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
