and who was wise (many, lots but not all overlapping) but not necessarily who had a degree and from where. (A couple of the unwise were actually highly credentialed.) A good education in a good school helps, but they aren't always linked, and wealth does not always follow. I know some brilliant self-made people; what unites them is a desire to learn, understand and be able to think independently. Such people tend to be flexible and not doctrinaire, able to process and accept new information and act upon it. Those traits tend also to be associated with being liberal, which is hardly a bad word. But it does associate liberal and Elite, and that may be why conservatives of limited education have a hard time with the concept. I highly recommend Linda Isenberg's book, White Trash. It is a scholarly volume which goes a long way in explaining who we are and how we got here. I think many will find it very enlightening.
2
"The Elites" is yet another Internet-age term that was coined and has wormed its way into contemporary culture. Never have we been so connected yet so divided. The term, and others, is used as a bludgeon to drive home race- and/or class-oriented agendas that often begin with a stereotype.
2
C Wright Mills gave the notion of "elites" who deserve critique, even disdain, real meaning in his book, "The Power Elite" over 60 years ago. Without that level of specificity and context, "elite" signifies very little.
1
As a woman who grew up on an Iowa farm in the 1950s without "complete indoor plumbing", I am not about to apologize for my strong desire to live a life with a bit more comfort. And for me, that included beauty and education and ease. So I worked for that. And working for it, creating it, was incredibly satisfying. I was NEVER anyone's victim. no one owed me a thing. Including my parents. It seems to me the lowest of all human conditions to feel like you are a victim. Why would you choose that? Who, with a little bit of courage and energy, can't grow and change and educate themselves? Completely agree that "elites" need to stop groveling and apologizing. The victims need to take responsibility for their lives. Really, no one else is our business. And when we think they are...it's always trouble.
25
The most wonderful thing about my career in medicine is the opportunity it has given me to really know my patients, to see them in times of great personal stress. I have patients who never graduated from high school who served our country in combat, volunteer for their communities, care for troubled relatives, worry more about family then themselves when ill. And there are those of means and education with shallow character. I am convinced that being part of the elite has nothing to do with wealth or degrees. On the other hand, snobbery and self satisfaction do.
11
My dad never finished high school. He worked in a factory in Michigan. He kept up with real news and encouraged us to get an education tho he couldn't help us pay for it. And he was embarrassed to fill out a financial aid form. So my brother and I went to state schools on the GI bill. My sister financed her 4 degrees with grants and loans. I got a liberal arts degree and probably made less than a plumber my whole career. I encourage people to consider the trades, btw. Can't outsource them. Somehow I morphed into an elite while a silver spoon privileged guy who stiffs workers and small business owners somehow resonates with people my dad would have thought were pretty stupid. I don't know how to live in this world. I weep for my country.
53
"I don't know how to live in this world."
I hear you.
I love Brooklyn, where I was born and have lived for all my 64 years, but I don't recognize it.
Between the entitled Park Slopers who think it's okay to carry articles of clothing between their teeth while shopping, and their baby carriages pushed like tanks, and their kids riding their scooters into elderly women -- and the entitled Flatbush denizens who think it's okay to urinate in mid-air while crossing the street, or to blast their sound systems from their cars and their apartment windows so that there's no peace, or scoff at education and then complain that they can't get jobs and that they're mistreated -- and the entitled politicians who cleverly skirt the law but whose actions are clearly corrupt, and who play with prejudices so that anyone with a job and a home becomes the enemy -- and the entitled developers who routinely flout zoning laws and erect monstrosities near our historic areas . . . .
And outside the city? The same, frankly. Just with more open space. The same privileged louts of all social classes, the same politicians but with different prejudices, the same unscrupulous business people, and the same middle-class grunts who are supposed to apologize for having gotten an education.
There seems to be nowhere to go.
Your grandmother sounds like such a wonderful source of inspiration in your life. Thank you for sharing her story!
13
When middle class folks criticize and disdain "elitists" they aren't referring to their own public school teachers and their doctors. Their definition of elitists are rapacious Wall Street types, the permanent and incestuous Washington DC nexus of bought-and-paid-for politicians, sleazy lobbyists and political operatives who rig the game against the peasants, and the condescending journalists and pundits who presume to inform the public exactly what they should think about it all. And yes, those ELITISTS should be apologizing for their frauds, criminality and lying that do immense damage to the lives of working people.
14
Sorry, some of those who critical of people who work to obtain advanced education vote against raising taxes to pay for better schools where their own relatives teach; They complain loudly about hospitals that employ their neighbors. And they whine about public employees who are ripping off taxpayers when their family members work for the DMV or staff the 911 center.
All of the abuse is not directed at people who live in places far away doing jobs not done in one's own town. The attacks on public employee unions, on teacher unions, on the unions trying to organize the local hotels and bars are focused locally on family, friends and neighbors.
5
You live in Florida, try New Jersey, where we actually pay the taxes to support the elite, and where we have poor cities like Newark and Camden, where we segregate minorities. Liberalism has sadly failed here, just as Conservatism (which conserves nothing, but only destroys) has failed in the nation. There must be a third solution.
1
A confusing column with 3 salient points depicted as widely held, none very persuasive: "Self flagellation among well-educated liberals"; "American working class is...victimized"; "'elites' must...[work to] better the quality of life for all." Jacoby also asserts a 4th point: working stiffs are troglodytes who, if college educated, are a step away from being liberal.
With so many moving parts the author can be forgiven for her slippery use of the word "elites" and her muddling takeway that elites instead of guilt should "fight to make college more affordable for others".
Jacoby uses "elites" to mean liberal, highly educated, intellectual, rich, informed, and the self-taught who aren't rich but are "positive elitism." Her glib use of "elites" masks how these other words are easily mutually exclusive.
I haven't met one liberal who professes any responsibility for Trump's election. Berkeley, the peak bastion of liberals and leftwards, is totally bereft of self-blame over 90,000 Michiganders, no more culpable than the 22,000 in Wisconsin or the 44,000 in Pennsylvania who tipped their states for Trump.
Liberals I know value public education and support California's affordable three-tier public university system.
They also know the vote was against Hillary, not for Trump. Voters choose the taller male candidate. A short, GOP trashed woman did better than she should have against the towering Trump.
It wasn't about the voters. It was about the candidates.
10
Jacoby might have written about the presumptuous from the Leftish, who attempt to believe that they are elite, but are not. It's their inability to let go of their rather misogynist distortion of the last national election that gives the game away.
I'm a college professor with a PhD, and I live in NY state; so therefore I must be one of the dreaded elite, right? But I live in a rural part of upstate which has more in common with the rural Midwest; my town doesn't even have a traffic light. I work my own land, go to church, and live in a community of mixed collar colors.
A few years ago, some workers were stripping paint on our house. The foreman was away the day that a different stripping chemical arrived. One of the workers said: "Billy says that you're a smart guy, and can tell us how to use it." Another chimed in: "Yeah, but there are two kinds of smarts: book smarts and real smarts." Meanwhile, they needed me to read the instructions, and tell them how to use the product safely.
To me, the moral of all this is: The current national argument about the worthiness of "the elites" is just plain wrong (and stupid). Half the country needs to stop using that argument as an excuse for remaining ignorant, unresourceful, unmotivated, and/or close-minded. We don't all need to have PhDs to be good members of society. But if you don't know how to read instructions to do your job, stop attacking those of us who have to read them and explain them to you.
694
Right on target response encapsulating the bottom line expertly. Thank you so much!
8
Or maybe it was the college educated who spent enough time telling them that to pursue a job as a house painter meant that you could only be dumb. What if you surprised them by asking them if they’d show you the skills of their trade? And if they did, approach it with humility and reverence without assuming it was something that you could learn in probably a day? That an Ivy League educated person can get their hands dirty and be a beginner and learn something from a person who never went to college?
4
Paul-A:
Since when did being "elite" mean being able to read?
Or is your intent to pretend that most people in rural areas can't read?
2
The word "elite" has kept ugly company. It fueled the rage of the Red Guards during Mao Zedong's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, for instance. Professors, scientists, teachers, physicians, writers and artists were rounded up, humiliated, tortured, murdered, or driven into the countryside to work on collective farms and shed their "elitism." The New Left loved the word around 1971 ("elitist" was usually paired with "pig"). The word suggests not only that "the Elites" are better than you--it suggests that they are weak from ill-gotten luxury and that they can be taken down a peg by humble two-fisted methods, usually suggested by a leader who parades as a simple man of the people, and who wants you to do the dirty work.
13
How about our elites who teach as adjuncts - brutally underpaid - after so much education? Our elites in the military who need food stamps? You are confusing the derogatory Fox term elites with our actual hard working and educated elites.
13
We all know the code words used when those millionaires on the right tell our brothers and sisters to beware of the "coastal elites". They need to stop using it as a weapon. Thats the problem. There, I solved it.
11
I am not sure how elite became a pejorative. No matter if you are professional or working class, wouldn't you strive to learn to be better at your job?
There are working class people who have critical thinking skills and want to learn about how our country works, the rule of law and democracy in general.
There are professionals who are willfully ignorant about government, or freedom of speech, religion or the press.
There are members of both groups who deny steeled science such as climate change. We should all try to better ourselves and gain more knowledge or we could just put our heads in the sand and complain about those who are willing to try.
8
I couldn't agree more--our problem isn't the educated elite--rather it's the rise of belligerent and willful ignorance. However, that ignorance doesn't arise entirely from laziness or lack of opportunity. It is promoted and manipulated by wealthy malefactors who want to bend the resentments of the ignorant to use against the common good.
21
I'm saddened to see how the meaning of 'elite' has changed over the years. It used to be a compliment to be called elite.
My parents grew up in abject poverty, I grew up with my needs met but not a lot more, and my kids grew up never needing to worry about college tuition (or much else, though we live simply, and well below our means). I enjoyed pursuing my degrees at 'elite' universities, but do not have my CV pasted to my car's rear window; not out of modesty, but because social respect was not the reason I studied.
I've also spent various parts of my life in poor rural areas--Appalachia, mostly--and feel just as at home there as I do in New York City or San Francisco. I go back to visit frequently.
I don't think the problem is so much elitism as it is isolationism. The urban well-to-do have good intentions, but decades of hearing them discuss what's best for poor people--most often urban minorities--while ridiculing and insulting poor whites, has taken a toll. The 'basket of deplorables' comment summed up the attitude pretty well.
People are people. It doesn't matter if I'm having dinner in a nice restaurant in San Francisco or at a diner in Uniontown Pennsylvania, I'm able to talk with others at the surrounding tables. They do not see me as elite. I do not see them as racist-xenophobic-homophobic-mysogynistic-stupid-backwards people. We just talk--a dying art, I fear.
305
You mentioned San Francisco, where the liberal elite has basically destroyed any chances at basic housing for anyone who is not a millionaire. The reason people are sick of liberals is economic. It's the same reason we can't stand conservatives.
1
I wonder where you live or what your social circles are where you heard people "ridiculing and insulting poor whites"? That is not a stable of any conversation I've even been present at or party to. Sure there are a lot of comics and comedy shows that laugh at "hicks" or "rednecks" but in general the people you are calling out as "elites" who laugh at poor whites are not the usual audience for such fare. It's another false narrative I think.
1
The author seems to believe that the only way to live a worthwhile life is to strive for ever more education. There are a great many people who make great contributions to our society without ever setting foot in a University, and many elitists with multiple degrees who would be little missed if they disappeared tomorrow. Our 'meritocracy' measures merit in very narrow ways, and often rewards credentials rather than results. A degree is only a credential; it has no value in and of itself. Those without credentials are right to resent those with credentials who contribute much less and are rewarded much more.
3
Perhaps you believe everything you say, but it appears to me that you make sweeping generalizations about elites that are not supported by facts. IMHO the author was describing the importance of being educated, which is different from earning a degree. We are educated when we understand basic facts about what is going on and can list both the positives and the negatives of topics. For myself, I entered the military in 1966 as a high school graduate and retired 31 years later with a PhD. You might not believe that I contributed anything based upon my education, but I can assure you my skills, knowledge, and attitudes gained through higher education resulted in significant contributions. This is true for most people who are educated in addition to possessing a degree! One has to perform to be successful, whether we have a college degree or not!
14
You should admit you are cowed by and jealous of others' expertise. Oh, and make sure not to see licensed physicians, or live in cities that utilize civil engineers, or drive vehicles designed and built by people who know how to make them safe. God knows they are all overpaid and contribute much less than you.
The Dems got wiped out in 2010, especially at the state level; the Rs gerrymandered a solid House majority. Dems here in PA bombed the Rs in House District PA-18 -- a 20-point swing. In neither case did many voters change their minds. It was all changes is turnout. Same with Trump's election. Some Obama voters did vote Trump, but more stayed home.
It is fine to be elite. It is not fine to sneer at other people who don't agree with you. It didn't help Mitt Romney and his 48% of adults being free-loaders, because they don't pay federal income tax (a large % being retired or disabled). Many who understood what Mitt said were insulted. Hillary's 'basket of deplorables' was equally stupid and deserved to hurt her, because it was nasty, snobbish and gratuitously so. She's doing Ds no favors over in India continuing to disparage those who don't live on the East and West coasts.
Dems used to be the party of the working man and woman. The Clintons, more than anyone else in the party almost ended that. They are corrupt, going from zilch to hundred's of millions on government salaries plus graft. In amassing their fortune, they sucked up to the bankers and other wealthy.
Trump was a bad choice for the working person, but so was Hillary. Voting Trump sent a message. It was safe for them to do so, because Hillary wasn't going to do a thing for them economically and looked down upon them as they suffered. Obama and Biden cared about rural poverty and healthcare.
7
How many here who criticize Clinton for her "basket of deplorables" comments have read the entire speech? Doing so casts an entirely different light on Hillary Clinton's views. Unfortunately, the election is over, and the right-wing spin machine, coupled with pathetic mainstream journalism, twisted her words, just like they branded her an untrustworthy Wall-street type. I can only hope that we don't repeat the same mistakes in 2020. Judging from the comments, probably not.
2
I'm elite because I worked my butt off to get there. Years of multiple jobs, concurrent college classes. Many days of working or studying til 3am, then getting up at 7am to do it all over again. Then, years of moving from one place to another across the country to build a career. My "advantages" in life were student loans and a 1970 Chevy Nova I bought for $300 that miraculously went everywhere I needed it to.
We have a lot of whiners in this country who thought doing well in school was for effeminate fools, and want a cush living in their mother's back yard. Sorry, but I'm not sympathetic.
26
I agree 100%. I never stepped foot in a college classroom until I was 35 years old. I raised my daughter as a single parent and worked three jobs to support her. I studied for a law school exam at my father's funeral and graduated at 42 and have spent the last 30 years enjoying the fruits of my labor and sacrifice. I make no excuses for my success. I recently read a story about one of the workers who was getting laid off at the Carrier plant that Trump swore he saved. Carrier was providing educational and retraining for these laid off workers. When asked if she was going to take advantage of the opportunity for further education and training the woman replied that "she was 42 and too old to do learn anything else."
And I should try to understand her plight? No thanks I will stay in my elite bubble.
7
Donald Trump's continually, acutely abhorrent actions and conduct keep decent people in apoplexy. That benefits him because there can't be any conversation - or what Ms. Jacoby rightly calls "practical steps to persuade others" - when emotions are ratcheted up to unbearable levels. That's not to say that decency aligns with educational level - in fact, there's probably not much of a correlation there at all. But, I will posit here, people screaming at each other across a divide tend to dig in to their last known positions, whatever those positions are. Trump has figured out (consciously or not) that being a constant pin-prick on the public consciousness keeps him in the game. Otherwise he long ago would have been discarded as an irrelevant loser by people on all sides.
I think this is a stupendous essay by Ms. Jacoby and I'm going to share it with people I know.
4
This is so true. Have the humility and good character to acknowledge your good fortune, that luck always plays a role, and live with a big heart.
Doing so is rewarding in and of itself.
8
Thank you, Susan! I have similar family members to your Gran, who sounds like quite a remarkable woman. They never asked anyone to feel sorry for them, even though they were subject to bigotry and other hardships. My grandfather told me to always do the right thing even if you don’t get any credit for it. We should assume and expect the best from everyone, regardless of socioeconomic background, and do all that we can to help.
11
Let's trace major causation shaping voter opinions. The US, land of equality and bill of rights, is unique among democracies in turning its elections over to the wealthy and corporations for funding. The mass of voters can't compete to shape policy. Thus, for just 1 example, the US is the lone holdout among modern nations in still lacking affordable health care for all.
Obviously the limits of policy solutions are shaped by the elite funders, who pay for the high cost campaign ads that flood and manipulate our voters. This makes norms. It's our biggest election expense. Other countries don't have it.
Our media companies get big profits from these ads during long campaigns so our news media is itself invested in our campaign finance system. Thus reporters, columnists, TV pundits avoid any facts on how campaign finance reform might affect policies in our favor. And avoid how other countries pay for elections with more public funds, limits on private money, and free media for candidates.
See Wikipedia on campaign advertising for the contrast.
"In the European Union, many countries do not permit paid-for TV or radio advertising for fear that wealthy groups will gain control of airtime, making fair play impossible and distorting the political debate in the process.”
So regardless of education level of individuals, what strongly shapes many voter views is this: Our news media & political culture operates within the policy boundaries our megadonor elites will permit.
9
Sorry, but the blue and white collars have blended. It's likely that most people reading this are "working class." The desk top computer is the new factory floor. Any assumption that one is more excellent than the other, education or not, is a distinction that automatically breeds antagonism. Informing fellow citizens that they are less excellent performs an "elitism" that betrays unchecked privilege.
8
THANK YOU! 3 of my grandparents had no more than an 8th grade education. They were very proud of their children's accomplishments, and I am sure they would be equally proud of we grandchildren.
Every one of them read the paper every day and could hold an intelligent discussion on current events with better educated people. They were happy for a rich ad exec son, and equally proud of a middle class teacher daughter.
Growing up, the message I got was that each generation had a responsibility to be as well or better educated than the previous one. Everything else-- job, social position, wealth were secondary to the people who counted out bus fare for the next 2 weeks before daring to go to the grocery store, and who never owned a credit card. And while the words they used might today be politically incorrect, I.e. Calling an African American a "colored" person, they spoke in the politest terms in their lexicon.
2
Thanks for the article. FYI, I haven't ever apologized for my two master's degrees. My father was a physician, my mom was a lab scientist for a Nobel Prize winner, but I became a teacher. My pension is ok, I drive a Honda, put my two kids through college on my own (and they worked, too) and I am lucky to get senior discounts, but I guess I'm an elite and I'm kind of proud of it! I'm well-read, well-educated, and well-traveled. The best part is, I'm a voter! And I'm a good one, too! November should be quite interesting for the "elites"!
23
It is high time that the "Elites" begin to fight back. By definition, we being Democrats and perhaps more inlined toward social justice, we tend to stand for those who are disempowered or have less opportunity than ourselves. But we cannot allow empathy to allow ourselves to be maligned and to accept their narrative as we take a higher road.
This is our weakness. We surrender to a characterization of ourselves where all initiative directed toward intellectual accomplishment is stigmatized. In ceding this narrative, we are ceding our own personal stake in the American Project.
I guess I too am an "Elite". I am a physician. I send my child to a private school. But, I am not spending my free time in a country club. I work sixty hours a week in a hospital and labor through countless overnight shifts under tremendous pressure caring for all-comers in our community. It took me fourteen years of secondary education to achieve this professional privilege. My own struggles may have been different I'm sure from those of Trump's "Base", but I have had many and have persevered.
They may label us as "Elite", but we are an integral part of this engine, as are they. If we continue to cower, we give them license to pick away at our Democracy. I empathize with the struggles inside and outside of Trumpworld, and am more than happy to continue to work toward solutions. But they cannot shut us up as they burn the whole house down!
26
There is always a cure for ignorance. There is NO cure for stupid. With stupid at the helm, all sorts of permission has been given for stupid behavior; stupid shouting; stupid racism and stupid fascism. I will never apologize for my love of learning and my zest and wonder for life and my Harvard degree, which is coincidental. I am more than willing to educate the ignorant, and have spent a great portion of my life trying to, with some success. Stupids are on their own. I am done! You are correct. We "elites" need to stop apologizing and rise up!
Ma'am, you ought to have defined precisely what you mean by "elite," down to the very last detail, because after reading through the comments, it's more than obvious that quite a number of people define the "elites" very differently. What a jumble of mish-mashed definitions are posited here!
The various definitions of "elite," according to NY Times commenters:
1. Professionals of all sorts, educated anywhere
2. Professionals educated only at Ivy League institutions
3. Most of the one percent, but not all
4. All of the one per cent, no exceptions
5. Anyone who is stinking rich and educated
6. Only the stinking rich
7. Politicians and government employees
8. Lobbyists and Wall Street leaders, but not politicians
9. Anyone with a college degree
10. Only those with advanced degrees, but only if they don't come from working-class backgrounds
11. No one with a working-class background, regardless of how many degrees they have -- unless they have amassed a huge fortune
12. No one with a middle-class background, ditto the modifying conditions above.
I could go on, but you get the point. "Elite" has become one of those words whose definition is impossibly blurred. It is such an imprecise word, one wonders why it is even used at all.
24
Have you considered that the definition may depend on the context in which the word is being used? The author has chosen to use it in one way she thinks the working class uses it, which has triggered half of the commenters here to discuss their own education. The media uses the word in a different way when analyzing elections. Do you understand that context matters?
8
It’s anyone who has a higher status that they can’t imagine being one day.
@BK: You're asking me, in a very condescending manner, if I understand that context matters. Good grief. Do you understand that when you are establishing context that you must define the meaning of the words you are putting into that context, if the words being examined are of disputed meaning?
The author assumed that everyone who read her work would define "elite" in exactly the way that she does. However, the comments here show that almost no one defines the word in exactly the same way. Its meaning has become so fungible that without a stated definition of it, any discussion of it is bound to become diffuse and oppositional.
Many wonder when the word "elite" became pejorative. Others claim that it is used by Fox to denigrate anyone with an education. Still others aver that they became elite through hard work, while others assert that those born into the elite are unfairly labeled anti-elite (specifically, Trump and Bush).
Many have multiple degrees, but we live in a world where that is no longer a guarantee of economic success. My friends and relatives with PhDs work as underpaid adjuncts. They win awards, but those awards generally don't come with remuneration.
The US is a country that admires and even worships just one thing: MONEY. So the guy who has little education, but is a successful tradesman is way more elitist in my eyes than the poor PhD who has toiled for years in academia, but has no means to support a family or own a home.
1
Elite, MEANS many things depending on context. But essentially the point is self definition, responsibility and influence. It is the law and customs formed by many centuries of praxis and social hierarchy as well the culture of those who are this class. With power comes responsibility.
Whatever differences in talent, capacity and desire exist in people or whether a human being should be condemned or not are subjective questions in practice if not theory, The judge must be considered elite in this situation. Both knowledge and power.
The other notion is the one of aspiration to being a more advanced 'better' human being. Again moral questions come into this. It is the struggle for a better way of living as expressed in behavior. Inevitably, as Jesus put it, this involves the choices we make in how we treat others every day.
Education, intelligence, motivation and honest self awareness of one's weaknesses must be stressed. This concept has been called 'Noblesse Oblige' and this duty has two natures (see Tolkein). The false and public, the other private.
Actually most people deal with this everyday just trying to survive and raise a family. In practice money counts and today we have a sick society. All too many youth today have psychological 'problems' and in the UK 1/5 children receive some 'medication'. We spend insane amounts of money on war. We need to focus more on rebuilding the nation's infrastructure. A true functioning elite would have dealt with this long ago.
4
It's important to understand the difference between being elite and being elitist. As an inner-city teacher, I have been on the receiving end of much derision from privileged liberal elitists simply for sharing my objective experiences and understandings with them, as their Ivory Tower propaganda runs contrary to them. For behaving as though the clearest view of every reality comes from their mountain-top looking down at everyone else, they should apologize.
13
Agree with Ms. Jacoby. A former mother-in-law, RIP, very working class upbringing (North Carolina orphanage during depression included) but personal achievement as a health care professional liked to chide us "if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" It partly reflected the differences of the Depression generation who highly valued economic security whatever it took compared to us Boomer upper-middle class folks who had the luxury of thinking beyond economic security. Working class "folks" have many reasons to be concerned about economic security and our polity must respect this - both their perception and reality. I just wish more people felt the phrase attributed to Confucius, which I've tried to use in my life: true knowledge is knowing what you know and knowing what you don't know. People dedicated to continual learning seem to get this; those without such discipline flail around with disinformation abounding, and frustrations accordingly high.
7
my 80 hear old grandma was given a dictionary by her boyfriend, who respected her for wanting to learn new words, every day. she in turn, treasured this more than many belongings.
3
Willful ignorance, the ignoring of facts and common sense, is not a product of socioeconomic status. However, a liberal arts college education does give one the tools to make assessments based on intellect over emotion. Blue states, the coasts, and cities, all have more college educated people and thus have a diversity of viewpoints that can seem "scattered". Freedom to think for yourself is not something that is allowed in republican orthodoxy and fundamentalist cultures, where lockstep unity is demanded. This unfortunately erodes our democracy and is highlighted everyday under the head-scratching acceptance of Trump's lunacy.
22
"However, a liberal arts college education does give one the tools to make assessments based on intellect over emotion. "
I knew undergrads in liberal arts who thought the Soviet Union was a workers' paradise but just a bit misguided. That Communism was the dream of workers but they (the workers) were uneducated and misguided in thinking otherwise - so much for that
4
How do you explain that the majority of voters with college degrees voted for Trump? Or that the majority of voters who lack a high school diploma voted for Hillary?
People who vote Democrat are easily tricked into believing lies and in believing that anything not politically correct is evil. It is Democrat voters who believe in orthodoxy, not Republicans or independents. As Gruber laughed, all you have to do is package the lies artfully, and the sheep will agree.
2
This is a great example of elitism--a liberal arts college education means that one values "intellect over emotion," while the great unwashed masses are incapable of doing so.
I've never thought that my or anyone else's degrees gave the powers attributed to college by this commentator.
3
Ignorance is a choice.
Sure, we can talk about how the use of the term 'Elites' is just another us versus them routine. And how meanwhile those same forces (who bandy this term about non stop) are spending millions infiltrating our college campuses with anti-intellectualism disguised as free speech. It's not hard to see that they understand full well that learning is the antidote to narrow-mindedness, and why they now brazenly show up at its front door to wage war against it. It's really not hard to see that their goal is to recruit as many participants as possible into a mindset that pits ordinary Americans against each other, in whatever shape it takes. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that they require narrow, black and white thinking in order to continue to profit off of us and our labor and our earnings.
But in the end, ignorance is a choice.
8
I read a bunch of anecdotes and stereotypes. Who is apologizing for being elite (whatever that means)? I make a good living but I also have worked hard my whole life. I don't even know what an elite is; how do I spot one?
3
Here's how to spot one: they went to college and think that made them smarter than people who didn't go to college or didn't go to a college they personally respect.
4
Read the Times
2
Excellent article raising difficult questions (I expected no less from the author of Wild Justice) But you are addressing academic/professional "elites" --that is to say, readers of the NY Times. What about the financial/corporate elites--the actual ruling class that dominates the cultural "elites"? Which of their advantages are they ready to "share" with the working class?
9
Low-information voters are easier to manipulate than ones who have gained certain knowledge and learned how to think critically. No wonder the oligarchs in our midst do everything they can to discourage education as something undesirable.
8
Nothing succeeds like excess, as the printing of this article demonstrates. The excess here is one of obtuseness. Can anyone actually imagine this liberal arts professor speaking against elites not "getting" those who are not the population segment delineated in this piece? Everyone in my elite circle expends copious time and energy attending to the viewpoints of those our society has wronged and "is still wronging."
Can anyone imagine this author offering to said segments that they should "accept ... the responsibility of self education', instead of "cling(ing) even more strongly to their deepest beliefs?"
I am not arguing hypocrisy here but obtuseness. I support all of our populations to want more and to use their voice in pursuing those wants.
The door through which this author goes lacks understanding and compasssion.
4
Angst solves nothing. At worst it serves as delusional reassurance that we have righted the wrong by feeling guilty about it. Privileged and angsting? Give money to or join a group that's actively working to change policy and practice to achieve racial and economic justice.
3
There's an entrenched anti-intellectualism that elevates "common sense" above educated professionals. Aristocrats, educated or not, were once branded elites. Today politicians direct that opprobrium at opponents to fan supporters' resentment.
6
I think it is the hypocracy of "liberal elites" that angers others. Environmentalists jet setting to their favorite tourist destinations then making sure everyone on social media is aware of their latest hip adventure. False concerns about affordable housing as they gentrify a new neighborhood or buy an investment property and raise the rent. Sermons about diversity and tolerance, then harsh judgements and bigotry in the form of identity politics. Too many first world problems.
I am thoroughly liberal, and I, too, am sick of the liberal elites.
18
Your point about "elites" pressing for diversity and tolerance -- the fruits of human progress -- is undercut when you then claim these same elites are judgmental and bigoted. I think what you mean is they voice support for causes such as environmental protections and greater equality, even though they themselves aren't always perfectly green or willing to -- actually I'm not sure what you'd like to see them do about poverty or lack of affordable housing. The problem comes when you accuse them of being unfairly appalled by racists, sadists, sexists, violence-lovers and other retrogrades.
Liberals don't claim to love any and all beliefs and behaviors. We can stipulate to the inherent dignity of every person without admiring ignorance and tribalism. People who shout that there are only two genders, that God didn't create Adam and Steve, that "illegals" are a terrible drain on our society, that climate change is a hoax, that the special counsel's investigation into Russia's interference in our elections is a witch hunt are displaying narrow minds proudly impermeable to new information or nuance because it makes them feel good; it quiets their unease about not being accomplished themselves. They refuse to back up their nutty assertions about Hillary's criminal acts and Obama's scheming. I don't respect their intellectual dishonesty or their bizarre resentment towards the front row kids.
1
"Intellectual elite" capitalizes on resentment to sell a position as populist, no matter its real substance, defining the position as outsider, anti-smarty pants, underdog. But creating a mythical, powerful enemy necessarily creates an equally mythical class of powerlessness, which reinforces and perpetuates the cycle of alienation that got the man in office elected. It also turns intellect into an enemy of the good, allowing the truly powerful to further manipulate those who buy into the rhetoric.
7
I thought Republicans were the rich elites? And the Democrat Party was the party of the poor and common man. All of a sudden Republicans are not rich?
7
We need to stop misusing the word elite as a synonym for educated. To do so is to reinforce the political strategy of cultivating resentment instead of providing education.
68
Best comment I've read this year. Thanks.
An adjunct college prof.
1
Yes. Thank you.
1
But the Fox-lovers rail against the educated "elites", not the wealthy "elites". If they hated they wealthy, they would never support Trump nor find common cause with the Kochs. It's the EDUCATED elites that make their resentment fires burn hot.
While some have tried to make "elite" a pejorative, I prefer a more positive view of the best that elite people can offer: Well and widely educated, a knowledge of what needs to be done for the country, and possession of the tools to accomplish those goals. We have many examples of such people in our history, and we need a lot of them right now.
9
Maybe, but many elites are also arrogant, bigoted self-righteous, rich snobs, who look down on working Americans and think they are too stupid to know what's in their own self interests. Those people found their champions in the Clintons.
1
Could someone explain to me what exactly it means to be considered "elite"? I have read here a lot of self congratulatory comments, but little more. Does elite mean one has a high profile or attended a top notch school or has a lot of money or a famous name/connection or background? If so, then being elite is pretty superficial and mostly show, so - pretty meaningless.
Elite, to me, encompasses true contribution. Most elites in my book, helped conquer AIDS or Hep C or any form of cancer etc, but they're not as a group high up on the ladder of the "elites", just as an example. Creating Facebook or Twitter or even Amazon, scary monopoly that it may become, gets more adulation. Even plenty of huzzahs for attaining political office, which is largely based on money, old boy connections especially educational, plus having a hide like a rhino.
Elite to me is not where you live, what you drive, or where you went to school. "Elite" is a term defined by what YOU have actually DONE.
17
d'accord! Spot on!
So the point is, "elites" should allow for the dignity of others, regardless of whether they have bothered to learn to think critically. Sound advice.
Regarding whether "elites" have anything to apologize for: there are those who have undertaken the hard work of examining their privilege and bias, and some have found themselves wanting. Is "elitesplaining" a word? It sure happens, and no surprise that people don't care to be an object of condescension. Anyone using their credentials (academic or otherwise) to denigrate others need that habit checked. If a cultural norm of shaming is the only thing that can accomplish that, so be it.
9
Is the struggle to share the fruits of one's advantages as hard for a member of an elite as the struggle to accept some level of responsibility for one's eventual station in life for a member of the working class?
IMHO, it is these sorts of internal struggles that define us as individuals; the outcomes of these struggles will ultimately determine the tenor and substance of our society.
8
How about stop being arrogant, insisting that you are correct, better than others, etc. Mostly because we disagree. Stop that and you won't have any issues, after all nobody is elite in everything. I had a great fishing guide something I could never do, he probably can't do advanced math. I did not care we spoke English and are the same race (the human race).
17
if "elites" are arrogant, than can commentators on the right stop claiming they are "fair and balanced" and are the only people that are sensible and "real americans"?
I don't disagree with (1) speaking up, not down, (2) turning students into educated voters, or (3) fighting to make college more affordable. But the author has defined "the elite" to suit her purposes.
My thesis is this: the "elite" are the rich and powerful. The fact that the rich and powerful in the USA are disproportionately white and male has led to the conflation of class privilege with "white privilege" -- when, in fact, many whites are hardly privileged. Appalachia, for example, has many of the same problems as the inner city -- food deserts, poor schools, lack of access to resources such as health care and internet, opioid addiction, high unemployment, etc.
But it is easier for a white person to "pass" as rich and powerful than it is for a person of color.
Yes, middle class people have more advantages from birth than working class or poor people do. And the solution is to make sure that everyone has the same educated, caring parents, good schools and health care, etc. that middle class people do. But Donald Trump or John Kerry does not confuse Joe the Plumber or even Jane the Computer Programmer with a member of the elite -- and neither do their children when they sit in an Ivy League classroom with Joe's and Jane's children.
13
We live in an era in which any person who feels slighted can become an instant internet star. I'm afraid any individual who possesses an advantage over others, whether that be financial, education, social or physical appearance, must, indeed, be willing to change their behavior and comments - just for the sake of appearing "humble." Otherwise, one invites the disdain of the masses.
3
Thanks for an excellent essay.
My maternal grandfather, whom I knew well, graduated from fourth grade in the 1880's. In south Indiana back then that was as far as school went. He was a very educated man.
6
Who or what is the elite?
Harvard professor?
Sheldon Adelson?
Social worker with 2 P.H.D.s?
27 year old coding whiz working 100 hours a week in Silicon Valley?
Betsy DeVos?
David Brooks?
Hedge-fund manager?
Scientist researching climate change?
The above disparate list is intended to demonstrate that the problem is the question itself. The REAL question should be: who in our society has the power to control the lives of others--against their wishes and to their detriment. In other words, who is in a position to exert tyrannical control.
FOX news has taught a large swath of the country to hate professors, the educated, etc. It should be clear that a social worker or a geologist is not in a position to have much influence at all over the lives of the good old ordinary, hard-working Americans. On the other hand........the Koch Brothers alone have the power to single-handedly make millions miserable. And they are not shy about exercising their influence.
38
The answer to your question is almost nobody. If you are actually a slave someone can do those things, otherwise you decide. You can leave this country, live like a hermit, leave your job, it is all under freedom.
3
I agree. Articles like this one are diversions and misdirections.
3
Rubbish. Long before Fox News, there were progressive and conservative values, with regard to education and a zillion other matters. Koch brothers? You conveniently do not mention Tom Steyer, who has more than enough moola and self-righteous assumptions to, as you say, single-handedly make millions miserable.
PS - "Hate" is a worn-out term and if you wish to be a critically thinking grownup you ought to stop parroting the propagandists who have led you to throw it around. I do not respect and I oppose partisan behavior on the part of publicly-paid educators; I do not hate them.
An elitist essentially means the individual is a 'snob'. Even if he or she is well educated, this doesn't mean they are intelligent overall.
The only way US citizens will have a chance at bettering their lives with education is if they seek community colleges, vocational school classes, and creative classes they believe will enhance their happiness and confidence. And yes, free undergraduate education, or close to it, should be every American's privilege.
7
Great except that free part. And here in TN you can get that .
1
Well done! Hillary could have played up her daughter of a poor girl/live-in maid roots and she didn't. Would it have mitigated the charge of elite that will always be attached to a smart, literate, organized, passionately dedicated, successful woman? No. Trump gets away with playing the folksy lovable cranky goofball because, born to Hundreds of Millions, he's incoherent, disorganized, sleazy, and silly. The Dump Pelosi movement infuriates us. Nancy is a rich old white woman who never needed the aggravation of trying to make the world better for everyone else. But, she gave it a go. Herded cats to get a health care bill passed that covered millions who scorn her. Tomas in Taiwan can take a long walk off a short plank. The kids in top schools today are often the most diverse, interesting, bright thinkers on the block. Getting scholarships because people like me identify with them and fund their tuition. They have no sense of entitlement. The know how to work.
They are inclusive. Not judgmental. Me, old, cranky and pfffttt.
28
I guess the basis for regarding oneself as “elite” really needs to be questioned constantly. If it’s merely the acquisition of knowledge that gives someone the sense that she is better qualified than almost all others to formulate policies that affect everyone then the right to impose them, I’d suggest that if she ever telegraphed that self-image to the wad, she’d be unlikely to be elected to ANY office – despite her “elite” status. The author’s “gran” would know this from her well of hard-earned wisdom, without needing to ask her adult granddaughter.
It wasn’t NJ Muslims who cheered 9/11 in the streets but Palestinians on the streets of Gaza. I remember the event quite clearly: Trump may be suffering from a surfeit of Big Macs – too much beef can do that. However, I’m not sure that the author’s friend’s aunt and uncle would have found that materially less outrageous than if it HAD been NJ Muslims. I for one found it TRULY outrageous, and it has affected my views of Palestinians since.
But I did love the Obama-poke about use of the word “folks” in a speech.
Whether some are “elite” by virtue of upbringing and sophistication, or eschew formal education and hold blue-collar jobs for the rest of their productive lives, everyone has INTERESTS; and it’s up to THEM not others to define those interests. Neither needs to apologize for anything.
4
This op-ed seems aimed in part at flogging the value of a post-secondary education in matters beyond mere job-training, but also at least in part aimed at making “elites” more effective in convincing non-“elites” of the intelligence of progressive policy positions. However, that Macomb County aunt and uncle knew enough to know that our politics were broken, that they had suffered for it, and that Trump, as out-of-the-box as he clearly was and is, might change that. Good for them.
But if “elites” on the left wish to be more effective at electing fellow travelers, then they need to pay less attention in their messages and agendas to cherished verities, delivered from their own burning bush in the stentorian tones of a James Earl Jones, and more attention to the INTERESTS of those whom they presume to represent – as defined by those PEOPLE, not by “elites”.
7
Don't understand where you found the author diminishing anyone's INTERESTS. Or promoting policy positions. She was pushing for education with a side of don't talk down to people. Her message was pass it on don’t apologize for it. Boom. Done.
4
We "elites" may deliver our knowledge "in the stentorian tones of a James Earl Jones"...but is it too much to ask that a president can form English sentences, understandable ones...sentences that make sense? Your are formidable in your eloquence. It leaves me speechless that you continue to defend the indefensible.
1
Please let's make a distinction between snobs and people who have reached the pinnacle of their professions due to a combination of talent, hard work, and, yes, luck.
The first atttiude, snobbery (including reverse snobbery) deserves to be criticized and rejected, but what about talent? A strong work ethic? Even luck?
If we're honest, we'll admit that most of us admire and want to have these traits ourselves.
Denigrating the people who have them by lumping them in which snobs is unfair and counterproductive towards instilling respect for education and providing opportunity for everyone to achieve the things that they are capable of.
12
Today's higher learning institutes have been severely influenced by the past 50 years of liberal, elite thought (i.e. egalitarianism) and rejection of "common sense" principals, such as merit and intelligence. Years of flattening the bell curve have taken their toll. The longer one is exposed to this mind-bending force in schools, the less one understands the ordinary, non-elite thought process. The end result is a warped sense of righteousness by the elite, and the misunderstanding and rejection of working class values.
9
You have clearly never studied or worked in one of our fine institutions of learning in the US. Meritocracy rules among students, both graduate and under grads, as well as among the faculty. Getting to a faculty position in a top tier university and getting tenured is not for the faint of heart...it's a cruel and exhausting slog (and yes, there is exhilarating insights and findings at moments).
5
Elitist and elite are different. As I see it, to be elite is to strive for self improvement. It matters not where you come from or your social standing. What matters is that you improve yourself. Education, the Arts, Music, Theatre, Film. Museums, all serve to make the individual, and by extension, society better and stronger. Elitism is an unfortunate term lording this hard work of self betterment and improvement above others less fortunate. I believe we all have a chance to make changes for our own good. We all speak English. We can all make decisions. Ignorance and apathy and laziness need not be tolerated or cowed to. Agaist this we can rise above and raise or voices for change. We need not speak that "language." America is a complex physchological, and even, philosophical state. Poverty can be overcome, but only by education. Education leads to greater self awareness, happiness, fulfillment AND ultimately better jobs. There isn't a single person in America who can't walk into a community college and begin anew. Too many children and obligations keeping you pinned down? Figure it out. Nothing is easy. Those who have figured it out have an obligation to help. No one does anything worthwhile by themselves. Those who gained access to an educated and monied elite by birth have an even greater obligation to fulfill every man's destiny of education, freedom ( from debt and burden) ultimately attaining an elite self, that is, a self better than before.
5
I think the analysis presented in the first half of this piece is compelling. However, the prescriptions offered by the author seem superficial and downright condescending. I don’t think nurturing and building up the self esteem of Trump voters will get much traction with those on either side of this social, political and economic chasm.
6
And many have plenty of self esteem, they just don't think traditional presidents were cutting the deal, so Trump.
3
Actually, V., you could have stopped after the word "think."
I totally agree.
I respect elites who prove to be well-educated, well-read, sophisticated, professional, knowledgeable, informed, concerned, resourceful, brainy, creative....
I have no idea anyone should disprove of people possess those qualities.
Elites are often the pillar of the society. Hopefully, our educational system can be more equal and improved so majority of the citizens can be elites.
8
I bet your idea of those criteria is way different than mine. Can't do advanced math, physics, and statistics and you are totally ignorant, most lawyers fit these criteria.
1
Then what's your criteria?
I am not being defensive but I am not ignorant. I am avid reader with intellectual curiosity.
"Elite" is a terrible (or, because of this confusion, perfect) word to use in political discussions because it has two distinct meanings. The first has to do with ability and qualifications, the second with social status, wealth, and power. I am really surprised that Susan Jacoby did not establish that difference before plunging ahead with what is a wonderful argument.
I do want an elite (accomplished, experienced, lots of her patients have lived) surgeon to work on my brain. I don't want elite (filthy rich, socially connected, financial ties to the powerful) politicians running the country. (I don't want them working on my brain either.)
30
I will solely focus on the exhortation that those who have received can mentor. To that, I say amen. Over the years, I have done so. Many of my former mentees have returned in my life when I needed spiritual uplifting the most. Many have humbled me by reminding me to accept the help of others.
7
I'm an educated person from an educated family. My roots are in the northeast. That said, I have never thought of myself as "elite," but consider that a label tossed on me by others. After the election, I read a number of articles trying to understand Trump voters. That didn't last long. I'm sorry if some of them are struggling, I've had low points in my life (yes, even economically). However, I can't help where I was born any more than they can. I support ways to make education accessible to all. I also think that we must do more to re-train workers as the world changes.
Ironically, during the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton gave a beautiful talk about coal miners. She acknowledged that they would be put out of work with progress, then went on to speak of the debt the country owed them and their ancestors and finished by calling for concerted efforts to help them re-train for new work. The GOP, of course, seized on her statement that they would be put out of work making it sound as if she enjoyed that fact. Trump then offered them their old, horribly dangerous and unhealthy coal mining jobs back... We still need to offer education and training to our workers, but they have to be willing to participate. Sadly, it will not happen soon.
51
Yes, Hillary Clinton regularly addressed the concerns of rural and working class Americans. But mainstream media coverage of her campaign was way off base, and played right into the hands of the right-wing spin machine. The NYT and other media organizations have a lot to answer for. I wonder how many journalists have engaged in any reflection about the role they played in her loss, as opposed to say, blaming her for "not connecting."
The use and defacto definition of "elite" was recrafted by Steve Bannon. "Elite" used to mean people with the most money and power, as in billionaires and some millionaires. By his money -or at least, according to his accounts- Trump would fit in this category. But Bannon cleverly memed and shifted the definition so that it came to stand for people who were from the Eastern part or far Western part of the USA, were liberal and had college degrees or above. This new definition distracted many from the fact that Trump belonged to the financial elite, and was of course aided and abetted by Trump's use of mostly one and two-syllable words, as well as his repetitions and dramatic gestures and pauses. So the "elite" against which his supporters voted was not an actual "elite," but the knowledgeable enemy/enemies of the highly monied class, the actual "elite." Superb piece of redefinition and scapegoating, on Bannon's part, and Trump played it for all it was worth, and perhaps more.
25
Exactly right. Although Bannon is simply the latest incarnation, with Rove and others before him engaged in the same propaganda. Rush Limbaugh had a regular schtick on his program that featured his sneering parody of the snobby elitist. It's sad that a caricature once confined to fringe hate-radio has taken hold within what used to be more discriminating sources. The counterpart to the liberal elite is of course the Trump voter aka the working class, an equal absurd load of hogwash.
1
First the asserted reason for this article is false! There has been little evidence in the NY Times and or major media that this nation's self imagined to be intellectually and morally superior elites are apologizing for much of anything on either the Left or other side of the political spectrum. The hard truth of reality, however, is that elites usually don't care about the welfare of the majority of common people, think of most humans as little more than convenient beasts of burden, and are also grossly ignorant of most of what occurs in the world that does not involve their pampered existences and particular professions, and so they are simply not qualified to lead. Most elites who are 'leaders' are as the saying goes are not "well-intended and do not know what they are doing" when it comes to making policy decisions that affect the welfare of whole societies.
15
Yes as clearly stated in a famous SF book, everyone can care about themselves, most about their immediate family, and few about those many who they don't know. His idea was to allow voting for only those who would demonstrate sacrifice for the general good, one that could kill you mostly.
1
I always find it funny when people reference Starship Troopers without realizing that Heinlen wasn't writing in favor of the government structure he described
1
Your characterizations of the "elite" certainly fit with the definition of the "intellectual" conservative, that is, the Republican elite. It is clear to anyone willing to open their eyes that only one political party over the past 50 years has passed or attempted to pass legislation which favors the less fortunate American worker. From healthcare to the minimum wage to finance reform to job training only the democrats have proven themselves on the side of the working class at all. The vast majority of elected Democrats are "elite" in their economic and education standing, but that doesn't stop them from using their position and power to improve America for all, not just their peers. That is the tactic of the Republicans, who take their working class voters for granted, and take behind the shed regularly. That these voters fail to see the Republican bait-and-switch time after time is the root of America's problems.
The idea that the undereducated, under-informed, incurious, and inexperienced have the right to lead over your so-called elite is what gave us Bush the incurious and Trump the idiot. It is a recipe for disaster. The fact that the perceived down-trodden voted for a self-interested supposed billionaire who spent his life demeaning, stiffing, and taking advantage of working Americans like them is all the proof you need that their rationale, and yours, is thoroughly faulty.
2
Having an elite education is an ideal we all ought to aspire, certainly nothing to apologize for, provided we remain humble and willing to lend a hand to those less privileged. As the saying goes: "from each according to his/her abilities and talent, to each according to his/her needs" (attributed to Karl Marx but authored by Louis Blanc). What we are missing, in this capitalistic system, is sensible regulation, so to allow a more equitable opportunity to succeed in life. While popular culture is what is on offer for most folks, a more evolved culture implies the preservation of what may not be available to everybody (by virtue of education and other means) and meant to be preserved for the ages, be it in literature, arts, music, philosophy, social science, etc; distinct from hard sciences and digital technology's revolution we may or may not fully embrace by virtue of our specialty and station in life.
3
Why very few can go to say Harvard, we need the vast majority to have good education, basic statistics prevents many from being elite. Most of your things are worthless to me, not that I don't know about them somewhat.
2
Harvard may be overrated, as it;s prestige come from students dedicated to seek excellence, and dedication to pursue their dreams. Any reasonably staffed community college with teachers impassioned to see his/her students excel and even surpass them, may provide higher education, civics included, to make out of us Renaissance men and women. At the end. it's not what you have but who you are and what one does to service one's community. Too much money, in this case, may actually be an impediment or at least a hindrance to being content with ourselves...and like what we do (as opposed to just doing what we like). Too bad that the word 'elite' has a bad reputation, perhaps by watching arrogant fellows 'a la Trump' pretend to be what they are not...and even have the gall to brag about it.
I appreciated particularly the author's statement that those with elite advantages should spend less energy apologizing (or I would add "sitting with" a feeling of shame) and more energy sharing the fruits of their advantages and working to extend those advantages to a broader populace. Practical action and conscious decisions can actually help others, while guilty hand-wringing only eases the conscience of the self-conscious "elite."
I think too that it only hurts others when "elites" pretend that education makes a person less able to understand, contribute, and so forth. The educated may make such claims publicly, but it is not how they will guide their own offspring.
4
The whole "elite vs working class" is a false dichotomy whose purpose is to distract from the real dichotomy which is Dark Money vs. The Public.
70
A few issues here. First, the only people I hear use the word “elite” are people in the media. When the media uses the word, it’s always in attempting to explain how white working class people feel and why some of them voted for Trump. However, I have never heard white working class people, including relatives of mine, discuss “the elite.”
Second, when the media discuss the elite, I don’t think they’re normally referring to academics. They’re usually referring to the highly educated and wealthier professional class in NYC, Chicago, and D.C. People who who lead large institutions, those on Wall Street, and lobbyists who have manipulated the political process to help themselves, rather than the rest of the public. This includes people from both political parties, and working class people are right to be concerned about this group.
Finally, how did you arrive at the elite as being all people in academia? I don’t think of professors at average state schools as having done anything impressive. The elite in academia are those at Ivy League schools and similar institutions, such as Chicago, Northwestern, Stanford, and Duke.
We continue to see OpEds like this by people speculating on how a group of the electorate thinks as a result of the last election, and these articles are getting worse.
17
Hear hear! The elites, so defined by wealth or education, owe it to society to help others less advantaged to embrace and enjoy the benefits of knowledge and affluence. The sense of superiority of those advantaged few (1%) leads ultimately to a segmentation of society that allows easy comparisons to Argentina, Panama, and other states where the 1% relies on a police state to protect them from their "fellow" citizens.
7
there are plenty of us who belong to the intellectual elite without being part of the 1%
bend smart requires some intelligence, a lot of curiosity, sure grit and the willingness to realize that what you know to be true might actually not.
1
Susan Jacoby's thesis would be more persuasive were it not for the unstated premise that having the benefit of a better, more "elite" education will promote "right" (read: liberal, politically correct) thinking. Those halls of elite education are the same institutions filled with students and faculty who seek to stifle geniune debate and discussion on all manner of subjects when someone doesn't parrot the liberal party line, and shout down any doubters. The party line can never be challenged or be demanded to state reasoned support, only acceptance.
23
Most professors welcome well constructed opposing views. The purpose of educations is to learn to question everything, critically, logically, and constructively. Expecting students to prescribe to a specific political ideology would be counterproductive to that goal.
I saw no such unstated premise.
In fact, such a premise is a fiction perpetrated by right wing propagandists, which by the way, insults conservative scholars everywhere, who managed to reach the pinnacle of their professions without becoming liberals.
The cynical, even vicious demonization of liberals and liberalism by right wing propagandists has been going on for decades and it is long past time to repudiate it for the extremist, nation-destroying tactic that it is.
This conversation is amusing to me. I am make and white, worked 5 jobs to get through graduate school, and now I am a professor at an elite university. But with all my efforts to escape lower middle class, I still realize the wind was at my back because I am white and a man.
We need to correct racial, gender, sexual and income discrimination, and change the wind to help others, the full rainbow, achieve their goals. That means fully funding public education, including college. Fully funding health care. And funding a minimum guaranteed universal income.
The math works. But not without tearing down the tax cuts, sharing the wealth and everybody offering a helping hand.
64
My grandfathers were a share-cropper and an Army sergeant. My father attended and graduated from college only because of the G.I. Bill after serving as a tail-gunner in WWII. I work as a Professor of Physics at a top-20 Physics department. I know of few countries in which the grandson of a share-cropper turns out to have my job.
My relatives are, mostly, "blue-collar." Most people I knew as a kid were "blue-collar." To think of my family and acquaintances as incapable is, of course, insulting. If self-described intellectuals concentrated on what could solve people's problems, not on imposing guilt for their or their ancestors' sins, people I know would respond positively. No one needs to limit their word choice to one syllable words. Concentrate on solving problems people have and give them the elbow room to be themselves in their private lives. Appeal to the better natures most have, rather than castigating those who disagree with you on some issues. That is how anyone, "intellectual" or other, changes hearts.
Finally, recall my own story. America is, in spite of what some say, a special country. Try respecting the best we have done instead of concentrating solely on our failings.
21
The GI bill saved our family too, and enabled me to eventually earn a doctorate.
A former gentleman friend of mine, who attended segregated schools all his life, until med school, got there through football scholarship undergrad.
Another gentleman friend earned a doctorate despite coming from a home where the only books were the Bible and a phone book.
Both men had people who believed in their abilities and were able to portray a life to them that they could not at all imagine at the time.
I wish I could do that for kids.
Who are the "elites?" By the numbers, income inequality has not been so stark since 1929. The one percent of the one percent has the lion's share of this nation's wealth all to themselves, once again. If those "elites" are not literally running the country (think Kennedy, Bush, Trump DeVos, Cushner, etc.), they are de facto running the country through their political "donations" (think Koch, Adelson, Bloomberg, etc.). In all this "class warfare" and "elite" finger-pointing ginned up by the media (and swallowed whole by their listeners), this tiny, but significant, class of ACTUAL elites is largely left out of the discussion. It is they who have out-sized power in this country. I live in a unique location, in that, we have all three of these classes concentrated in a fairly small geographic area, so I get to see thees distinctions up close. We have: (1) working class and poor people (living in apartment rentals or subsidized housing); (2) college-educated middle and upper-middle class people (living in "respectable" to "nice" neighborhoods); and, (3) actual elites (living in jaw-dropping, beach-front mansions and constantly flying above us in their exquisite private jets). Let me tell you, only one of these things is not like the others. Only one of these groups does not have to rely, in some way, on the government, (think medicare, public school, social security, etc.). Hint: it's not the first two groups.
27
Definitions are crucial. Are the elite the top 1% financially? The top 1% on IQ tests? The CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies? Or is "elite" just the newest mocking slur Republicans use to disparage Democrats, replacing "liberal" from a few election cycles past?
It is rarely only one side in a dispute that is responsible for bridging a communication gap. One difference between elites and more average people, though, is that elites are better able to wall themselves off, to avoid interactions with and experiences comparable to those of ordinary people. That is a mistake.
Growing up, the jobs that prepared me best for becoming a doctor were not summer research posts, they were making burgers in fast food stores and shelving merchandise in a warehouse. I worked with regular Joes and Janes, as co-workers and customers. I learned a lot about people, good and otherwise, but mostly that we had much in common even though my education was better.
15
I'm an Ivy League graduate, and I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt about being well-educated. But I do feel a little obtuse for missing the angst that many Trump voters feel. Of course, they've been led down the garden path by the likes of Fox News and the other reactionary media. They've been trained to hate people who are better off than they are. This may be partly due to the rising inequality of income, and it may be partly due to the deterioration of their lives due to globalization. And we were blind to their plight.
We see in Trump a con man willing to say anything to get his way. They see in Trump a man who addresses, at least superficially, their concerns. They've been misled into voting for a party that needs their support, but which really only satisfies the demands of the party's financiers. If they read the Times, they'd at least be exposed to this message, but they'll never hear it from Hannity or Ingraham or Coulter.
Winning these people back will require persuading them that there are better alternatives to populism, nationalism, and racism. It will take action more than words, empathy more than didactics. And time's running out.
19
I work at a major research institution and I hear no one expressing any guilt about their well-hidden but generally very real sense of superiority to the "common man."I respect education and educated individuals but oh, how much I would like to see many of them actually work a physical job and live off that income for a period of time before they make any comments about those members of the working class for which they are, truthfully, afraid.
20
I purchased my first house when 2x annual income was the average house price, in 1972.
Technological advancement was more gradual and typewriter repairmen were there for us.
Now, almost every important life decision seems zero sum, and more people are being left behind.
Elite and deplorable labeling is not helpful, it is just another wedge.
20
Well said Robert, thanks.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
Being part of the elite used to be an aspirational idea. It meant being among the best. Populism turned it on its head and made it about power. It is also true that many intellectuals are too far removed from the realities of others and misuse their status with condescension.
7
We just need to ban the term elites when applied to a group. Expunge from the lexicon of common speech. It's currently used only to identify an 'other to hate' a target of ill-placed blame. I remember when it was narrowly applied to athletics, or academic chess masters.
I'd like to think that if they were true patriots, they would start referring to 'Elites' as every American. Isn't that the name of their supposed patriotic game? "America's the Greatest" - in that sense we're all 'elite' among the world.
Except that also would be false, considering our current administration's desire to reduce out reputation to that of guttersnipes.
Ban the word.
10
Yeah, good call, ban speech that upsets you.
1
I'm elite, with high income and a post-graduate degree. The problem with my fellow elite is the message that the working class needs to be taught a politically correct way of thinking. Perhaps the elite could step back and listen, and learn lessons from them.
14
I think that we disagree about the meaning of 'elite'. To me, a person who belongs to the elite based on education and intelligence doesn't go in for 'political correctness'. An 'elite' person's beliefs are formed according to ethics, logic, and broad informed experience, not according to knee-jerk received opinion.
1
Spot on.
Thank you, Susan Jacoby; you are absolutely right.
I teach in a public school in which I am the only male who consistently wears a tie to school every day. I greet each of my students each day by asking them how they are feeling. They are required to respond with "well," as opposed to "good." They may also say that they are feeling badly with an "ly," but never bad without the "ly."
I talk up to my students by calling them ladies and gentlemen, and I often answer them with "Yes, m'am" or "No, sir."
I am considered by many of my colleagues to be an elitist, but for me to dress down, not to mention changing my grammar and syntax would be betraying my roots.
I was reared in a white collar household, with a college-educated father who wore a coat and tie to work each day. This brought me many advantages. But I was taught that to whom much is given, much is expected.
I try to fulfill that obligation by imparting to my students not only the knowledge I have of my subject area, but also the etiquette instilled in me by a mother who insisted that I read Emily Post and a father who believed that clothes really do make the man. They both taught me that how we speak reflects either positively or negatively on us.
It is not elitist to be the best you can be and encourage students to do the same. As far as I'm concerned, it is a moral imperative.
183
"To whom much is given, much is expected"
What a beautiful sentiment. Thank you for sharing this. I believe this and live by this and try to teach my children the same thing.
14
I feel good is grammatically correct--unless you are talking about how good you are at using your hands for feeling things. Feel is a copulative, or linking, verb. Good here tells you about the content of your consciousness, not the manner in which you do something. So James Brown was right to say "I feel good". Likewise, "I feel badly" is grammatically incorrect. One should say "I feel bad." It is true (as seen in the excellent series Deadwood) that in some places the usage developed to say "I feel poorly" when you felt sick (rather than sickly). But that was despite the grammar. "Well" is also used to refer to an absence of sickness. If someone asks you if you feel well, they are asking you if you no longer feeling sick. There are quite a few linking or copulative verbs, verbs that are followed by an adjective rather than an adverb. To be is the most famous of them. As far as elites, got a lot of them should feel guilty: they have fake expertise that has mislead people. They should not feel guilty for being an elite, but for being an elite that is harming society. For example, the august body of foreign policy experts that are now supporting the "resistance".
5
You are correct. Shows how good education was way in the past. Over 50 years ago I was made to memorize the copulative verbs and still remember, appear smell feel look etc. cringed when I read "feels well". Sorry to have to say this because the sentiment was lovely.
Ms. Jacoby has a skewed perception of "Elites." Elites aren't the middle or upper middle class, the educated professionals and skilled tradesmen of our society. The "Elites" from my perspective (A retired professional engineer) are the 0.1% and 0.1% wannabes of America. The very upper class, the Kochs, the Adelsons, the Trumps, etc; the ones that buy our politicians with their campaign contributions. Those are the "Elites" that are running (ruining?) our country. And they aren't apologizing for anything. Sure, a few like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are more benevolent with their wealth. The majority however are predatory and apparently insatiable in their quest for even more wealth. The 0.1% owning almost 90% of the wealth in this country is apparently not enough for them.
116
Reading all of these letters, it strikes me that for quite some time, we haven't been working from the same definition of 'elite'. Webster's main definition is: "a select part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities, for example, "the elite of Britain's armed forces".
This simply means 'the best' in any particular group, with a lot of room available for which group we mean, and how to measure 'the best'.
It leaves a lot open to interpretation, but I wouldn't consider wealth to be a criterion.
2
Ms. Jacoby precisely understands who the deplorable class considers elites. They drool at the thought of Trump, the low class scam artist who can barely speak English because they thought he was RICH. The Koch Brothers and Mercers and Sheldon Aldersons are just fine with them -- they are not considered the "elites" -- it is the educated that are considered the elites and the enemy of "real" Americans.
You may consider the people you described (and correctly described as controlling the country) as elites but anyone who got rich through business is put on a pedestal by the deplorables and not within the elites they so hate.
2
That is not who she is talking about, and that is not who the Fox crowd thinks the "elites" are. That is a separate discussion entirely.
3
People should stop apologizing for being elite because there's nothing wrong with being educated, accomplished, or ambitious.
The problem is when people pretend that their success simply came from being smart and working hard and forget about the advantages or sheer luck that helped them along the way. However, again- being educated, accomplished, and ambitious are positive things that should be celebrated.
64
What you describe in your first paragraph as elite is not actually elite.
2
Ha I came from DC, try that out West, it will not work.
I don’t believe those with a better education or who have higher incomes need to be ashamed of their success. The denigration of “elites” is a Fox News talking point similar to a plantation strategy to flatter working class whites.
We shouldn’t be sheepish about expressing ourselves politically or intellectually about the issues. Ignorance is no replacement for knowledge. Let Trump rattle on about it, but don’t join the chorus.
The valid criticism of some of the policy elite is that they implemented “solutions” that didn’t work for some of those for whom they were intended. One must admit that ObamaCare was not a very good solution for upper working class healthcare access. It does no good to keep telling the victims of ObamaCare how much you have helped them. Far better to propose better solutions to these problems that are not riddled with doughnut holes and bad insurance models.
Blue collar and white working class voters speak English and should be required to process basic civics arguments. We shouldn’t pander to lazy explanations just to appease people. However, we should also strive to understand the practical implications of government policies. Just because some technocrat implements an efficient policy doesn’t mean that it isn’t harmful for many of the citizens, and we shouldn’t fail to measure the outcomes honestly,
8
One thing we "elites" can do is teach others.
I'm an engineer. When I was about 10 years old, I hung out at a TV repair shop. The WWII vet in a wheelchair became my teacher. I fell in love with electronics.
Now I volunteer at an elementary school where most have never met an engineer. I help teach science after class. I explain physics and technology and how things work without doing math. Perhaps I can positively influence some of them.
55
The whole discussion surrounding "the elite" baffles me. Here's the dictionary definition (Oxford) of elite: "A select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society."
I aspire to be in this group. I am in awe of elite people like Elon Musk or Stephen Hawking, and wish we had more of them in our world. When I go to the doctor, I'm hoping I get one of the elite ones. When I put my child in school I'm also hoping she gets teachers who are among the elite. When I shop for anything anywhere, I look for reviews and try very hard to only buy the best I can afford. Even for restaurants, I scour Yelp so that when I spend my hard earned money to dine out, I'm choosing the best that I can.
I was horrified to read today that the Russians could flip the switch on our entire power grid, and I'm wondering why we haven't employed the elite to protect us from this extreme threat to our existence (think simultaneous meltdowns at all nuclear power plants in the country).
It's downright crazy to either feel guilty for being among the elite, or denigrate those who have climbed their way into that echelon. The only gripe I have is reserved for those who don't acknowledge their good fortune and who actively work to impede the abilities of the less fortunate who try to improve their circumstance (aka Paul Ryan et al.: they should feel nothing but shame).
50
Yes, and likely you were my neighbor in Alex. I agree with you totally but it is different elsewhere and the Midwest and West is often quite hostile to backgrounds such as mine. But still, as you write, people want their children into best schools IF are aware that there is a difference between schools and that they may have a choice and can figure out how to do it. We should help them.
My grandmother did not finish grammar school and she was well-read and well educated. So, while I enjoyed Susan Jacoby's anecdote about her grandma, the rest of her article leaves me cold. I came from a working class background, went to work full time right after high school, and pursued my college education at night. It was then, and is now, upper middle class children of professionals who let me know then that my education was not as good as their educations, and, let me know now that I don't experience sufficient guilt over the "white privilege." Dump the term "elite." The real "elite" are the "power elite" and that group has proved they know how to use language to divide and conquer. Just the facts, please.
18
This "elites-are-bad" syndrome seems to go way back, maybe even to the beginnings of our Republic, maybe further. I am currently reading "It Can't Happen Here," by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1935. The same viewpoint of "elites" exists in the story. And, by the way, although that book is about the politics of the mid-1930's, it could easily (and eerily) describe today's situation.
30
I worked in Macomb County for years and there is a predominant world view of keeping taxes low and the old pull yourself up by the bootstraps ladder to success. Someone once told me that the more letters after a person’s name, ie, degrees, the harder they hit the ground. Snowmobiles, watercraft, and guns are generally considered a worthwhile expenditure but voting a millage for public services like libraries not so much.
13
Great, exactly what we need - educators turning students into "educated voters" How about if they teach them skills that will result in a well paying job?
5
Well, perhaps “educated voters” could support adequate funding for schools to teach “the skills that will result in a well paying job” on the local level, and on the state and national levels, support policy decisions that would focus on and fund STEM and technical education in high school and colleges. That is, rather than listening to knee-jerk appeals to cut taxes by their legislators.
Lucky,
More money is always the solution for the education industrial complex. In NYC we spend more then 20k per student, that isn't the solution.
1
It’s not mutually exclusive, for heaven’s sake.
2
The problem with elitism is the intrinsic value of success or failure it breeds in American culture. Example...almost everyone wants their children to go to a 4yr college. It is a measure of success in the United States. It is seen as the ideal path to a profession; meaningful work. If your child doesn't go to college in 21st century America, it is perceived that you Did Something Wrong as a parent. Baccalaureate degrees are a welcome packet for elite membership (but certainly not the only qualifier).
Nobody, including the commenters here or the NYT staff writers, wants their children to get vocational educations. Wants them to run a CNC machine, or drive a cement truck, or install HVAC. Sure those jobs have value, we say, and technical skills are important to learn, but tacitly we agree that those skills are for others to pursue. MY child will go to college.
I say all this because the perception of elites (synonymous in my mind with advanced education) can't help but look down on the lowly American worker. You know it, I know it, and they know it.
28
Hi Gideon,
I do not know it. I have degrees in math and statistics, but I am not an electrician. I am not a mechanic, a plumber, an HVACer, or a person who performs one of the many, many other jobs that require knowledge, skill, and hard work. I value, admire, and feel grateful to such people for the expertise that they have that I don't have. Well, you reply, maybe you value the trades, but you don't value unskilled laborers. First, I doubt that there are any truly "unskilled" laborers. Second, I admire people who do a good job regardless of the "skill" or amount of training required to do it. If you are honest, kind, and hard-working, you are a valuable human-being. You don't need a degree or accreditation to be honest, kind, and hard-working. Those of my friends who do have degrees don't walk around feeling superior to those of my friends who don't. That is because my friends with degrees, like my friends without degrees, are kind, honest, hard-working human beings.
Best regards,
Steve
12
This is absolutely NOT true. If this were really in the heart of the Democratic Party, we would never get back in power again.
Gideon,
Your stereotypes are as unproductive as those of the bubble-dwellers. In my career as an academic physician in a leadership position, possessing multiple professional and liberal arts degrees from first-tier colleges, I have encountered some very smart people, even a couple of Nobelists. Among them was a welder I worked with when I was a farmboy. This guy knew how to make anything and do everything, and you didn’t need to tell him what you needed.
But here’s the thing.
He insisted his kids go to college, in hope that they would make enough money to not be pushed around. He was a deservedly proud man. He knew that, despite his skill and his personal worth, and how hard he worked, he would always be under the thumbs of the rich, powerful, and connected. And that’s what it’s about. FDR and LBJ wanted to change that by getting “elites “ and “regular folks” to work together. Maybe it’s still possible.
The best to you, my friend - najlepsza dla ciebie, przyjacielu.
1
I was alone in the world, working my way through Community College. I was eating out of an abandoned garden and soup kitchens. I lived in a large closet that held me, sleeping on the floor, and a book shelf. There was a sign in a store window on my way to class: "Knowledge is power. Got to school." That sign got me through, and until I took in my 3 simultaneously-earned A.A. degrees to thank the owner, he'd never known I existed. Keep working for yourself, and keep working for someone you may never know was watching.
Good article.
38
Its not the hierarchy that is the problem. It is proportions. Money can buy the most destructive behavior, while everyone else is left to cope with the results. I cannot imagine a more genuinely oppressive design than our own. It rewards a rotating membership and focuses competition to its own end. Our institution is decaying before our eyes, and its constituents are arguing about stereotypes and merit badges.
8
The truth is it was the elites on the left who gave this election to Trump. The "educated," ( but not in basic Civics) who use the terms "entitled" and "coronation" to denigrate the hard work that Hillary had done for years. The same children who against all logic insisted that withholding a vote for Clinton was not the same as giving a vote to Trump. Who did not understand the peril of putting all three branches in the hands of Republicans. Who didn't care about putting the courts in the hands of ideologues who are clearly unqualified. And in lifetime appointments. As long as their smug sense of self-righteousness was satisfied.
In working for over 40 years the one thing that I learned for certain was that a college degree on a resume was not going to be the measure of the quality of the work of the person in a job. Nor of the intelligence of the person or their ability to think logically and creatively.
34
Wow, imagine a party (and coterie of adherents) so arrogant that it blames voters for its repeated losses over a 25+ year span rather than trying to win them with a platform that they actually, fully support.
No, the elites of the Democratic Party are the donor class, and they are significantly more conservative than the Party's actual base and rank-and-file members. The Democratic leadership would rather hew to this elite class and lose than reflect its own base. Anyone who supports that need only take a look in the mirror to see who is to blame for Trump.
8
This small group of Bernie supporters influenced by Russians who Bernie refused to point out were putting out false information about Hillary in his name are statistically responsible for the loss of THIS election.
I was born into a working class family in California. Thanks to government support of the University of California system and federal Pell grants, I was able to get a top flight education for nearly free. Also thanks to government support, I subsequently got a professional degree from an Ivy League university. Based on my current income, education, and career, I suppose I would be considered part of the elite. I know exactly where I came from and how government support provided me with opportunities to improve my station in life. All attempts to cut federal educational support to low-income students are short-sighted and a travesty.
317
I am not sure I agree with Ms Jacoby's analysis.
I certainly agree with her wishes.
5
I agree with the notion that educators need to help students become educated voters. But we should also keep in mind that it wasn't the children who gave us Trump--it was their grandparents.
Can we send the grandparents back to school?
37
There are two pieces to this situation. One is that “elites”, whether born elite or self made, cannot pull up the ladder behind them. Opportunities need to exist for bright, motivated people to join their numbers. Scholarships, grants, etc. make us a stronger country. The other piece is for the poor. They must invest in education and job training that will help them climb out of poverty. Sometimes you have to work multiple jobs or work and go to school in order to succeed. Neither of my parents were educated. We had no money for college. But scholarships and multiple jobs helped get through. The same happened to my husband. We joined the “elite”. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it. Education is the key.
24
Sometimes I wonder how to reach through to people. Myself and my sister are all well-educated with degrees from elite institutions. My mother has always been proud of our educational and career success, yet when it comes to politics, she is so resentful of our liberal views, even though it is that very education which helps inform them. All of a sudden, my sister and I know nothing of the real world or how liberal elites game the system against working people like herself. It is really challenging to try and reason with her when much of her political views reflect some of the worst vitriol in right-wing media or our President. It deeply saddens me, but thank you for the reminder not to give up.
88
Your mother sounds like my father, an octogenarian who finished undergraduate plus dental school in 6 years. A brilliant man who most days can be found tearing up the table at masters bridge. Right before he watches several hours of Fox "News" a day. Now, this intelligent man is a victim of a steady drip of propaganda and with a straight face denies the existence of human-influenced climate change. So sad! (But full disclosure, he was perhaps a willing victim, having supported both Goldwater and Nixon.) He can hardly believe his children and grandchildren - most of whom he helped support through college degrees - are almost all progressive.
1
It's just so hard to be smarter than other people--to be so elite.
1
Try to convince her to watch PBS instead of Fox News. Maybe do some kind of challenge with her to make it fun. Get her a subscription to “The Week”—it’s brief, balanced, and entertaining—I do this with some of my conservative relatives. I swear, it has helped.
In our family, we still have the letter my great-aunt in Germany wrote to my émigré grandfather: "Thank you for the dollar."
In three generations my family has gone from a cleaning lady and janitor with eighth-grade educations to teachers and salespeople to Ivy-educated international investors and media professionals. That is a good thing. More people should have that opportunity and we should all work toward making it possible for others.
But one thing I am not going to do is say that education is bad and that decisions informed by facts are bad. These things are good and should be basic to our democratic fabric. And it has become clear to me how much our citizenry and self-seeking politicians have abdicated that responsibility. So if it's up to the elites to preserve what's left of democracy, so be it. I proudly take the title of elite.
105
Am I mistaken about this? I don't believe the issue regarding "elites" (whatever that means) is because people on the right or Trump voters or blue-collar workers think about the world in this way (i.e., elites vs. real people).
Instead, the accusations I saw the most often about "elites" were from the far leftists who believed that the Democratic Party was catering to something called "elites."
As a totally left-center Democrat I feel I have more in common with blue collar workers, farmers, etc., than with those far leftists who somehow see me and people like me as the villains because we haven't adopted something they (erroneously) term a New Deal Democrat.
I am a successful 70-year-old. Went to school, got a job, retired, and am living comfortably. Thank goodness for me (and the world) that I don't have to fix the wiring in my house, raise my own cattle to eat, or build my own bridges. I wouldn't know where to start. And am in awe of people who can do these things.
But according the far leftists I am an "elite." Elite at what, exactly?
37
The right brands you as elite as well, and equally inaccurate.
1
You don’t sound elite. You sound like someone who benefitted from low taxes while the national debt sky rocketed, and those “far leftists” will have to pay for this when they get older. Congrats on your comfortable retirement.
1
Here’s the text of a currently circulating internet meme with a subtle but powerful anti-intellectual message: “Don’t become preoccupied with your child’s academic ability, but instead teach them to sit with those sitting alone. Teach them to be kind. Teach them to offer help. Teach them to be a friend to the lonely. Teach them to encourage others. Teach them to think about other people. Teach them to share. Teach them to look for the good. This is how they will change the world.” This meme uses an irrelevant appeal to emotion - the value of compassion - to argue that knowledge development is an unimportant determinant of success. As Richard Hofstadter identified in the 60’s, anti-intellectualism is alive and well today. Elites who prefer civil society had best focus their efforts on beating back the potential spread of anti-liberal, authoritarian propaganda designed to suppress dissent and to promote mass complacency and conformity.
32
This meme has been around for awhile and the only thing wrong with it is that it was coopted and made to skew anti-education. There is nothing mutually exclusive about academic and moral education. If people really did teach their children to offer help, be a friend to the lonely, share, and think about others, everyone would be liberal!
Most of the elite are the elite because of the parents they were born to and the opportunities, upbringing, and education that those parents were able to provide. While there was intelligence and hard work involved for some, many are in the elite simply because their parents are wealthy (the chief example being the President). So it is not unreasonable for those outside the elite to cast aspersions on those in the elite because many of the elite do not, in fact, deserve to be there. So yes, if you are in the elite and actually deserve everything that you have received in life (don't be too sure of that), you'd better be prepared to defend it. The default assumption is that those in the elite got there at least in part based on who they know, not what they know.
16
Mostly not true. My parents and those of my husband were midwestern farmers with only a high school education. Then we went to our state's university, because it was then affordable. My husband received a Woodrow Wilson fellowship that took him to a western state university for a master's degree and then he went to Harvard Law School. I also got a master's degree.
So now we're elites????? Actually, we are. We studied, worked and enjoyed every minute of it. Along the way, without aiming for it, we gained a good jobs, wonderful friends, a recognition of how lucky we are, and a certain amount of wealth. I refuse to be embarrassed by this. In fact, I'm grateful for it.
What we had instead of wealthy parents, were good parents who, without a university education, still read books, informed themselves and were citizens of a wider world than their 200 flat acres.
It doesn't take wealth. It takes intelligence, confidence and imagination. Becoming part of the elite is, in fact, the American Dream. I lived it. Thank you, Mother and Father, farmers all.
141
Well said. My father was the first in his family to get a college degree thanks to the GI Bill, but his children all paid cash for their undergraduate degrees at state schools. My brother got a Masters and I got a JD, courtesy of Pell grants and Sallie Mae loans.
Are we Elite? We don't think so. We are in our mid 60's, and comfortable. We worked for what we have.
As a side note, I received the brochure from the Suffolk County Community College today in the mail and I am amazed at the number and variety of job prospects out there for those who are willing to invest 2 years in themselves.
Is that elitism?
9
I guess the point might be, some people don’t have such good parents.
About that famous 2017 Pew poll:
"58% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say colleges and universities have a negative effect on the way things are going in the country, while just 36% say their effect is positive"
Sometimes, people are just not right in the head.
Sometimes, right-wing propaganda, poison and spite actually destroys brain cells and causes brain damage.
How else to explain such irrationality ?
What America's right-wing desperately needs is deep intensive daily psychotherapy to work out their spite and anger management issues that would allow them to remove their heads from the buttocks of Grand Old Poison.
218
"58% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say colleges and universities have a negative effect on the way things are going in the country, while just 36% say their effect is positive"
A more nuanced interpretation might be that colleges and universities have mixed effects, including some that are decidedly negative, such as lack of diversity of ideas, and the embracement of post-modernist neomarxist interpretation of humanities and social sciences. Math or science contributions, very valuable, other areas, not so much since classic points of view are stifled.
8
J Anderson...a more nuanced interpretation would concede that critical thinking skills are dramatically enhanced via the collegiate academic experience and exposure to a broader world and the cross-fertilization of ideas that is typical of the university experience.
Liberal arts exposure also enhances one's appreciate for society, humanity and the human experience.
Life isn't just a cold quantitative exercise; it's about human nature and the sustenance of planet Earth to ensure that humans have a livable planet.
On the other hand, the financial cost of universities is a moral abomination.
28
The issue is not higher education, per se. It is the radical left ideologies, wrapped up in a reality distortion field, that populate universities that are the problem.
2
I am white, grew up in an east coast US city, have a masters degree, have a professional job, live in a nice house in a very nice neighbourhood, am liberal, and have a cat and a Volvo. I guess I qualify as an “elite.” LOL. I sure don’t feel very influential. I have had long bouts of “consulting”, a modern euphemism for unemployment, been on food stamps, and have had to forego health care for financial reasons. Really elite kind of stuff.
But I feel no guilt for my so called elite status any more than I hang my head in shame over slavery - when my ancestors were living in stone huts in the mountains of Italy at the time. I don’t believe in collective guilt. That’s just a liberal version of Original Sin and just as bogus.
I have spent my elitist career working to create job opportunities and economic well-being for those who need jobs, *especially* for those hard hit by the decline of manufacturing in the US. That’s an elitist liberal sort of activity but hopefully it helped a few “real Americans.”
The answer to those who denigrate people like me should know that it is the dreaded “elite” who are working for better opportunities for them, not the trumps, Ryans and McConnells of the world. They don’t know you exist apart from electoral roles. You’re placing your hope in the wrong people. Go ahead and hate us but a lot of us are actually on your side - whether Volvo, Corolla, or F-150.
Thank you.
1201
Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason was splendid. This essay, less so.
My education doesn't make me elite; just educated.
And when the plumber or electrician visits my house in order to make a repair, I am always struck by their knowledge and professionalism -- and grateful for both.
8
"whether Volvo, Corolla, or F-159." Nice.
Yes, you are an elite. You have ensconced yourself from the things that made your sheltered life possible. Your nice foreign car, nice neighborhood and house unblighted by industry or the poor, your masters degree in some social science are all insulators from the things that allow your lifestyle to exist. The long supply chain.
I drive an F150 and a train track runs through my backyard. Never had the ability to go unemployed for any measure. I don't hate you, but I envy and resent your privilege.
3
"Finally, those who have profited from the best schooling our society has to offer"
It is a doubtful proposition that our elites got the best schooling. To the contrary, they built their resumes so they could get into Harvard and Yale and join the ruling elite. The folks who wanted an education went to schools where the professors were focused on educating them, not their next editorial in the New York Times. The folks at Harvard and Yale learned was that they were the ones with the "right" answers and if they didn't have the right answer, it was surely on of their colleagues that would know it if anyone did. In short, they learned success in life was learning the right answer to SAT questions. Unfortunately the real world doesn't have a lot of places you can get the "right" answer. People have to create those answers from experience, experimentation and study.
In short, the problem is not that our elite got the best education. Its that they didn't. They got taughgt power and arrogance. Or in the words of aa former Harvard president "You can be and insider or an outsider. But insiders don't listen to outsiders." That pretty much sums up a Harvard education.
25
Thank you for this article. As a (former, retired) blue collar worker and the grandchild of self educated immigrants I have for a long time been upset by the false equivalence often made in this country of education and class or elitism. It is extremely important not to make kids ashamed of doing well in school or of loving learning for fear of “selling out” their own group. Making people think working class and ignorance go together is the easiest way there is to control the working class. We must not fall for this.
183
I have batchelors, masters and PhD degrees. I own a farm. Am I elite?
Neither of my parents finished high school - mostly due to the depression and their families needing all hands on deck working. I am the first to attend college. I was raised on the importance of education and hard work and taught that there was no work beneath me if necessary. And no one, no matter what race, ethnic background, or means is better than anyone else.
Sure looks like I'm an "elite" if that means I've been sucessful but no one handed it to me and more importantly, the themes of my parents' messages had to do with hard work and never, ever considering oneself above or below anyone else.
It's that second message that is missing for many young people growing up "elite."
20
The worst thing about your comment is that too few people have recommended it. Hard work and never considering you are above or below anyone else should be the foundation for all society. It lets you be proud of your achievements without them going to your head. I grew up in ani egalitarian society (rural
Zealand 40s and 50s) where all work was considered honourable.My university educated commissioned officer headmaster father worked at the nearby meat processing works during his holidays to save money for a house. Because he wasn’t permanent staff, he had the worst job, cleaning intestines in the “gut
room.” I never a word of anything but respect from him for the people with whom he worked. Were he still alive I’m not sure what he’d think about the way Trump has exploited exploited the class structure of the US. But I know he’d recommend your comment.
I'm educated, care about people and wish for everyone to have a fair shot at living a dignified life, which includes education, health and jobs. Call me elite. That would certainly give my truck driver father a good chuckle.
50
All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you. I have been thinking along the lines of this piece ever since people started blaming the elites for the mess of the 2016 election. So again, thank you for such a clear, sober, spot on assessment of why so called elites can stop rending their garments.
17
"Elite" is a category of thinking that essentially did not exist til this millennium. A similar category did, however, exist in the 60s. Spiro Agnew got the "silent majority" (something he and Nixon concocted) going against the "effete intellectual snobs." These constructions represent nothing real; they constitute a scapegoat for those of lower education and class, while conservatives use such tribalism to rob the victims of economic and political power. Dignifying these categories with real existence only plays into conservative hands. The author's grandmother is right; the library, or its electronic equivalent, is right down the street and it's time more people stopped playing victim and started using it.
13
It's not necessary to apologize for being an elite (code for progressive), but I wouldn't brag about it either. Elites won't have a big role to play in the Democratic party going forward. Especially given what has happened in the past 6 years. The voters we need to win back the Presidency,Congress, SCOTUS, the majority of governorships & state legislatures, all of which we have lost under progressive leadership, these voters have different values. To many in the working class Progressivism means trigger warnings, vile college protests & obnoxious academics who posture as their will on earth. They hate these people to their very core. Why shouldn't they? The "elites" has been mocking the working class for decades. You are bad for eating factory-farmed meat, owning a rifle, & driving an SUV. You are bad for speaking the language of micro-aggressions, patriarchy & cultural appropriation. Enough already. Far left ideals don’t resonate with Independents or blue-collar workers, many of whom are within our base. Lamb's win proves a point that we all know is true. Democrats can't run competitive races...especially in conservative districts...unless they campaign as moderates. Democrats have tried to run local campaigns on a national platform that working-class voters despise. It doesn't work. The Pa. race was a rejection of elitism. Lamb was smart enough to acknowledge this fundamental truth. That's why he ran TV spots rebuking Pelosi. Brilliant. We need to do that more often.
14
The "working class" that voted for Trump are mostly well off financially, especially when cost of living is adjusted for. The true working class - people with modest incomes - embraces the progressive, "elite" support of unions, fair wages, health care for all, and retirement security. They also worked alongside the "elites" to elect Democrats like Lamb and Jones. And just who do you think voted for Lamb? Republicans? Not very likely. There are plenty of Democratic voters in "Trump country", and as a whole they have moved farther left on the political spectrum. Lamb won because Democratic turnout was far better than Republican turnout in PA-18. It's a safe bet that that high turnout was driven by very high turnout in Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh.
7
Elites are necessarily progressives! Probably a big chunk aren't. (I'm not the only one who thought Bernie was a self-entitled pain playing the spoilsport.)
Maybe we need to define progressive.
3
The facts don't support your arguments. In Alabama Jones victory was propelled by a gigantic backlash against Mr. Moore, an intensely polarizing former judge who was accused of sexually assaulting young girls. Given that advantage
he only won by 2% of the vote. Progressives had nothing to do with that win. That point can't be emphasized enough. In 2020 Jones will have to run again. He will face a well financed mainstream Republican candidate and will lose in an epic landslide. Alabama is a defiant red state. Lamb overcame the Republican advantage in this working-class district by touting his bio — a Marine Corps veteran, former prosecutor, Catholic; and his more conservative positions — on guns, abortion, crime. Plus Lamb comes from a family that has been active in state and local politics. His uncle is Pittsburgh Controller Michael Lamb; and his grandfather, the Democratic majority leader in the state Senate in the 1970s and secretary of legislative affairs for Gov. Robert Casey. United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts came out hard for Lamb, calling him "a God-fearing, gun-owning, job-protecting, and sending-drug-dealers-to-jail Democrat. These are hardly progressive positions, to a large degree he's anti-thesis of the usual liberal candidate you see in these parts. Still he won by less than 1% of the vote. If he he had won as a progressive he wouldn't have had a chance. Moderates are the Dems best hope going forward. Elites have nothing to offer.
1
"Charley, if your precious 'underprivileged' ever get together--they're going to take what they need--not as your gift--but as their right!"
Orson Welles & Herman Mankiewicz, CITIZEN KANE (1941)
4
Always get a little nauseous by this anti-apologetics -- one might well apologize, especially if one has has a role in contributing to the growing, glaring inequalities in our society, even if and as one has a call to conscience and finally does something to genuinely address it. The number of "flawed narratives" is far greater than this blindered anti-apologist would ever understand, and it's hard to be civic-minded when public school budgets are cut to the bone, with the first thing eliminated none other than classes in civic education.
13
If you are speaking of revulsion and disgust, then I think you mean to say "nauseated." Just one on my "elitist" grammar catches.
1
Being down-on-one’s-luck is complicated. There are circumstances in life over which we don’t always have control, like health and familial situations. But there are also means through which people can climb up, especially education and independent reading of literature or news. What we are seeing now with a swath of Trump supporters is scoffing at those tools, and even scapegoating outsiders for one’s own lot in life. Those developments are alarming.
Additionally, it doesn’t follow that someone who looks down their nose on ‘elitists’ would look up to Trump, whose own story is the farthest from a struggle. Trump was born into privilege and developed into an insatiably greedy person. He brags about attending an Ivy League college and being a stellar student. Trump’s enterprise was built on the backs of vulnerable people whom he stiffed. His wives were pampered, as was he. Trump campaigned by traveling on his private plane and helicopter, on which he was brought back to his gaudy Manhattan home daily. The little man he never was.
It is more than a little hard to square a narrative of needing a savior for those supposedly dealt a hopelessly bad hand in life, with revering a man so unapologetically affluent.
13
I'm a big fan, Susan Jacoby! Thanks for this great article.
11
It's not a question of apologizing for being "elite" - if the achievement of such status is the result of hard work, talent and strong values.
If it's the result of circumstance or dishonesty, it's more difficult to justify.
Either way, being "elite" should not be a source of bragging (whether on the sports field or in the boardroom) and most definitely should not be a source of contempt for those who are not at that elite level.
It should be a source of gratitude at one's lot in life - not smugness.
6
The first anecdote--about people who believe that muslim in NJ really did cheer on 9/11--suggests another thing that ought to be taught to all students: the concept of confirmation bias. Social scientists have shown that we are inclined to accept statements and outcomes that confirm what we already know or believe. Avoiding confirmation bias is essential for scientific progress, but citizens do not have tools to hand for doing so in their everyday lives. In the past, we counted on the media to do this for us, but today much of the media specifically aims to confirm our biases, and citizens--or should I say consumers?--reward media outlets with loyalty for doing so. Social media also tailors what users see to their preferences. We have now seen the results. If the media will not play its traditional role when it comes to separating truth from falsehood, students (and adults) need to be taught to recognize their biases and ask skeptical questions about news that tells them what they want to hear. This has become a critical skill for all citizens.
7
We are getting confused by the term "white privilege" rather than talking about justice and equitable access to public goods. We reify scarcity, which fuels our shame for having had our needs met when other are struggling.
But it does not need to be a privilege to have a good education. Not a privilege to enjoy one's full civil right to due process, etc. Not a privilege not to be stopped by the police for no reason. Not a privilege to receive good health care. These are injustices.
7
American culture doesn't value intelligence. We value money no matter how the person gets it. We treat smart people, people who want to learn, people who use "big"words" like they are a race apart. We support education for developmentally delayed individuals but tell moderately to extremely bright people that they can't be that smart, or that they should shut up and be glad to get an education. Many of the smartest students are marginalized in school. The beautiful ones, the athletes, the smart alecks are the popular ones.
We can't have it both ways: we want smart people running things but we denigrate smart students. Why is it elitist to want an education? Why is it elitist to use words with more than 3 syllables? Why do we, as a country, accept mediocre to poor government instead of expecting our politicians and public servants to have intelligence and to use it on behalf of the country? Perhaps it's because too many Americans are too comfortable not understanding implications of certain policies, or don't want to be bothered reading about science and how humans can be affected by climate change.
I've found that the way we educate our students is not helping them when it comes to life, work, or anything else. If we continue to act as if being educated is shameful we won't be able to attract or retain the citizens and immigrants who will keep America in the developed world. Trump as president is one sign that we're slipping.
58
I feel that was has been absent from this “elite smugness”, etc. narrative is that the educated, the informed segments of our population are just as patriotic and concerned about the welfare of our nation as the blue collar millions. The plain truth is that the more educated, the more informed you are about our current situation, the more frightening it seems Denigrating the educated and informed is an old ploy used by countless autocratic regimes throughout history. The US is not immune to this sickness and if we’re not careful it may very well bring us all down.
19
There's some odd logic here. The article starts by praising Granny determination to get a education regardless of the obstacles but it concludes by saying that what we really need is to makes it easier for students to get an institutional stamp of approval.
7
I have never read even one comment from any of NYT's elite readers that apologized for being educated. Quite the reverse, in fact; they spend paragraphs bragging about their prohibitively expensive multiple degrees and overseas travel, even sometimes their attractiveness. (Humility is dead.) I honestly can't imagine what prompted Ms. Jacoby to write this column.
55
They also honestly believe their expensive educations and overseas travels grants them some sort of wisdom the rest of the poor mortals who can't afford even an out-of-state vacation simply don't possess.
2
@me: Spot on. The "elites", especially those who define that by the ranking of their undergrad school, will always let you know, and never let you forget. It is actually ridiculous, the regard with which they hold themselves. The premise is extremely far fetched for anyone who actually interacts with the so-called "well-educated liberals" on a regular basis.
2
"me" -
I wouldn't call myself one of "NYT's elite readers," but I make no apology for my (college) education. My father was college educated, with graduate degrees, and he fully expected my sisters and I to complete at least a 4-year degree. But my mother didn't attend college until after she was married as her parents expected her "career" to go no further than wife, housekeeper, mother. But she fully supported our education for no other reason than that she wanted us to have what she wanted and struggled to achieve.
I value my education, am thankful for it. I was fortunate enough to get it when it could be paid for with a combination of modest family support, part-time work and with no need for exorbitant loans.
As for the motivation of the author to write the article, I take it to be this; do not let others dismiss you because of your education - or for your lack of one.
79
That your grandmother left you her diploma, even specifying it in her will, says it all.
Thanks for this excellent piece.
9
"just enough white working-class voters"
That's the elite's version of events. The real version is that college educated whites voted for Trump. The real version is that upper middle class whites elected Trump. The real version is that most of Trumps votes came from the suburbs. In short, blaming the working class for Trump's election is an elitist illusion.
Moreover, Trump got almost exactly the same number of votes in Wisconsin as Mitt Romney. Clinton just didn't get as many votes as Obama. The problem, as usual, was not how people voted, but who didn't bother.
But the biggest problem our ruling elite has is that they have been failures by the standards of most Americans. Its hard to point to something that has gone right in the last 40 years while the folks from Harvard and Yale have been busy taking charge or almost every aspect of American life.
25
There is a big difference between elitist politicians best exemplified by Hillary Clinton and well educated mostly upper middle class people. Virtually everyone I know who are blue collar probable Trump voters want their children to get the best education they can. They do everything in their power, emotionally and financially to help their kids get through college and have a better future than they had. That is the American Dream regardless if it comes from an immigrant grandma or from our coal miners children. The reason Conor Lamb won here is because he spoke to that aspiration. It is the same reason we rejected Hillary. The Democratic Party needs to return to the roots of good jobs, access to good education and good health care and forget all the identity politics and social justice of the past eight years. They will storm though my part of the country and the whole Midwest.
15
I just don't get what aspect of Hillary's platform was not about "good jobs, access to good education and good health care." I understand she wasn't a very "likable" candidate to many, and she was suspect because she had been a political public figure for so long (a "political" elite vs simply an "educated" elite). But there is still an underlying and utterly maddening core of anti-knowledge/fact voters in play in these elections that is hard to fathom. Without our advances in technology and science we would be a far poorer and less powerful country. Those advances are almost always driven by the well-educated elites.
The other problem with your argument is that getting away from "social justice" is code for just letting everyone be sexist and racist for a little longer. Not something I can ever support. Ever. Might win an election or two with the aging racist population, but it is the losing position in history and for our country.
19
Elitist? Boy, you bought the media, Bernie & Republican-version hook, line and sinker. Mrs. Clinton was raised in IL in a comfortable but not wealthy home. She proved to be quite brilliant and excelled at school. She was a successful lawyer but took on many, many pro-bono causes. She served her country and made women and children her primary focus. You may not like her, but please stop repeating this ridiculous "elitist" caricature.
2
I saw parts of her speech recently in Mumbai. She sounded elitist to me. She seems to relate to her supporters and alienate people who don't share her vision of government. Regardless of her background she comes across to those who don't share her values on things such as, health care system, guns or abortion as arrogant and self righteous. I must confess though in 2016 she was better than the alternative. :-).
1
The ongoing problem is that the "haves" truly believe that they have earned their status, whereas the "have nots" truly believe that their status has been denied. In most cases the truth is murkier. Most of the highly educated people I know were born into advantage, and many of the uneducated people I know feel that they bear no responsibility for their economic and social lowliness.
I hope for all of us that we can embrace opportunity when we have it, practice gratitude whenever possible, and share prosperity every day.
95
There's some truth here but it willfully ignores the following ugliness:
HRC: "to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it."
HRC: "I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward. And his whole campaign, Make America Great Again, was looking backwards. You don’t like black people getting rights, you don’t like women getting jobs, you don’t want to see that Indian American succeeding more than you are, whatever that problem is, I am going to solve it."
These elitist comments need to be apologized for.
43
Good point NYC moderate. Bernie Sanders supporter here. Let us not forget President Obama's comment regarding people clinging to their guns and religion. Unfortunately the Dems have failed to recognize that it is this elitist attitude that put President Trump into office
1
HRC grew up in a working class family and went to college on scholarship. Wanting to see women and minorities succeed and talking about it is hardly "elitist." No apology needed except from those who spent years denigrating and lying about her.
8
Homophobia, xenophobia, Islamaphobia, and racism ARE deplorable and that statement was entirely accurate and requires no apology. What requires apology is saying people carrying torches, promoting violence and shouting about white supremacy are really "good people". Now THAT needs an apology. (While he's at it, he could maybe apologize about grabbing women by the pussy, but I won't hold my breath for either.)
5
This author may consider herself a member of the elite, but she is obtuse nonetheless. The reality for most Americans (and europeans) is that they simply do not have access to upward mobility, as they used to up to the 80s; and they blame the people who run the country, i.e. the Washington-Wall Street -Hollywood- Silicon Valley power brokers. All of them are holding up a system that is marginalising more and more people, and those people know it. Condescending is not going to fix this, corrective action will.
44
Perfectly stated and completely accurate.
The "elite" can't figure out why the rest of us don't just accept the lot their self-enriching policies and ideas have handed the rest of us.
4
How do Hollywood and Silicon Valley hold folks back? I understand Wall Street and Washington- controlled largely by Republican “elites”, but it seems you must throw Hollywood and Silicon Valley into your muddled headed accusation so you can engage in the false equivalence of largely Democratic “elites’”. Making whatever your point is unintelligibly general and diffuse.
3
I completely "get" the concerns of working class voters, and in fact extend the middle finger of sympathy towards those who voted for Trump.
13
YES, absolutely. Reading Nancy Isenberg's "White Trash" and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land" and even JD Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" leads one to believe that "working class" Americans think one should be ashamed of oneself for aspiring to higher education and a career outside of a coal mine. Further, that only "working class" Americans actually work for a living. This is a cruel and deceptive narrative that certain politicians feed to their supporters in an effort to not only keep them feeling angry and oppressed, but also to keep them from aspiring higher for themselves and their children . It helps them to win elections while doing absolutely nothing to help their supporters actually do better.
995
I always thank public safety workers and people cleaning public places (airport bathrooms or subway platforms) for making things clean, sanitary and safe for us. Let's all take pride in work well done, whatever it is. Thank you's go a long way.
15
Excellent thoughtful comment. Gave me new food for thought.
5
I agree. Not only do I appreciate their efforts, but I also silently feel grateful that I don't have to do it myself.
6
Would you have written the same article with race substituted for class?
10
Name-calling is an avoidance tactic employed by hypocrites and scoundrels....
... In reality, without our 'elites' we would all be enslaved.. or dead....
3
When your blue collar parents proudly eat tuna noodle casserole so they can afford send you to college, then act like you are a traitor to your family for having gone to college...makes it difficult to have those constructive and respectful conversations.
10
I would consider anyone who bashes online the parents who paid for her education a traitor to their family.
18
So glad to see Ms Jacoby reference the speeches of Dr King. I frequently use the same example to point out the depth to which our discourse has sunk, in an age when it's hard to read or hear anything not peppered with f-bombs.
We've already had, in 2000, a presidential candidate who tried to explain issues logically to the voters as if they were adults. He was beaten by a phony aw-shucks persona that they'd rather have a beer with. And that was like the Renaissance compared to the sludge we're trudging through now. I want to think that the "average" American can be lifted up by intelligent debate, like our founders intended, but I often fear that we are a few decades too late.
42
Dr. King also wasn’t universally loved in 1963. I suspect a lot of today’s Trump voters would have preferred the guys with dogs and hoses over the protesters back then.
7
"We've already had, in 2000, a presidential candidate who tried to explain issues logically to the voters as if they were adults."
Lockbox.
I was part of the elite until the bank repossessed my education when I got too far behind on my student loan payments. My knowledge of calculus and multi-dimensional spreadsheets - Poof! That New Yorker subscription - Gone! Respect for science and facts - Zapped!
I got downgraded to a data entry clerk at my job and I can't stop reading about all the conspiracies that seem to affect every aspect of my life. I've even begun to think the solution to gun violence is more guns. Makes sense, right?
6
I too refuse to apologize for being educated at an Ivy League school. I don't look down on people who haven't had the chance to get a degree, but I also recognize there is a difference between being left behind and staying behind.
Most of the people I know who denigrate "the elites" do so for the same reason they denigrate "others." It has more to do with the denigrators then the persons denigrated.
144
"I...refuse to apologize for being educated at an Ivy League".
Yes, we know. Ever notice that it is always people from IV league schools who use the alumni license plate frames, still sport their college sweatshirts and try and keep their .edu emails?
It's not that the IV educated won't apologize, it's usually they will not let you forget!
5
Again, as with so many Liberals, Ms. Jacoby presumes that their point of view is the only one that is right and matters. I couldn't agree more that civic education is sorely needed in this country, however, one that raises an aware body politic so that political demagougery--whether propagated by Democrats or Republicnas--has no chance.
13
Maybe an educated voter has a grasp of semantics. One should be able to spot flaws that crop up on either side of an argument or political party.
Yes! Children should be enabled to assess the quality of information they absorb from every screen. Here is a starter vocabulary list for elementary school:
Jingoism
Dogmatic
Isolationism
Theocracy
Puritan
Xenophobia
Anecdote
Mob Rule
Plutocracy
McCarthyism
Kleptocracy
Sloganism
Single-issue voting
Gerrymandering
Fear-mongering
Colonialism
Military Industrial Complex
Protectionism
Propaganda, as a neutral term, as it applies to persuasion
& etc.
There is a neutral way for children and young adults to learn to spot flaws in arguments and challenges to our democracy.
There is my elitist suggestion for vocabulary words. If it seems biased, I plead guilty. May I fry in guilt.
18
This may be a little off of the topic, but a part of Ms. Jacoby's point was that of someone who was unable to convince relatives of the falseness of DJT's claim of New Jersy Muslims cheering the September 11 attacks.
Like many Americans, I had the TV on non-stop for several days. I remember seeing two different videos which identified people in N.J cheering. In one video, people were wearing clothing common to what one sees Middle Eastern people wearing along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Were they Muslim? I could not say.
In the other brief segment, I recognized the N.J. location and the people in it appeared to be neither European, E. Asian nor African. Were they Muslims? I could not say.
There was a third brief segment which claimed to be of a Middle Eastern community on Long Island which showed people dancing in the street.
Although video segments of what had occurred on 9/11 were rerun continuously throughout the several days that I watched, I never saw a rerun of those three.
I am not a supporter of Donald Trump or the GOP but I know what I saw on TV that day. Based on the actions of the U.S. around the world over the past century, I could understand why some people would not be saddened by what happened on September 11 and that they could see it as a justified bloody nose for the U.S.
7
It’s hard to imagine that zero tapes of what you believed that you saw exist. It was 2001, not 1951.
I also don’t understand why such a thing would inspire confidence in Trump. Hillary certainly wasn’t pro-9/11.
8
Sounds like you must have been watching Fox News.
Everyone knows they have a history of running random short segments that we would today call "alternative facts". One and done, just enough to catch some viewers and plant seeds of realness for whatever awful story they want to tell.
I was glued to my TV for days waiting on the fate of three friends from university hoping against hope that survivors would be found. I watched every network channel, and every version of CNN, NBC, PBS, etc...except Fox News. I guarantee no one showed anything that could even be misconstrued as what you are describing.
3
Trump gives plutocrats a good name for blue collar workers, because he makes them feel as well educated as he is- and they are.
I live in a predominantly blue collar neighborhood and my son suffered bullying from his classmates for his advanced verbal skills and quick grasp of school subjects. People are always going to tend towards jealousy of those who seem more accomplished than them, especially those within their own community. That is human nature.
Add that to the disintegration of good paying union jobs and even young children can experience anxiety if they don't feel they have what it takes to acquire an advanced degree and flourish in a highly technological society. I don't think our education system does a great job of protecting the confidence of slower developing students, either.
Then you mix in carefully contrived divide and conquer propaganda by the likes of Fox News, and right wing funded organizations like the NRA, and the political war becomes between the more and less educated- the coastal elite vs rural voters in-between.
The Darwin disdaining, devoutly religious, white supremacists, and gun cult Americans are easily turned against the professional class and their own economic interests. Only the right wing plutocrats win this war.
14
The issue the "deplorables" have wih the elite is not their education or financial success. It is their attitude of moral superiority and that they feel they know what's best for the masses. It is their attitude of contempt (as evidenced perfectly by Hillary's beautifull speech in India), that anyone could possibly have a different world view than they.
19
It's interesting that the term "Coastal Elites" took the nation by storm in too short a time. It smacks of Fox and Friends indoctrination via the air waves. It also smacks of Communism, which if you believe that political ideologies don't live on a linear continuum, but in a circle, it smacks of ultra far-right ideology, so far right it's left. I really think what they are trying to say with the term is a disdain for the 2%. That's what "drain the swamp" means also, get rid of entrenched Republican ideology which hasn't looked out for them But because they have only heard the term and not truly incorporated it into thinking, it becomes a catch-all phrase.
3
When Trump said he loves "uneducated" voters, he is not talking about professional, white collar "elites" versus working class, blue collar "non-elites." There are many people who have never gone to college and work for an hourly wage all across this country who are nevertheless "educated" simply because they avail themselves of information and choose to apply their intelligence in interpreting it.
Trump's rhetoric cannot survive even casual fact-checking and is often quite obviously absurd. He vitally depends on his words being accepted IN THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT and not being subjected to serious scrutiny. So it is no surprise that Trump prefers "uneducated" voters, who choose not to look too closely at the factual or even rational bases of his statements. Indeed, members of the Trump administration (e.g., Huckabee Sanders) have asked "how dare" anyone question any of them about such things.
Trump expects to receive the kind of faith-based loyalty most commonly reserved for religious figures or deities. Instead of ending his sermons with "amen," he inserts "believe me." This faith, not policy or "style," is the primary gulf between Trump supporters and Trump critics. The creationism/evolution arguments have much more in common with current political debates than, say, Bush/Gore. To a true believer, God's existence is axiomatic, rendering all contradictory assertions false by definition. And so it is with Trump... one either believes (in) him or not.
9
Thank you for sharing your grandmother's story. My Papaw was forced to quit school in the 3rd grade after his father died to support the family. His way into the middle class was through becoming career airforce as a mechanic yet he took advantage of the GI Bill to go back to school & finish his education. Growing up I used to get in trouble for stealing his books. He had his own room because he was always reading & had piles of books everywhere.
He made sure that all three of his kids got an education. But something happened between his generation & his childrens. They didn't place the same value on education. They felt those who were educated were snobs. As a result none of their children went to college because we were taught it was a waste of money.
How do we change the attitude towards education that some have adopted that it's a waste of money & time. Immigrants place a value on higher education that is lacking in some American born families. There's this attitude from some that higher education is a luxury not a necessity & you should just get a job.
Colleges need to be both more affordable & more supportive. Students who don't have strong support from home for higher education will struggle with getting to college let alone thriving there without extra support. My local community college had a program that provided mentors for first generation college students. That support ensured higher graduation rates.
15
Since 1989, the United States has had a series of elite Republican and Democratic Ivy League educated Presidents and, during the same timeframe, the disparity in wealth has approached that of a banana republic and the once strong American middle class has been decimated. One can argue about cause and effect and there’s no doubt that Republicans bear lot of the responsibility for this, but the fact remains that there’s a wide perception that our highly educated leaders at the top have almost exclusively advanced policies that ultimately benefit the rich. Traditionally, after the New Deal, the working class could have looked to Democrats for support, but New Democrats emphasize their progressive positions on social issues, while simultaneously pursuing policies that resonate with business conservatives. If the working class is suspicious of educated elites on both sides, I can’t say I blame them.
17
Oh. So FDR, John Kennedy, and Pappy Bush weren't Ivy Leaguers?
How about Theodore Roosevelt? And he was the greatest and most "populist" of all.
1
My grandmother was probably 10 years older than Minnie. Her father abandoned his 12 children when their mother died in childbirth; my grandmother was 2 years old. The oldest children were old enough to get jobs. The younger kids were parceled out among family members.
Grandma was sent from the family farm in South Dakota to live with two aunts and an uncle (3 siblings) in Washington, DC. Her uncle was a Catholic priest and a professor at Georgetown.
Grandma's life was vastly different from what it would have been in South Dakota. She went to college and to grad school, something very unusual for a woman of her generation.
But she never forgot her roots. My dad and his siblings spent summers on the family farm in South Dakota, showing their cousins that living in a big city didn't necessarily mean they were too soft to work in the fields. And some of the cousins spent their winters in Boston, so they could attend better schools, with an eye to going to college.
And now the family farm is big agra-business, with multinational customers. The cousins who run it are college-educated in farming and business.
Both sides need to be willing to learn about the other side, I guess that is my point.
18
This column reminded of a quote that Elliott Richardson used while he spoke in 1972/3 --long time ago while I was a PhD student. He quoted an Egyptian statement saying essentially that --the World is coming to an end, for children are no longer listening to their parents and everyone is trying to write a book. This column and many others of the recently proliferated genre should not go unchallenged. With so much education many of us consider ourselves well-informed and we think before we act. We voted for Trump because Hillary was of no option, whatsoever. Her recent comments and observation in India as to why she lost doubly confirms that our understanding. There is no problem of American Elite abandoning responsibility, for that matter of any American. People are simply tired -- what Senator Webb rightly stated --of the turnstile politics that had kept the Beltway pundits coming in and going out like a Musical Chair with the power and the posts in Washington, DC. In short, America is alive and kicking and this Election only shows that the same old wine in new bottles tradition has outlived us.
3
It's true that there is an almost gleeful, prideful disdain toward 'elites' on the part of some ignorants. But perhaps the larger resentment isn't against educated professionals per se, but against political correctness. So that's one element. Another element that gets lumped in with the elites-resentment is the self-reliant rural dweller's perception of urban concerns, notwithstanding that it takes both urban and rural dwellers to make the country work.
1
Thank you. I'm from a white working class background, generations back, and while I am well aware of the unearned advantage being white has bestowed upon me, I also know my family and I paid for my extensive education. What allowed my family to do that? Labor unions. What drove my parents to invest in me this way? A personally untested belief that higher education would instill knowledge, curiosity, and know-how that were otherwise inaccessible to the likes of us. I have my share of relatives who celebrate what must be willful ignorance since they are not stupid people, and I have my share of highly educated colleagues who think vaccines will either give them the flu or cause their children to have autism.
18
Communications 101 teaches students to talk to their audience. If the "Elite Left" doesn't get that, they're doomed. I'm not talking about "dumbing down" the issues, I'm talking about tailoring your message so everyone understands it. That is communications 101.
What does everyone want, at the most basic level: to know they are enough just as they are. To be acknowledged. Respected. To feel good about themselves. To feel apart of something.
With that in mind, go watch FoxNews...
5
The problem with the elite is that it cossetted more in entitlement than humility. If this is reversed, then the elite will not only get Grandma but revere her.
7
I agree 100%. In fact, I've started to call myself ECE (east coast elite). I like being smart and educated. I read about 100 books a year because I like to learn things. I have several college degrees and I very proud of them. My family came from similar circumstances as the author of this article (Swedish not German) but my Grandmother was also pulled out of school at 11 and sent to work in the factory. She swore that every one of her children would go as far as they could; they would all go to higher education. And they did. My family is all college educated and most in some profession such as teacher, librarian, doctors, etc. Don't ever try to make me feel guilty for being educated.
82
Having an education and reading books does not make a person smart.
Bookish, maybe, but not automatically smart and wise and compassionate.
Likewise, not having a HS or college education does not mean that someone isn't smart. A truly wise person understands this.
8
Honeybee, I've heard that comment in one form or another my entire life. Quite frankly, I'm sick and tired of it. Yes, there are. Just like there are healthy people who eat constantly, eat junk, and don't exercise. Just like there are people who don't brush their teeth and never get a cavity. They won the genetic lottery. For everyone else, there is a direct relationship between health and having healthy habits. Yes, I'm sure there are naturally wise people out there. For everyone else, its learn or stay stupid. As the old saying goes "the race is not always to the swift nor the contest to the strong" (but that's the smart way to bet).
PS. I got that out of a book
6
And yet, what is the difference between pride and hubris?
2
You're taking this too personally and thereby missing the important point. These "ordinary folks" are our fellow citizens and will be voting in November. We liberals need to show them the respect they deserve as our equals. A University education is not required in the voting booth.
Also, let's be honest, the elitist, Davos/Brussels, fundamentalist free-market agenda commonly known as Neo-Liberalism, and virtually identical to the Movement Conservative economic agenda, is responsible for most of the recent trouble in the West.
And by the way, my own life has been much more like your Grandmother's. A library education is a great way to avoid the 'received wisdom' and the sense of entitlement so common in the well educated.
15
I've had CNBC on this morning, and it's becoming very common for people from large organizations to calmly talk about the number of jobs that can be automated away. You can educate people and hope that they become civilized human beings who share Western values of personal freedom and tolerance, but if you can't provide a decent job on which you can support a family you're going to end up with a very angry human being. You can't pretend that American resources are unlimited and that we can provide a decent life style for a planet with diminishing resources and expanding populations.
19
I think the elites and non elites should apologize for not voting. One thing this article doesn’t mention is that Trump and his loyalists seem to be very hostile to so many groups not just elites.
4
If Susan Jacoby means to suggest that the gulf between working people and the "elite" is illusory, she is wrong. But her suggestion that it needn't be so pronounced is encouraging.
Many members of the "elite" (I say this as a professor, who grew up in a working-class family, but has spent his entire adult life in universities) do look down on working people--whether they acknowledge it or not. And many working people understandably resent the "elite," who hoard more of America's resources, presume to tell others how to live their lives, and have not done a particularly good job of governing or managing American society in recent decades.
That said, it needn't be this way. Susan Jacoby's best points in this piece are: 1. "Blue collar workers speak English." Imagine! 2. The American elite should "share the fruits" of education to a broader swath of the population, instead of
perpetuating the gulf between the well-educated and everybody else.
If elite and working Americans converse with one another and if we all ensure that upward mobility--in education and economically--is a reality, the current divide in our politics would be greatly reduced.
Not so long ago, plenty of working Americans were willing to support intelligent, articulate presidents--they didn't expect FDR or JFK to act like cornpones! And those presidents were willing to speak plainly and honestly to the American people, without having to pretend that they were not well-educated.
29
I notice you didn’t mention Harry Truman. Do you consider him “articulate and intelligent”?
Perhaps the better solution to the Elite discussion is to remove the perceived barrier of formal education and to instead trumpet the virtues of being CURIOUS. If we truly desire to move beyond kneejerk thinking, a desire to educate oneself through the pursuit of further knowledge on a subject is key to adding wrinkles to our gray matter, and getting us out of the "us vs them" trap. The key to such dichotomies lies in the institutionalized practice of zero sum thinking in the United States. Dumbing down nearly every option in our thinking and discourse to "or" rather than "and" may be good for "red meat" politics, but it destroys real progress and true discussion or informed debate. We're trained from an early age to choose black or white, when so often a deeper understanding of the grey in between will reveal the answer (or, in the Socratic sense, the next question). I'm an educated "elite," and am enraged by such denigration and demonization by opportunistic "leaders" on the conservative side. I'm also able to make some repairs to my car, and to plumb a faucet and a drain. I will never "apologize" for being "elite." I will always applaud those who are curious.
17
There is an old saying, "Noblesse oblige," which roughly translated means that nobility has obligations to those less fortunate. Of course, in the US we do not have a nobility (at least, not the inherited kind), but Susan Jacoby's comments apply in a similar way to those who have benefited from society, through education and social class. I am one of those "elites" with an earned PhD. We need to give back, "working to better the quality of life for all."
19
I think one way in reaching this obligation is addressing the fear and isolation in academia. Thank you for your comment.
I agree.
I was from a struggling working-class immigrant home but became "elevated" through the good fortune of a free college education in New York City... and eventually earned a Ph.D.
I have been giving back for very many years as one of those "elites."
2
Thank you for the article. A small point, re "ladies and gentleman". On the first day of high school in 1972 our physics teacher (latterly head of Stuyvesant High School), a marvelous institution often the target of anti-elitist anger) addressed us as Miss X and Mr Y, certainly for the first time in my brief life, and probably for most of the others as well. The formality was not stifling but liberating and clarifying- we had the freedom to conduct ourselves seriously to the objective task at hand as adults responsible for our own education, not as children following orders, or merely trying to be pals with or to please the teacher. I realized this years later, studying General Relativity with an ex-Cambridge professor, a lovely man, nonetheless severely formal by American standards who quietly demanded respect for by freely giving it.
33
Abe Baumel was a great man. I am proud to have known him, as well as many other faculty members who passed through the doors on Fifteenth Street.
4
Good high school you attended!
I had a good free, as you know, college education uptown from it at City College, where there were quite a few holding-forth professors who treated us with the respect akin to what you describe.
2
My working class, machinist, late Grandfather who was an eclectic and voracious reader has some credit for inspiring me to go to grad school. Being well read and thoughtful was something to be respected, not denigrated....but those were simpler times before Faux News.
20
You have certainly identified yourself as an “elitist”.
2
And proud of it. Thanks.
1
My desire to understand current concerns of the white working-class stems from my wanting to understand what might improve their situation, because I do see from many angles that their lives and outlook have steadily declined from what it was 40-50 years ago. I feel if I don't seek this insights to help drive the conversation around these concern then others will. Some of those others are the very people that I see at the root of the challenges that the white, working-class perceive that they are facing. Many business leaders that embrace "shareholder value" above all else including their civic duty to their communities are both automating and outsourcing jobs while sometimes working with politicians to refocus the blame that these actions are causing away from themselves onto "explanations" such as immigrants, laziness of the poor, "liberals", government,
10
The resented "elites" aren't intellectuals like doctors and teachers. They are the permanent ruling class of career politicians and operatives, corporate media propagandists and personalities, and the handful of very wealthy families and CEOs who actually run this show.
If doctors refuse to treat Medicare and Medicaid patients, it's because the aristocracy refuses to adequately subsidize health care for the poor, disabled and elderly. Regular people aren't blaming underpaid teachers (bravely beginning to strike for a living wage) and adjunct college professors with advanced degrees who, along with other members of our growing economic underclass, often qualify for meager Medicaid and food assistance. If these professionals feel "guilty" about Trump, then it's probably news to them.
Education may have been a ticket to the good life back in Grandma's day, but since the US devolved into an oligarchy, this is no longer true. Our money-soaked, privatized government ensures that the culture of corruption, of which Trump is only the most glaring symptom, will continue to fester.
While the far-right GOP openly disdains humanity, the centrist Dems go the insipid concern-trolling route, touting incrementalism and bragging about "diversity" - as the oligarchs permit a token few black, brown and female persons to rise within the ranks in order to give the ultra-rich some much-needed identity-politics cover.
But guess what? The empire has no clothes, and people are noticing.
427
Wow....spot on...
8
Thanks Karen
You hit every talking point that I was thinking about, especially about doctors and teachers. Most work hard for a better world every day while elites don't work at all. They take from everyone and leave nothing but misery and need in return.
Why isn't Karen Garcia a paid contributor to the opinion section? She typically makes a lot more sense to me than the muddled thinkers who often parade their ignorance and confusion in these pages. Susan Jacoby's essay on "positive" versus "negative" elitism is a case in point. Next thing we hear, there will be advocates for positive racism, benign sexism, and compassionate xenophobia.
3
Perhaps the real problem is that reason cannot conquer emotion.
You cannot reason with someone whose beliefs are based on emotion.
Elites have made this mistake time and again. At some level elites recognize
the impotence of reason as opposed to emotion. But at the same time, they prefer not to use emotion to communicate, because it is not 'dignified'. One way that elites manifest their 'superiority' is by remaining calm and unemotional. But perhaps the 'working class' needs to see some real emotion before they can trust.
40
I agree with Ron Bartlett. And there is a perfect example of this in the article (which entirely misses this point):
"But there are surely just as many with an outsize respect for professionals — especially if the professional happens to be their own doctor or their child’s favorite teacher."
One's own doctor or child's teacher is someone known PERSONALLY to that individual. There is an emotional factor in their judgement of them. Those non-elites are perfectly capable of admiring those professionals personally known to them, while vehemently denigrating all the rest. And that vehemence is yet another example of their emotion-based judgement. It also can serve as a powerful emotional bonding tool with their friends, families and community - who happen to be really the only ones important to them. Evolution made us all this way. It is nothing to be ashamed of.
But we can transcend our evolutionary limits to some degree. One of the major effects of a college education is that it pulls back the curtain not only on science but on all the places and the billions of people to whom we can have no such emotional atachment - pushes us to realize that they matter anyway.
11
@ Ron Bartlett:
A corollary to your observation is that the left often fails to recognize that success in the marketplace of ideas requires expertise in marketing and sales. The left usually assumes rationality will make a sale. This approach is especially fatal in a country that has been defined by buying and selling ever since the Dutch arrived. It is also essential to approach your customers (that is who they are) with respect rather than contempt.
2
Are you seriously proposing that the Left's response to the Parkland shootings is not emotional?
3
I think that had HRC campaigned in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan in the month of August after her nomination she probably would have won. Instead she spent the month fundraising on Wall Street, ultimately outspending DT at about 1.8:1 to no avail. I don't think the elite should worry about not speaking the language of the working class, but I do think HRC and by extension the elite are entirely clueless as to what the perception of her and them was among these people. The elite has failed to understand the reality of slipping from middle class to lower class existence.
75
She came to my town in NEPA more often than Donald Trump did. But she spoke publically once, and the other times met with funders in a really, really big house behind a lot of security. Trump on the other hand, held rallies and talked to people. He was lying and making false promises and appealing to the baser emotions of the basest of the GOP base, but he went to the voters and in all likelihood, nabbed a few that would've voted for Hillary, had she actually tried for their votes.
12
I agree. Ms. Clinton was under the delusion that she could win the presidency by courting Republican women who were secretly disgusted with the Orange One. Yeah, just like Wendy Davis was going to win the governorship of Texas by courting Republican women who wanted abortion rights.
Micheal Moore was online warning that Bigly Billionaire was going to win Michigan, campaign operatives in the Rust Belt were begging for help from the DNC, and the DNC went on trying to get contributions from PACs.
Conor Lamb's recent hair-breadth win (along with Bernie Sanders' ability to raise millions from small donors) should have shown that amassing your campaign chest from thousands of small donors is more effective than raising the same amount from a dozen PACs, because a PAC may be playing both sides of the aisle while small donors won't donate unless they believe in the candidate.
Candidates also have to understand the concerns and mindsets of their potential constituents and mobilize local people to hold house parties and go door to door.
The Republicans' millions were unable to counteract basic organizing in Pennsylvania and Alabama.
5
I have known about and, in many ways, admired Hillary since before she became Hillary Clinton. That said, she has a lifelong tin ear for electoral politics, demonstrated as early as 1992 with her Tammy Wynette comments during President Clinton‘s first campaign. Her distinguished service throughout her career, most especially as Secretary of State, did not qualify her to run for president.She was an inept candidate who should have never been nominated.
to run for president.
7
But not everyone is college material.
We also must respect the tradespeople and other 'real' hard work. I find it amusing that doctors and the others in professional class look down upon the plumber, etc. and don't think their work or pay is as worthy as their's is.
This division is based all upon money and social class.
I think some one who unclogs my toilet is just as worthy as a doctor who just prescribes drugs to unclog my arteries.
220
Please do not lump all professionals in your category as "looking down" on those in the trades. Many have respect and treat with dignity those who educate children, unclog toilets, correctly wire fixtures and drive trucks. Indeed, many who are professionals (doctors, lawyers) are children of those you presume they look down upon.
21
Working in a trade does not make you ignorant or uneducated. Knowledge is available to all (get a library card) and if you do it right, education is affordable (community college)
11
I think a tradesman who can build a garage or fix the plumbing is absolutely a very important person with very important skills. He is not, however, as important to me as the gastroenterologist who diagnosed my celiac disease. I can find a place to live, but I can't get a new digestive system.
10
Yes! Better and more affordable schooling for everybody! More state spending on our great public universities! Less filling up our top universities with the children of the rich and nobody else!
We have a family story like the one described here. For that very reason I haven't been party to the elite self-flagellation. As for what's going on with the white working class, I simply have no idea. And I can see it from all sides. At my elementary school, mine were the only parents who had been to college. The dairy farmers in my family were bilingual and did their farm work in white shirts and ties. All the same, by any measure I am now a member of the elite, and am proud of what I have accomplished--with the help of many others.
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"Finally, those who have profited from the best schooling our society has to offer must fight to make college more affordable for others."
"That is positive elitism — embodying the pursuit of excellence rather than money or credentials — for which no one need apologize and to which anyone can aspire."
Bravo ! Better access to education for All. A worthy cause indeed.
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It is the educated professional who mostly support education -- not the Trumps of this world. But when now the overwhelming percentage of Republicans think universities are bad for the country, it is no puzzle why the deplorables worship ignorance and alternative facts.
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What does it mean to be "elite"?
Based on long experience, I've found that those who revile others as being "elite" themselves believe they are their own kinds of "elite."
During World War Two, an applause line in the musical "Oklahoma!" was, "I don't say I'm no better than anybody else -- but I'll be damned if I ain't just as good."
The human trait that individuals or groups or tribes or political parties so often believe (or need to believe) they are better than others while at the same time mocking the others for being turned-up-nose "elite" is a fixture hard to dismantle.
Susan Jacoby's grandmother sought knowledge, enlightenment and her natural curiosity was not drummed out of her or, apparently, mocked into submission. As so often in the past, "intellectualism" is denounced and propaganda blasts its dissonance to encourage the deliberate ignorance of "Don't ask."
The need to encourage pursuit of knowledge is a never-ending adventure, whether it's to "See better" or just for the fun of it.
My maternal grandmother, older than Minnie Rothenhoefer, impoverished Michigan Irish, was a lifetime reader. I have some of her books. And one of her sons, in part because she read to him as a child, became a noted Montana author.
As Frost so aptly noted, whatever road we take makes "all the difference."
The roads and differences should not divide us regarding the pursuit of happiness through curiosity.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
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I have a PhD from a tier one research institution, and I am not so far removed from my working class roots. My parents scratched their way into middle management over their careers, and my grandparents were a butcher, a cobler, a rancher and a seamstress. I don't look down on anyone, because we all have our own struggles in life. And I know first hand what kind of wisdom resides in the working poor. But I'm tired of being described as elitist because I'm educated! I worked hard for my education, and I work hard now that I use my education. I'm proud of what I've accomplished, and I've had enough of others using my accomplishments to denigrate me and my perspective. We're all in this together, folks! We need each other.
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Thank you for your comment. I think many are in similar situations and do not appreciate denigration just because one has risen to professional ranks through hard work and education.
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Bravo, Eg ! I came from blue-collar (lower middle class at that time) parents of the Great Depression who worked hard all their lives and instilled in my sister and me the values of honesty, hard work and respect for others. We were both voracious readers who completed college and are proud of our accomplishments. The only people I look down on are those who are lazy, willfully ignorant and who refuse to take responsibility for the consequences of their own actions (or inactions).
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Your thought process may be elite, but no one is rewarding you with an elite lifestyle. So you are safe. My teaching salary is so tiny next to my spouses, that I took a year off an out W2 barely noticed.
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Thank you! Thank you for writing this column.
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Bravo, Sue,
Ever since I took Ms. Boznango's class I've admired your work, now more important than ever. You are absolutely right that dumbing down discourse is to allow liars to frame the discussions. All elites are not bad. Everyone who listens to his gut is not always right. the way to reach those mislead by Trump's Goebbels-style campaign.
Facts and reason are the answer. They always are. The ocean of facts about the current administration is piling up and slowly persuading more people of the truth. Special elections show this. We all need to fight to win both houses of Congress this November.
Glad to fight at your side.
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Thank you for finally saying it!
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Underlying much of the resentment directed at the more educated is what the late Isaac Asimov called the assumption that one man's ignorance is the equal of another man's knowledge. A proper response is that knowledge of the formal sort remains quite valuable and that its possessors should not apologize.
This is not the first time we faced such a situation. In 1828, Andrew Jackson's supporters framed the presidential campaign as a contest between "Andrew Jackson who can fight and John Quincy Adams who can write." Jackson won. There is no need to succumb to such doggerel a second time.
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Thank you for this aha moment - insightful article. I feel a small easing of guilt, and see more of a path for the nation. Great ideas here!!
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Thanks for your insightful piece. Liberal elites have been blamed for the rise of Donald Trump and authoritarian populism because we did not hear the working class. Liberal support for universal health care, an increased minimum wage, support for unions, support for greater access to higher education and spending on infrastructure were ignored in the blame the elites narrative. Recent election results indicate the working class may begin to realize the class hatred offered by the Republican party is not the path to a better life for themselves and their children.
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It was the working class that deserted the Democrats, not the other way around. The flocked to the phony Reagan, who commenced war on unions, and were given the name Reagan Democrats for good reason. Why, as LBJ explained, because by enacting civil rights, the Democrats lost the south, but they also lost a great deal of the working class north.
I am getting sick and tired of all the complaints about how Bill Clinton compromised (He was not my favorite Democrat that year although I voted for him rather than the Republican so I have never been a fan of Bill Clinton) -- those compromises are what wrest the White House from 12 years of Republican stacking the Supreme Court with far right justices (compare Nixon's appointment, Justice Stevens, with nominee Bork, Scalia and Clarence Thomas.) slashing taxes on the wealthiest and bankrupting the country (tripling the debt) with voodoo economics (very first thing Reagan did tax wise was slash the highest rate by 50%!!!), and going backwards on environmental progress (Reagan ripped off the solar panels Carter had installed on the White House -- Still not back -- and denigrated the sweaters Carter suggested so people could turn down the thermostat and be more responsible about using energy). People seem to forget that Clinton was the guy who got the Democrats back in power, and balanced the budget despite dealing with a corrupt Republican congress himself for most of his tenure.
History matters.
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As an educated “elite” who grew up in poor Appalachia, I am sickened by the anti-elite, anti-intellectual mantras - and sickens by people like JD Vance who write as if they “understand” Appalachians. This author, on the other hand, gets it just right. BRAVO! I refuse to apologize for having left Appalachian poverty and, yes, ignorance to get an education and to patronize those poor people - who, yes, speak English and who, yes, too often just want to continue to be ignorant. Susan, you need to talk to know-nothings like Vance and tell them exactly what you say here. You understand “them” more than either he or Trump does. Thanks for this - I have no desire to talk down to uneducated people who can do what I did - read a few books and developed some curiosity about the world.
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Lucy, have you read Vance's work, or only the commentary on it. If you have read it, I would like to know more about why you characterize him as a "know-nothing."
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With all due respect JD Vance is critical of his own neighbors who don't take advantage of the opportunities that they have. He isn't only critical of the elites, of which, he is now a member. As you know he is a lawyer in Silicon Valley after graduating from Yale. I always have to laugh at the pontificators who hate the elites but are highly educated and have good jobs themselves.
Lucy, as a very educated elite who spent a lot of time in Appalachia, I get your frustration. There's a reason I never permanently moved to West Virginia.
You are angry at beliefs, behaviors and a culture; all of which are products of environment. I'm glad you got out and made a life for yourself. I've met others from Appalachia who have done the same, and hold similar feelings.
But...Here's a thought and a question for you: Poor rural whites and poor urban blacks actually have a lot in common--low educational attainment, cultures that often don't value education, violence, drug abuse, multigenerational poverty, high crime, etc. A question: Would you feel comfortable making the same statements about your childhood community if you were born into a poor urban black community? Why or why not?
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But "elitist obtuseness" of a different kind did indeed cost Democrats the 2016 election. If the obtuse elitists who voted for Jill Stein in 2016 had voted for Clinton instead, the latter would've carried Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Those same obtuse elitists put George W. Bush in the White House by voting for Ralph Nader in 2000. Green Party voters didn't just throw away their votes in 2000 and 2016, they elected Bush and Trump.
Granted, the Democrats are simply the lesser of two evils. But the damage done by Bush, and so far by Trump, far outweighs anything a Democrat would have done in their place. And Green Party voters -- most of them possessing both advanced degrees and immense self-regard -- put Bush and Trump in power. The vanguard of the intellectual left is responsible for the political, economic, and foreign policy fiascos of early 21st century America.
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I agree that those that voted for Stein and Nader because they thought they would be getting their hands dirty if they voted for for the Democrat have the fiasco's of the Bush and Trump administrations to apologize for. Another thing to blame is our winner-take-all electoral system. We need to switch to Ranked Choice Voting http://www.fairvote.org/rcv#rcvbenefits for our presidential elections. We also should get rid of the Electoral College by way of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, or NPVIC. http://www.projectvote.org/issues/voting-policy/national-popular-vote-in...
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Don't forget the Bernie Bros who voted for Trump or wrote in Bernie or Donald Duck.
I like your characterization, obtuse elitists. I find these people are often beyond self righteous and blame everyone else for the state of the country.
I know one woman who has told me that even after all that has transpired, she still would not vote for Clinton. I have never asked her but I am sure she voted for Stein. We see what that caused in PA.
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Nader got 97,000 votes in Florida.
Bush won Florida by 537 votes and won the Electoral College even though he lost the popular votes.
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