I missed something somewhere. I missed the day when being elite at your job and suffering from a condition “elitism” became an automatic conclusion. That day when being one of the best at what you do became a bad thing because you automatically become stuck up.
Being “elite” is not a bad thing, quite the opposite. The Delta Force, the Naval Seals, Marine Force Recon, The Green Berra’s are all elite special forces units. These are the best soldiers, sailors and marines we’ve got. If I am being held hostage by terrorists or the like, I don’t want a volunteer unit comprised of the folks of my town or my friends to come get me. I want these elite troops coming after me. Does this make me a bad person?
In college basketball, when my team makes the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament (for my friends and readers who don’t follow college basketball, the final eight teams left standing in the NCAA Basketball Tournament (a.k.a. March Madness)), should I be ashamed now rather than proud? Are they bad men & women for doing this? Do they no long represent humble, small town values?
Elitism on the other hand, the bad side of which Webster’s dictionary defines as “the selectivity of the elite ; especially : snobbery , elitism in choosing new members, . . ., consciousness of being or belonging to an elite”. Now, that is the problem. I have had very intelligent, talented friends who unfortunately fall into this. They assume incompetence when they hear a regional accent or that someone is from a humble beginning or a small town. This is dangerous stuff.
But being one of the best at something, having graduated from one of the best schools, best programs, etc. This is something we should want. We should be ok with an inexperienced Senator from Illinois, who comes from a humble background, who can give good speeches and have an impressive brain in his head. I’m not talking about Obama, but a guy by the name of Abraham Lincoln. We should be Ok with a presidential candidate handling a major economic and foreign policy crisis whose middle name is strange and has it’s origin in a foreign power we are worried about. No, again not Obama but Franklin D. Roosevelt. His middle name is scarily not anglo, but gasp, from when of rivals at the time. We should not be afraid of a guy who went to elite schools and has risen quickly to the Senate, but is young running the country through a crisis, because I am talking about a guy named John Kennedy
By the way, when I think of elitism, I usually think of those with power and privilege. Those with multiple houses, multiple cars, whose families have walked the corridors of power for decades. I don’t think of the son of a single mom, who had to go to schools on scholarships, who worked in the inner city with the poor, who slept a night or two on the streets, who even when he makes it has only one house and one car.
Thus far, in American History, these elites who graduated from great schools, at or near the top of their classes, who speak well, who think, who listen to dissenting voices, and who rise quickly, are not the problem. They have been the solution. They are, Republican and Democrat, the kind of people who end up on the sides of mountains, on coins and bills, etc. So, how about we give a new one a chance? I voted early and already did. How about you?