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April 13th, 2008 8:11 am

In Praise of Elitism: Obama studies 101

Everyone keeps telling us what a brilliant orator B. H. Obama is. I don’t see it. Maybe you have to be there and witness the performance in propria persona to feel the magic. Maybe (though we cannot say it) there’s just a whiff of Dr. Johnson’s dog about the enthusiasm. But on the page, anyway, Obama is pretty flat. Sloppy, too. Consider the now-infamous bitter-small-town guns and God routine from April 11:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Charity prevents me from scrutinizing this syntactic train wreck too closely. But I would like to object to the response it elicited–both the response from the punditocracy, whose countenance contracted in a single brow of woe to castigate Obama’s “elitism,” and Obama’s response to the response, which has been a set of variations on the Prufrockian theme “That’s not what I meant at all./ That’s not it, at all.”

Let me first say a word about “elitism.” When was it that “elitist” broke free and became an all-purposive negative epithet–a little semantic stink-bomb that, emptied of any definite meaning, is almost as potent as “racist” in bringing discussion to a grinding halt and clearing a room? William Henry, in his unfairly neglected book In Defense of Elitism (1994), speculates that the great change came “somewhere along Bill Clinton’s path to the White House.” By the mid 1990s, Henry observed, “The very word, used as a label, seems to be considered enough for today’s rhetoricians to dismiss their opponents as defeated beyond redemption.”

I should point out that, unlike me, William Henry was not a knuckle-dragging, right-wing fascist hyena. Indeed, he was not a hyena of any kind, but, on the contrary, was a life-long Democrat whose heroes included Hubert Humphrey, Martin Luther King Jr., etc., etc. Nevertheless, Henry understood that by enrolling “elitism” in the politically correct index prohibitorum verborum, one effectively condemns oneself to the cognitive dissonance of perpetual mendacity. The political philosopher Harvey Mansfield once spoke of “the self-evident half-truth that all men are created equal.” It is a politically expedient fiction as well as a judicial ideal. (It is curious, though, that anti-elitist partisans of equality draw the line at legal equality: when it comes to justice, what they want is not dispassionate evenhandedness but a certain predetermined outcome.) In the realm of talent and achievement, however, the ideology of equality is a fantasy, and a dangerous one at that. Henry dilated tartly on

the simple fact that some people are better than others–smarter, harder working, more learned, more productive, harder to replace. Some ideas are better than others, some values more enduring, some works of art more universal. Some cultures, thought we dare not say it, are more accomplished than others and therefore more worthy of study. Every corner of the human race may have something to contribute. That does not mean that all contributions are equal. . . . It is scarcely the same thing to put a man on the moon as to put a bone in your nose.

True, too true, but hardly the sort of the your common or garden-variety Dean of Diversity would look kindly upon.

The point is that reality is elitist. Failure to acknowledge that might make you feel kinder, gentler, etc., but at the significant cost of living a lie.

The ineluctability of elitism is why I rankled at the description of Obama’s bitter-small-town-guns-and-God comment as elitist. It was smug; it was self-righteous; it was blinkered, bigoted, emotionally impoverished, and otherwise odious; it but it was not in any normal sense of the word “elitist.” I do not live in Pennsylvania. But I do live in a small(ish) town; I think the Second Amendment is a vital prophylactic against the untoward prerogatives of state power; and I’d sooner “cling” to religion than the hectoring, welfare-state, just-let-us-tell-you-how-to-live-your-life directives dispensed by Michelle and Barrack Obama. But what bothers me about such directives is not their elitism but their arrogance.

Indeed, for connoisseurs of political savvy, perhaps the most disturbing thing about Obama’s mini-diatribe was the contrast it revealed between the oleaginous, feel-your-pain evangelism of hope he has on an infinite playback loop and the disabused arrogance that crackles just beneath the burnished, campaign-trail mask.

The moral? Well, there is at this this one positive thing to come out of Obama’s statement: we now possess, much more precisely than before, some measure of the contempt in which Obama holds most Americans. Obama knows this, and he doesn’t like it. Which is why his replies to the widespread criticism of his remarks are instructive. “I didn’t say it as well as I should have,” he objected a day or two ago. But that was completely disingenuous. He said it plenty well. When Mr. Blotton, in Dickens’s Pickwick Papers, asserts that Mr. Pickwick is a “humbug,” there would have been tears before bedtime had not a quick-thinking member of the Pickwick Club asked whether Mr. Blotton had used “humbug” in “its common sense.”

‘Mr. Blotton had no hesitation in saying that he had not–he had used the word in its Pickwickian sense. (Hear, hear.) He was bound to acknowledge that, personally, he entertained the highest regard and esteem for the honourable gentleman; he had merely considered him a humbug in a Pickwickian point of view. (Hear, hear.)

‘Mr. PICKWICK felt much gratified by the fair, candid, and full explanation of his honourable friend. He begged it to be at once understood, that his own observations had been merely intended to bear a Pickwickian construction. (Cheers.)’

And so it was with Obama’s bitter, small-town, gun-toting, God-fearing, xenophobic, unemployed isolationists. Really, he says now, he meant all that in a Pickwickian sense. What do you think? I think we all know exactly what he meant. He meant that he regarded most Americans as bitter, small-town, gun-toting, God-fearing, xenophobic, unemployed isolationists who needed help. That is bad enough. Even worse, however, is the disgusting pretense that he actually meant something more emollient. Most of us have gotten used to being treated with contempt by politicians. But Obama has upped the ante. It isn’t pleasant. But it is, at any rate, useful to know just how stupid he thinks we are. I for one will not forget it.

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79 Comments

1. wef:

Obama used the words he did because he thought them appropriate to the audience. Obama wanted rich, white San Franciscans’ money. He was playing to their pale NPR prejudices, reinforcing their sense of entitled sophistication – their sense of elitism. And the Bay Area yokels and Marin county rubes lapped it up. He knows how to con them by appealing to their smugness. He likely believes in very little of what he says to whatever group of voters. His error was in thinking that his words would remain unheard by the shopkeepers, peasants and lumpen.

Apr 13, 2008 - 9:41 am 2. Don L:

Obama,as you so skillfuly point out, exposes an arrogant attitude about the mindsets of the governend and their benifactors up in the higher echalons of the value scale.

I’m with you completely on the need for a second amendment to protect against these types from encroaching and imposing.

Apr 13, 2008 - 10:25 am 3. Hale Adams:

Roger,

I already pointed out in a comment (probably too long a comment– sorry) to another recent post that an elite runs, or at least *thinks* it runs, the country.

To the extent that this elite is arrogant, condescending (in the modern sense of the word, I know), overbearing, and generally unpleasant, then it is to that extent that “elitist” is a negative epithet.

The solution to what you see as the misuse of the word is not to castigate Joe Average for such misuse, but (as you have said) it is to get the politicians, the “elite”, to stop misusing *us*.

Yes, I’m being cranky.

Apr 13, 2008 - 10:59 am 4. Right in Seattle:

Sen. Barry H. Obama: Smug, Self-Righteous, Emotionally Impvoverished, but not Elitist.

Sen. B. H. Obama’s has recently stated that the federal government has effectively abandoned Pennsylvanian’s and left them with no prospects, such that “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people
who aren’t like…

Apr 13, 2008 - 11:26 am 5. Stephen Skubinna:

Elitism became bad when it became obvious that many of those self selected “elites” believe their status entitles them to run our lives for us, and obligates us to surrender to their ministrations.

Cases in point: Hillary, Obama. Kerry. Any liberal politician.

Apr 13, 2008 - 2:42 pm 6. Richard Whalen:

Just adding my applause to the commentaries and well-considered thoughts.

Although I am cheering from the bleachers, seats reserved for; “The Lumpen Proletariat”. It’s good to see that the crypto Marxists and indignantly self-important members of the left are finally taking credit for saving me from myself, a bitter village dweller. Sarcasm /off.

Sarcasm /on: Thank you, Al Gore for inventing You Tube, err. I mean the Internet, otherwise how else could we take action to save ourselves from the future devastation of global warming, (oh by the way, when is that going to kick in?) and how else could we understand how Islam is the religion of peace or that politicians like Senator Obama and President Carter are undertaking to remedy the injustice felt by the downtrodden, helpless Pennsylvanian or help justify the murderous Palestinian (cough) freedom fighter, if not for the intellectual superiority of the left? Yes I must be standing on the shores of utopia! Ever ready to sacrifice my useless existence for the perfection of society. Halleluiah I’m free.

Thankfully, those intellectuals like Rosie O’Donnell, easily explain how fire can’t melt steel, presumably even the metal worn by General Petraeus, or General Westmorland which Mort Sahl, once proclaimed; would only impress a twelve year old.

You know, the very left are different from you and me. Yes, they have more change. Sarcasm /off.

Sorry to rage.

Apr 13, 2008 - 2:57 pm 7. kempermanx:

I to have struggled with this. I can’t spell, but I know that I know a lot more shit that most everyone, except my drunk lawyer. So we agree we are all equal? I can’t dunk a BB ball, but I know a lot more shit. Should I run the country with that attitude? The Virginians that started this nation were pretty damn smart and pretty damn down to earth. Jefferson, Washington, Madison were smart. Elitist? Well, they did read Latin.

Apr 13, 2008 - 5:49 pm 8. Letalis Maximus, Esq.:

Mr. Skubinna:

With all due respect, you left out a very important elite: Trent “I haven’t paid for lunch in 30 years, and what is this “Metro” thing about which DC residents speak?” Lott (R-MS).

Elitism is neither Liberal nor Conservative, neither Democrat nor Republican. Elitism is a state of mind, a thinking that says “I deserve this.” The best antidotes seem to have been historically the liberal application of Tar, Feathers, Torches, and Pitchforks. These days, the best we can do is to vote the rotten bastards out of office. We need to get better at it.

Apr 13, 2008 - 5:50 pm 9. kempermanx:

Apr 13, 2008 - 5:50 pm 10. David Thomson:

Roger Kimball may be criticizing a problem that doesn’t really exist. I personally define elitism as the behavior of pseudo-educated snobs. In no way, shape, or form, do I embrace the egalitarian notion that elites per se are to be ridiculed. “Barry” Obama’s understanding of the white lower classes borders on caricature. It is not even slightly profound and well developed.

Apr 13, 2008 - 5:58 pm 11. Chris:

Among the many insufferable nuances of Obama’s condescending remark was this: that if a group of people don’t embrace the statist philosophy, they must be “bitter.” A lot of people, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, have many reasons other than “bitterness” to reject the sour old Progressive/New Deal/”Great Society” whine even when it comes in a shiny new Obama bottle.

The reference to clinging to guns and religion, while extremely annoying, was, to me, less offensive than the underlying assumption that there must be something wrong — bitterness, xenophobia, ignorance, racism, whatever — with people who does not salivate whenever a Democrat tries to buy their allegiance with promises of bigger and “better” government programs and/or handouts.

Obama is merely the latest Progressive/Marxist to snark about the “false consciousness” of America’s working classes. He cannot question the statist “truth” that government regulation of people’s lives is an unalloyed public good (and thence the derivative “truth” that more government regulation is always better) — such a thought crime, in addition to riling the left fringe where Obama has made his home, would have far-reaching effects. It would negate the premises of his candidacy, of his political career, and, perhaps, of his personal identity.

Therefore, like the soviet state psychiatrists of the 20th Century, Obama instead declares those who do not see socialism as the answer to be insane.

To hell with him.

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:12 pm 12. Chris:

A separate thought:

This latest idiocy on Obama’s part of course is yet another glimpse of who he really is, another manifestation of the common thread that runs through his relationship with Jeremiah “God Damn America!” Wright, the remarks of his bitter, spoiled Ivy-League wife, his Senate record (the left-est of all!), his “activism” career, etc….

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:16 pm 13. Ashley Higgins:

Mr. Kimball:

You can find the below at http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2008/04/then_and_now.html

“From ‘Failing Our Students, Failing America’, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute report on the testing of 7,000 college students at 50 colleges, 2007-2008:

“‘College seniors know astoundingly little about America’s history, political thought, market economy and international relations… Not one college surveyed can boast that its seniors scored, on average, even a ‘C’ in American civic knowledge. Harvard seniors scored highest, but their overeall [sic] average was 69.9%, a ‘D+’.'”

This is part of what the rest of us understand when we use the word “elite” pejoritatively. Arrogance is part of it. But it is arrogance joined with stupidity and ignorance. Or in Obama’s case, vapidity.

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:26 pm 14. jim:

Obama is a morally repellent human being. He is a disgrace. He is a racist, a liar, a snob, and an anti-American.

Why does he even want to be our leader? And why would we want him to be?

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:27 pm 15. PersonFromPorlock:

I think maybe ‘elite’ and ‘elitist’ are fundamentally different; the former stands for excellence, the latter for pretention.

Kipling, of recent note, nailed the difference when he wrote the anthem of modern Liberalism, “The Road-Song of the Bandar-Log.” The Bandar-Log are very much elitist without being at all elite.

Americans, I think, still appreciate the truly elite, which is why so many of us resent the elitists of the lumpen intelligentsia and all their empty noise.

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:28 pm 16. bc:

Back in Pennsylvania dairy country, where I grew up, I remember once my mom (who read everything) glinted towards me and said,”Those people’s problem is they think their shit don’t stink” ‘Nuf said.

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:32 pm 17. MP Campbell:

Kudos on the Pickwick quote. Dickens can be quoted for almost any occasion, and should be.

To echo some of the comments that are visible to me, I think “elitism” took on negative connotations when the concept of noblesse oblige went out the window. People can put up with the idea that someone is better than them, in a superlative way, in some field, as long as they’re being gracious about it. Does anybody resent Tiger Woods (excepting his opponents) for his golfing ability?

Treating other people with respect used to be considered an obligation. When the elites forget this, they run a danger of losing their status. Literally, in ancient Athens, as those too big for their britches would be kicked out of the city for 10+ years. And another literary example here is Austen’s Emma, where the well-endowed heroine (in class terms) is upbraided by her fellow gentry by being a snot to those lower on the ladder. She is told that she is in danger of slipping down that ladder, too, if she doesn’t pay attention to her social obligations. Dickens also touches on this theme in many of his novels (Our Mutual Friend (which I’m currently re-reading), Little Dorrit, Great Expectations, and David Copperfield come to mind to me.)

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:37 pm 18. sherlock:

I am curious, do we know whether Obama thought his comments were going to be reported, or were they supposed to be in private for his audience only?

Al Gore requires the press to be excuded from all his talks and has for some time. That’s prima facie evidence of bad faith, IMHO. Strange that the press itself never seems to mind it, isn’t it?! THAT’S prima facie evidence of bad faith too!!

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:49 pm 19. Tom:

Whether it is Obama speaking to SF leftists, or Wright speaking to his black congregation, both are merely telling each audience what they want.

Don’t blame Obama or Wright for merely delivering what their audiences want. Blame the audiences who made these men what they are.

Apr 13, 2008 - 6:55 pm 20. Gregory Koster:

Dear Mr.Kimball: Mr. Henry’s characteristic sloppiness is on display again. “Elitism” as a dirty word in the 1990s? Good heavens, you need look no farther than the title of the famous 1972 book, THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST to see a savage denunciation of an elite, most of its shots hitting their target. The trouble with elites is straightforward: elites lack a character to support their mentality. Elites rise to the top. But elites are not perfect by any means. When things go wrong, all the superior wisdumb of elites gets in the way of taking any blame (as opposed to “responsibility,” the fool’s gold of ethics) and getting out. Elitism will rehabilitate itself when we see George Tenet resigning on September 12 2001 because of his, and his agency’s, inept performance. It will shine brighter when Richard Brodhead, the current president of Duke University, quits, saying, I failed the lacrosse players, and worse, I threw them to the wolves to shore up my own position. When those salutary events begin to happen, and elitists begin taking a hearty swig from the same bottle of snake oil they are prescribing for the rest of us, elitism will cease to be a dirty word. Don’t hold your breath.

I’m not sure about this: you write”

“Nevertheless, Henry understood that by enrolling “elitism” in the politically correct index prohibitorum verborum, one effectively condemns oneself to the cognitive dissonance of perpetual mendacity.”

This barrage of rhetorical artillery has had the same effect on me that Verdun had on the French. Are you saying objecting to the fraudulence of many, if not all, elites, makes you a liar? If so, bring on the Ontario Human Rights Commission and tell them to go to work in these States. You also write, “Reality is elitist.” This would come as news to George Orwell, whose 1945 “Notes on Nationalism” observed that it was the intelligentsia that thought World War II was lost, even after the tide had obviously turned. No, reality is reality, no elitism necessary. Let the elites follow the rules they prescribe for everyone else, and much confusion and noise will disappear.

This does not take away from your notion that Obama is a 200 proof fraud. But that could have been asserted much more concisely by noting that Andrew Sullivan is slobbering all over him. Inevitably the reaction will come, and the slobber will turn out to be full of rabies virus, but that’s another story.

Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster

Apr 13, 2008 - 7:11 pm 21. dsinope:

Mr. Obama’s San Francisco statement implies that the small town Pennsylvanians are rejecting him, and rejecting his offer.

He’s offering them the jobs that disappeared 25 years ago. All they have to do is give up what they cling to – their churches, their guns, their xenophobia and their desire for free trade.

Apr 13, 2008 - 7:41 pm 22. Assistant Village Idiot:

Meanings of words change in exactly this way. It is good to resist such changes – and certainly to point out that the meaning of a word is changing – so that we may better understand those who came before us, and our descendants understand us. But there is always something quixotic about bemoaning a meaning change. Words with negative overtones become neutral, neutral words become laden with connotation.

Apr 13, 2008 - 7:44 pm 23. AST:

Your first sentence could have come verbatim from my blogs or posts on other sites. Whenever I’ve heard clips or extended recordings of his speeches, I’ve been mostly unimpressed when comparing him to other speakers such as John F. Kennedy. He doesn’t even speak as well from prepared text as George W. Bush.

And I don’t know how many times I’ve referred to his “elitist” appeal.

As a small town dweller, the only real thing I’m bitter about is that so many of my countrymen are so gullible as to support any Democrat for federal office and that goes double for the apparent rush to this transparent tyro. He reminds me of Professor Harold Hill.

Apr 13, 2008 - 7:53 pm 24. Kate:

wef: I think you’re wrong. I think Obama absololutely believes every word he said in SF. It’s the reason he believes he is the one to save us all from our self destructive bitterness. Crazy, huh?

Apr 13, 2008 - 8:06 pm 25. Fat Man:

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to … anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

And this from a guy who is campaigning on an I am more anti-NAFTA than you are platform.

Apr 13, 2008 - 8:36 pm 26. 11B40:

Greetings;

Back in the joy of my youth, my father told me never to trust a man wearing patent leather shoes. His underlying logic was that certain tasks, like shining one’s shoes or opening a door for one’s self, help ground an individual in the commonality of our humanity.

Does anybody know what kind of shoes Senator Obama wears?

Oh, yeah, and moral superiority is the cocaine of the 21st Century

Apr 13, 2008 - 9:09 pm 27. CJ:

Good post, good Dickens quote, good comments! As someone who has to travel through small towns and rural areas in many states regularly, I’d like to digress just a little. Obama and his SF listeners seem to take it for granted that outside the blue state cities, it’s all Rust Belt despair, the economy is comatose, everybody’s hurtin’ bad like Allentown in the Billy Joel song. This simply does not correspond with the reality I see, where unemployment is usually 5% or less and has been for ten years, the Help Wanted/Join Our Team/Now Hiring signs and banners are pretty much permanent, Main Street is being torn up and redone with decorative cobblestones, the parking lots of Home Depot and Lowe’s are full of new cars, and the latest Starbucks is opening with a special on pumpkin spice lattes. Now I work mostly in the western states, but I’ve seen what I just described from California to Texas to Wisconsin to Washington state. How different can it be in Pennsylvania?

Apr 13, 2008 - 11:30 pm 28. John N. Frary:

It’s true that the common usage of “elitist” is devoid of denotative meaning and overburdened with gelatinous connotations. The suggestion that we make a distinction between elites and elitist could be useful if we are able to agree on a defnition.

The “elitists” achieve a level of sheer weirdness unmatched by even the most degraded historical elite. They are arrogant egalitarians, arrogant, self-indulgently guilt-ridden, uniformly diversitarian, Castrophiliac civil libertarians.

And that only touches on their salient characteristics.

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:09 am 29. vb:

It like the difference between the Lincoln Memorial and the Saddam statue. Who chooses to put you on that pedestl and why.

Apr 14, 2008 - 5:02 am 30. william:

Obama as been given rock star status.http://www.strongerthandeath.net/2008/02/obama-christ-of-all-rock-stars-or.html
While I agree with your first paragraph, I almost think you are too polite.
He is famous for no reason. He says nothing that a junior high student could say. He believes the press corps adoration, as well as his own press releases.
This proves he lacks the ability to think.
I hope the citizens of this country start to think.

Apr 14, 2008 - 5:36 am 31. WD45:

I think what BC’s mom meant was “These poor misunderstood servants of the people conceive that their fecal matter emits no malodorous vapors”

Apr 14, 2008 - 6:46 am 32. Chris:

The distinction between “elite” and “elitist” — so usefully pointed out by PersonfromPortlock — is very important.

While there are many flavors of elitist, two stand out to me. The first is a person without elite credentials who is overly impressed by those who do have them. The second is a person WITH elite credentials whose self worth is tied to those same credentials. Between the two there is a third group, almost its own flavor, comprising those who have some elite credentials but not those to which they aspire.

I went to an Ivy League college in the 1980s. I then went to a “top 20″ law school–a definite step down in the elitist world. One of the benefits of that move was that my fellow students were far more diverse, even in the rarified atmosphere of 95%+ LSAT scorers (selection criteria for the top 20 was still somewhat rigorous). I found myself with Mormons, Southern Baptists, stars from the parochial schools of the North Jersey industrial wasteland, most of whom were intellectually on par with my undergraduate colleagues, but none of whom had the Michelle Obama disease (I used to call it the Naomi Wolf attitude).

Michelle and Barack Obama are my generation. I know their type extremely well. Having attended Ivy League colleges, they would have been better off, perhaps, going to some law school other than Harvard, if only for the diversity. I don’t blame them for their choice — had I been admitted to Harvard Law, I of course would have attended as well.

As to the political philosophy point I tried to articulate above, Michael Young captures my thoughts perfectly:

“Obama’s approach betrays a very suffocating vision of the state as the be-all and end-all of political-cultural behavior. Outside the confines of the state there is no salvation, only resentment. This is nonsense, but it also partly explains why Obama is so admired among educated liberals, who still view the state as the main medium of American providence.”

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/125957.html

A note to Mr. Kimball: Thank you for your excellent work.

Apr 14, 2008 - 7:06 am 33. tanstaafl:

But what bothers me about such directives is not their elitism but their arrogance.

I don’t see much of a fine distinction there.

Every élitist in whose company I’ve had the pleasure of being (not) was also quite arrogant.

It’s pretty entertaining if the individual is not aspiring to be President of the United States or some other leadership and control position.

April 11

Those remarks at the successive San Francisco area “dos” were made on April 6 and reported in the Puffington Host on April 11.

Apr 14, 2008 - 7:08 am 34. Vigilante:

I guess I have to come out of the closet,now. I am now and always have been, an elitist. That’s why I voted for JFK and RFK and RR. And that’s why I believe Obama is the one who can put America Barack on track.

Apr 14, 2008 - 7:23 am 35. Gary Ogletree:

It’s tough being a really smart person like me and Obama. Let it show and people resent it. The Changeling and I know what it’s like to get 99.5 on those high school wide tests, and that you don’t want to reveal your score to all those dummies in the VoAg class who scored below 50. It’s all about self discipline. That seems to be the Evangelist of Hope’s biggest problem. He also needs to learn that you don’t show your Marxist view of the world until after you take power. I should be on his staff.

Apr 14, 2008 - 8:16 am 36. bandit:

This is why Dems can’t ever say what they really think in public

Apr 14, 2008 - 9:21 am 37. Joe Baker:

The difference between ‘elite’ and ‘elitist’ is the same as the difference between ‘Islamic’ and ‘Islamist’. I’ve not checked any etymological resources, but I’m betting ‘eletIST’ was probably coined as an analog to ‘racIST’. It certainly is used in that way today.

It’s an apropos usage, in my mind. A person may be undeniably white and elite (at something), and simultaneously neither racist nor elitist (I give you William F. Buckley as exhibit A).

I think the reason the word has this connotation is because it DOESN’T modify any noun. ‘Elite’ is an adjective that should tell us what the person is especially good at — an ‘elite athlete’, or an ‘elite author’, for example. Having no noun to modify implies that a person isn’t just better at SOMETHING than others, but that he is — or thinks he is — simply BETTER, in very much the way a racist white person assumes himself better than a black person. Some people are certainly superior THINKERS, or SPEAKERS, or POLITICIANS — or plumbers or accountants or computer programmers for that matter — but is anyone simply ’superior’? Better intelligence, better compassion, better judgment, better morality — just ‘better’? More ‘evolved’, perhaps? This is, I think, what people mean when they refer to an ‘elitist’ or an ‘elitist attitude’. It implies a sense of self-superiority that carries with it an entitlement to power over the masses.

We need a word for that, and I think ‘elitist’ works very well.

Apr 14, 2008 - 9:23 am 38. william:

Das Kapital is to economics as Finnegan’s Wake is to literature. The impenetrability of the prose invites elitists the way piney woods attract hunters. The death of Holy Karl has left an entire generation of intellectuals moorless, confused, and bitter. In their bitterness they cling to environmentalism, charismatic black churches, and the Democratic party. We should try to understand their frustrations and create programs to retrain them to more useful pursuits.

Apr 14, 2008 - 9:24 am 39. Dirck Noorman:

Isn’t “smug” a better word for Obama than “elitist”? Can one be elitist without being elite? He may not be qualified.

Apr 14, 2008 - 9:35 am 40. Orion:

“Elitism” is not “I’m better than you!”, it’s “I’m better AT DOING SOME THINGS THAN YOU.” No one argues that Tiger Woods isn’t an “elite” golfer; he’s among the best of the best at knocking the bumpy white ball down the fairway and into the little hole. However if we’re on a sinking ship it’s women and children first then Tiger and I go rock-paper-scissors for who gets in the lifeboat next. His golfing skill has no bearing on the matter.

Apr 14, 2008 - 9:36 am 41. Marissa:

I’m so sick of this guy. Having elite credentials doesn’t mean you automatically have to be an arrogant moron. Obama’s acute foot-in-mouth disorder combined with his Caspar Milquetoast foreign policy will put the nation at severe risk if he ever gets the helm.

Apr 14, 2008 - 11:27 am 42. Sen. Widestance:

You’re all fools. Welcome to your future and the new reality. Go Obama. BTW, nice pointy headed elitist photo, Roger.
Hypocrites, all of you.

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:07 pm 43. Dervin:

So are we saying that Rural America hasn’t been kicked in the economic nuts for the last 25 years?

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:09 pm 44. Brian M.:

This posting, and the comments, fairly deliberately misread the statement. They’re part of the political game: Obama was in San Francisco (!) talking about people in rural Pennsylvania and responding to a question about why he could be having a tough time there.

The economy in this state is hurting. The jobs have disappeared. And for two decades – if not more – people have come through and blamed “others” for it, promised to do something, and done nothing. This wasn’t about actual belief in God, or support of the 2nd Amendment (the only one that conservatives seem to care for), or cultural biases. It was about the exploitation of xenophobia – politicians coming to town and telling them they shouldn’t trust anyone who drinks a different brand of beer.

It’s been a staple of Republican politics for 30 years to label opponents as elitists. It’s become so easy a pose to strike that a bow tie wearing pampered blogger can do it, and conduct an echo chamber orchestra of commenters to wag their fingers in unison.

Hacktacular.

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:09 pm 45. Sen. Widestance:

You’re all fools. Welcome to your future and the new reality. Go Obama. BTW, nice pointy headed elitist photo, Roger.
Hypocrites, all of you.

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:10 pm 46. Sen. Widestance:

You’re all fools. Welcome to your future and the new reality. Go Obama. BTW, nice pointy headed elitist photo, Roger. Bow tie is so down home too..fool.
Hypocrites, all of you.

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:11 pm 47. Gion:

take a look at Roger there, and then read this article calling him an elitist. I laughed my head off, I mean WOW.

I know Obama is right because I know exactly how I feel. I’m bitter. I’m mad my parents had to leave town to find new work, leaving behind their friends, and my family. I’m bitter that my friends at the refinery I worked in were too old and unready to find new good paying work after the plant shut down. I’m bitter about a whole hell of a lot and McCain and Hillary won’t address my reality.

…and yet they want to tap into the ‘change’ rhetoric? Are you effing kidding me?

Only an actual elitist is not bitter and angry about gas prices, and keeping their job. Maybe Roger can afford not to worry, but I can’t. I point the finger back in your direction.

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:14 pm 48. atalex:

Oh this is just precious. A pompous git in a bow-tie who explains things through torturous analogies to the Pickwick Papers thinks Barack Obama is the elitist one. Meanwhile, John McCain who owns 8 mansions and should have been put in jail over the Keating 5 scandal is somehow the salt of the earth.

I think I might actually find conservatives amusing if they weren’t trying so hard to destroy the country.

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:15 pm 49. Kikuchiyo:

Does the comment in your first paragraph–”Maybe (though we cannot say it) there’s just a whiff of Dr. Johnson’s dog about the enthusiasm”–mean what it appears to mean? What is it “we” cannot say?

Is this just plain racism, a comment that we should not expect a black man to speak well?

I hope you’ll explain what you mean, because it sure looks like a kind of sour grapes racism to me.

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:16 pm 50. Kevin McGilly:

I love – love — that Kimball uses a latin phrase (”in propria persona”) in the very first sentence of a diatribe demeaning Barack Obama as a snob. Here’s the rule, Roger: If a perfectly suitable English word or phrase will do (in this case, “in person”) and you use a Latin phrase instead, YOU are the elitist snob looking down on your fellow Americans. How unself-aware can one bloviator be?

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:31 pm 51. bethincary:

OMG
.

BOWTIE–pointy-head—too funny.

Ummmmm.
Somehow Roger those same “bitter” Penn. voters I doubt would be wearing bowties to go hunting…or church.
what Obama expressed was not condescension-it was empathy..

Your bow-tied, elitist self-may have heard condescension-pretty much because you’re a HRC supporter.
To most of the people who lost thier jobs–they recognized as empathy.
Either way-you don’t get to say with 100% accuracy what’s in someones’ head when THEY speak-so don’t try to tell the people who’ve lost thier jobs and heard the comments-that they are supposed to be stupid enough to have someone else like you tell them how they should feel..
I have yet to hear anyone Rog, report that little obfuscation over “bitter”.
So why don’t YOU tell us-how ARE those voters supposed to feel after losing thier jobs to China/Nafta?

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:33 pm 52. David Smith:

It takes one to know one. Honestly, Roger, you look about as elitist as a person can possibly look. I guess a contributor to the WSJ is just your basic work-a-day guy. Get over yourself.

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:33 pm 53. Buster Bunns:

As one elitist writing about another elitist, your point is?

Apr 14, 2008 - 3:36 pm 54. bakum:

I can only assume you’ve not actually read the text of the full speech. Obama’s point was neither smug nor elitist nor judgemental. Simply put, people in small towns in the rural north and north east have been made so many promises by so many adminstrations, both Democrat and Republican, that they now vote not on who promises to create jobs, or who promises to help their economy, but on who supports guns and god.

This is not rocket science. If you ahve the cojones to wear a bow-tie and round glasses and generally be pointy headed, at least do the world a favor and put some intellectual muscle behind your proclamations.

Apr 14, 2008 - 4:01 pm 55. Bitter Greg:

Elitist has the opposite meaning of populist in the political lexicon. Obama is a populist candidate and so an excellent target for the modern “elitist” slur. But, come November, his army of bitter supporters (1.3 million online donors and everyone else who’s ready to have the government that we pay for actually work for us) will carry him to the White House in a landslide. Sorry, scared white men (AKA GOP).

Apr 14, 2008 - 4:06 pm 56. Eric A:

He can’t be more elitist that your fancy little bow tie.

Apr 14, 2008 - 4:12 pm 57. hd:

If you want to throw around charges of elitism it might help your credibility to not look like an egg-headed bow tie-wearer in your own picture at the top-left corner of your blog.

Apr 14, 2008 - 4:31 pm 58. dan:

wow, you guys sure do use fancy SAT type elite words to put down someone for being elite. most of us hicks can’t even understand what you are saying. but, thanks for pointing out that obama is elite!! if i could only figure out what you guys are saying. oh, and love the bowtie. yeah, that’s the common guy. thanks for protecting me and informing me.

Apr 14, 2008 - 4:34 pm 59. nattyb:

I think Obama’s comments reveal him for what he is, another liberal, ivory tower type, whose intent on sicking the Politically Correct thought police on anyone who dares to break from the liberal conventional wisdom.

But then again, Roger Kimball wears a frickin bowtie.

Apr 14, 2008 - 4:52 pm 60. Elizabeth:

fop (n.) A man who is preoccupied with and often vain about his clothes and manners; a dandy. Middle English, fool; probably akin to Middle English fob, trickster, cheat.

see: photo at top of page.

Apr 14, 2008 - 4:59 pm 61. littlelamb:

“This is an impressive crowd – the haves and the have-mores,” quipped the GOP standard-bearer. “Some people call you the elites; I call you my base.”

Apr 14, 2008 - 5:01 pm 62. bleh:

I’m so sick and tired of all the a$$holes like yourselves. Look at the bow-tied jackass who pens the drivel. If you’re willingly subjecting yourself to this drivel, you’re the one to whom elites need to condescend.

Apr 14, 2008 - 5:39 pm 63. Scott Templeton:

Can someone please tell me which of Obama’s policies are elite or elitist? From what I’ve read most of his history in public service and proposals going forward are for individual empowerment combined with help from the state. This is very different than the traditional liberal elite tag that people on this site seem to want to apply to him. On foreign policy he clearly is less ‘elitist’ than the neocons and their “spread democracy by force” on the Muslim world. On health care he intends to reduce overall costs of the system with no mandate, far less “elitist” than the other Democrats. On savings accounts his proposals are more “libertarian paternalism” than anything with a system of recommended savings that can be opted out at anytime. Am I missing something?

Apr 14, 2008 - 5:43 pm 64. Catherine:

Of course you all think he is “elitist”. Obama is an adult. With the possible exception of Vigilante, the posts here are at about tenth grade level. Adults know how to hear what is said and meant without ego agenda and petty mind-gaming consistent with immaturity. Please all let out your belts tonight–your over-glutted egos need a good belch.

Apr 14, 2008 - 5:56 pm 65. Reality Check:

Hard to believe that you, Roger, with your snobby little yellow bow-tie and intellectual round glasses is giving Obama sh&t about being elitist. Really? Look in the mirror, dude? When was the last time you had to decide what bill you would pay? Please, spare us.

Apr 14, 2008 - 6:05 pm 66. beth in cary:

Hi Rog,

elite-a group favored as superior..

That goes to the heart of the fact that you are an elitist jerk who does not post any comments that don’t agree with yours..

pot-kettle..

Apr 14, 2008 - 6:10 pm 67. mcd:

You all need to get laid.

Seriously, pay for it if you have to.

Apr 14, 2008 - 6:13 pm 68. yclipse:

The derogatory use of “elites” became popular with conservative Republicans, who used it to disparage “activist” judges, in the mid-1980s. It was a popular epithet of Robert Bork, who somehow was never able to comprehend that he – first a law professor, then a Federal judge, then a think tanker – was always one of the elite himself.

(And I say this as a conservative Republican myself.)

But the origins of the term in this context was, I submit, George Wallace and his famous disdain for “pointy-headed intellectuals”.

Apr 14, 2008 - 6:29 pm 69. Bill Keane:

Wow, you’ve got some hide, peering out from above your bow tie to call Barack Obama smug, self-righteous and arrogant. It takes a certain kind of pretention to use a three word latin phrase to say ‘in person’ and that’s not the worst piece of literary masturbation in your post. My personal favourite is “connoisseurs of political savvy”. Thanks for the laugh, you are better than Colbert!

Apr 14, 2008 - 6:35 pm 70. MaryCarey:

Great photo! You are very handsome. And most of your commenters are bitter racists.

Apr 14, 2008 - 6:37 pm 71. bridget:

Hahahahaha that’s a really sweet bow tie, you spokesman of the people!

Apr 14, 2008 - 6:43 pm 72. Mark:

At least Obama doesn’t use the phrase “pickwickian” and wear a bow tie. You guys are the real elitists.

Apr 14, 2008 - 6:50 pm 73. MoeLarryAndJesus:

Nice bowtie, Rog.

Apr 14, 2008 - 7:19 pm 74. Tominstl:

When things are hopeless, people turn to religion to endure. When freedoms are threatened, people stand together to fight the battles they can. When jobs either move overseas, or immigrants take them for less cost, people begin to resent the foreign-born.

I know small towns and people ARE bitter at the disregard by our politicians. Multimillonaires that have not shopped in a grocery store in a decade or filled their own tank of gas since the 20th century have no right to tell me that someone that understands my bitterness is being condescending.

Bill Clinton used it to rally the base. Karl Rove used it to divide the electorate and motivate his base. Obama is using a proven tool. We know McCain and Clinton will not act on their promises, so maybe..just maybe, Obama will.

Apr 14, 2008 - 7:36 pm 75. Andre Boulanger:

Wow! Talk about a bunch of elitists.
People who live in glass houses should not cast stones.

Apr 14, 2008 - 8:07 pm 76. Silvio:

Kevin McGilly,

The Latin phrase is in keeping with the passage’s tenor and adds zest to it. Replace it with “in person” and see how it reads.

As for those calling Kimball a hypocrite for failing to notice his own “elitism” (the bow-tie etc), Kimball does not think Obama is an elitist (properly understood), and, in fact, spends some time telling us so. Kimball probably does see himself as an elitist (properly understood), and I would tend to agree with him: is he better educated and a better writer than I and most people I know? Sure he is, and I’m glad he so readily shares his thoughts with us. I don’t detect much in the way of snobbishness, condescension or contempt in his words, which is to his credit. Kimball, in this article, is agreeing that small town Pensylvanians have a right to be bitter, that their anger is well-founded; he is criticizing Obama for his condescending insinuation that those small-towners need to be enlightened and they too will see that jobs leaving town and immigrants flooding the country are nothing to worry about.

May 12, 2008 - 7:42 am 77. Ann Klein:

Yes, it is elite with all its isms. Anyway elitist is what Obama is. If you care to, I have a couple examples on my blog of his particular media spinning attempts of being ‘of the people’ and rising above.

Were those actions the problem in themselves – okay. No. There is more. Last time I checked, we are Americans. This is not supposed to be seen as a land of dictators. Yet, Obama looks, publically speaking, like he’s going for such a postion.

This person, Obama, should be progressive. He should be adding to Clinton’s public persona, not stepping back about…100 years. For crying out loud, recently he had won some wonderful thing, I think the nomination numbers. He almost forgot to reach for his wife’s hand and hold it into the air. Like, ‘here we are guys! Oh yeah, Michelle, you too.’

Obama needs to go to some weekend event for elite men, find a guru and work, work, work to improve his attitudes.

Jun 23, 2008 - 9:25 pm 78. Roger’s Rules » Obama’s punitive liberalism, or why treating success as a form of failure is wrong:

[...] campaigning in a single-party state would be happy with). It’s not because of Obama’s alleged “elitism,” either, though Obama’s contempt for the “bitter” people “who cling to guns [...]

Aug 19, 2008 - 6:31 am 79. Stephen:

Obama elitist? McCain = too many houses to remember, too many cars, and a gambling problem that hardly hurts his personal wealth…

Sep 28, 2008 - 8:06 pm