Ozywho?
I’m just going to ignore it. That’s okay isn’t it? Just pretend it’s not there. Or at least that I don’t particularly have to talk about it. I mean, what is there to say, and everybody else is already saying it anyway. I don’t have to chime in. (It’s not even just the politics. It’s more basic. It’s the thing about minimal competence. It’s like having a choice between a grown-up and a not very bright child to do a difficult job – designing a bridge, doing research into a new killer virus, figuring out how to get cookies right-side-up on a plate, that kind of thing – and choosing the child.) I don’t have to chime in so I’m not going to. I’m just going to bracket the whole damn thing for as long as it takes – the rest of my life, probably, and everyone else’s too. The gerrymandering thing makes it look as if the bastards are going to be there forever, busily drawing Congressional districts that look like pretzels or corkscrews or the finest old Brussels lace or a game of spillikins so that there will always always always be a Republican majority until Ozymandias returns from the dead and asks what –
Sorry, sorry, I said I was going to ignore it. And I am.
Actually Ozymandias is a good way to make the transition from what I don’t want to talk about to what I do. I didn’t mention him on purpose, he just came into my head, I suppose because I was thinking about eternity and forever-and-ever and metaphors and phrases for same – so there was Oz, sitting there smirking at me. ‘You wantcher metaphor for eternity? I’m yer man.’ So I grabbed him and stuck him into the sentence. I didn’t plot or plan it (that’s what I mean about ‘on purpose’ – not that it was an accident, but that there was no forethought involved), I didn’t form a deep design to mention a name that will be less familiar to some people than Lisa Simpson or Posh and Becks in order to make myself feel clever and grand and learned. I didn’t. But there are people who might suspect that I did. Or who might even firmly believe I did, and say so, and laugh uproariously and tease and mock and demand how many people I think will have the faintest idea who Ozymandias is. People who [voice rising like Tweedledee’s when he was so fussed about his nice new rattle] themselves refer often to names and concepts that I know nothing whatever about, but do I take it for granted they’re showing off and being pretentious and playing one-upmanship? Do I? Hah? Do I not rather simply think that I don’t know much and ought to know more and ought to do better and ought to fill in some of these gaps? Do I call them
elitist?
No, I don’t, but they call me it, and when I flap my arms around like a heron and say I’m not I’m not, they draw diagrams that they claim show that I am. Hmph. What could be more elitist than that? I can’t draw diagrams that show people are what they say they aren’t, so therefore someone who can when I can’t must be an elitist. Obviously. Since that’s the definition in play.
Except actually it’s not, it’s a highly selective version of that definition that’s in play. It goes like this [I would draw a diagram if I could, but I can’t]: Anything that X mentions that might not be common knowledge is a symptom of elitism and anything that I mention that might not be common knowledge is a symptom of the fact that I know some things that are not common knowledge but I do it in an anti-elitist way. That has to be the case, a priori, because I’m anti-elitist and X is elitist, by nature. X has an elitist personality and I have an anti-elitist personality; these things are hard-wired.
I’m being slightly outrageous here, but only slightly, because that is pretty much how the argument goes. It’s a slightly outrageous argument, it seems to me (not to say waspish), so it seems only fair for me to be slightly outrageous too.
Anyway elitism and charges of elitism and resistance to perceived elitism are all subjects that interest me a lot and also that seem relevant to much of fashionable nonsense. Therefore I think the whole subject is worth exploring, and I intend to – I intended to make a start right here, but I got sidetracked into some mocking and teasing first and now this N&C is more than long enough and I have to run off, so this will have to do for the moment. Actually it’s not a bad way to start, despite the peculiar tone, because it does bring up some of the issues involved. What does make one kind of subject matter ‘elitist’ when another that is at least equally obscure or little-known or erudite is not? What makes one word (‘quotidian,’ say) elitist when others (teleology, contingency, sentient, omniscience, say) are not? That’s a real question. I have a feeling I know the answer (that nothing does, because they’re not different), but I could be wrong, and maybe you have some thoughts. If so, enlighten us – go on, it will take your mind off the vegetation in the White House.
“Elitist” is not an ordinary word with a referential definition, it’s a normative judgment: It’s BAD to be an elitist, or so anyone who would ever call someone else an elitist believes. “Elitist!” is an accusation. Of what is the accused presumably guilty? Of that most horrid crime – thinking one is better than someone else.
Here is my own normative judgment, one that is sure to inspire someone to call me an elitist. Someone who not only has an education, but who values education – someone who reads widely and thinks critically and chooses words with care to convey exactly what one intends – IS in fact better than someone who does not do those things.
Whenever I am accused of elitism – which has happened only rarely, because I seem to do a fair job avoiding the sorts of asses who toss around the word “elitist” as an accusation – I have a ready response: “By ‘elitist,’ do you mean that I think I’m intellectually superior?” Inevitably, I get some sort of positive response, which is my set-up to answer: “Then I’m not an elitist in any general sense. But I am convinced that I’m intellectually superior to you – or to anyone else who accuses someone of being an elitist in lieu of offering an actual argument.”
Elitism is a negative? On the other hand, the pursuit of excellence and/or best practice are good things?
I object to being found wanting by PC values. And I know that similar others accuse the superior types, the sneering class, of elitism.
Elitism is a good thing. Sneering on grounds of supposed intellectual or values-based superiority is not of itself a social benefit. So those who speak of 59,000,000 morons electing a chimp, deserve a sneering appellation; but there are few good ones and ‘elitist’ is occasionally pressed into service.
But despite the lack of a good word, I do not accept ‘snerd’.
“I object to being found wanting by PC values.”
Falling short of PC values sounds like a great complement to me. Would you really rather be complemented on your fine PC credentials!! I can’t think of many things more insulting than to praised for PC-ness.
Crrepily enough, I know the meaning of your three nominally ‘non-elitist’ words, but haven’t a clue about the ‘elitist’ one. Because I (of course) consider my vocabulary full and nuanced, I am led to conclude that quotidian is an extravagant and unneccesary term, and so if not elitist, then certainly esoteric. Hmm so what does it mean?
Daily? Daily? Well, to be honest, OB, I would stick by my conclusion here. sentient, contingency, omniscience are all technical words with precise meanings that could not really be rendered more simply. Ditto obstetrics, parameter, epileptiform. Quotidian is just a fancy way to say daily, and make sure only a few (ie an elite) can follow you.
I see what you mean with the Ozymandius reference, though – that any given reference can be exclusive to some people (like when the ‘characters’ from Big Brother are being name checked) but it’s only the more.. classical, artistic, literature-based ones that get hit with the tag. But with the particular words you select, I feel there is a principled difference.
I’m proud to be an elitist. I want my surgeon to be an elite surgeon and my plumber to be, just as my dad was, an elite plumber. I want my political representatives to have an elite education so that they can make elite decisions on my behalf. If you were very lucky you may have seen H.E.Baber’s original post election piece, subsequently, and perhaps understandably, replaced by something less inflammatory,at The Enlightenment Project. It seemed to me to address very robustly the issue of intellectual and political elitism.
The issue here is not whether it is good or bad to be elitist. It is whether we should habitually allow the pejorative use of words with no inherent moral or aesthetic content to go unchallenged in their everyday occurrence.
G, well, I certainly think ‘elitist’ is a pejorative, but I have known anti-elitists who claim that it’s not, or not necessarily; that it can be used simply descriptively. Hmmmm.
“Quotidian is just a fancy way to say daily, and make sure only a few (ie an elite) can follow you.”
Just exactly what I was told. I then had a bucket of old fish and rotting tomatoes emptied over my head. So tiresome.
Well I do understand the thing about having a decent vocabulary oneself and therefore concluding that an unfamiliar word must be there for the sake of making sure only an elite can follow – or to put it more bluntly, for the sake of showing off. I’ve had the same experience reading for instance William F. Buckley.
But the fact is, that’s not why I used the word, and the further fact is, one doesn’t usually monitor one’s vocabulary that way. At least I don’t. Or to be more precise, I don’t when I’m talking to people who I know damn well know a lot more than I do about just about everything. When I’m talking to people who may not, granted, I don’t use words like ‘quotidian,’ or ‘contingent’ either, but when I’m talking to people who do, I do, automatically, without thinking about it or second-guessing it. The third relevant fact is that I didn’t know quotidian was all that arcane – I really didn’t. And it doesn’t just mean ‘daily’ in the sense of being an exact equivalent of that word – it means ‘daily’ in a literal sense but it’s also figurative – it has all sorts of overtones of banality and tedium and ordinariness and similar. In fact ‘daily’ was not what I meant when I used the word – ‘everyday’ was closer, and was the translation I gave when questioned, but ‘everyday’ was merely a quick translation for information purposes, it was not an exact equivalent. ‘Quotidian’ was the word I wanted – it conveys nuances that other words wouldn’t. Of course, it doesn’t if people are unfamiliar with the word, but as I said, I didn’t know my interlocutor would be unfamiliar with it. [I feel like doing a survey: how many people know the word ‘quotidian’?]
After all, we don’t always know, do we! How can we? We can’t keep track of how often particular words appear where, can we! Therefore – surely it is making a large and not necessarily warranted assumption, to decide that someone using a word we don’t know is doing it to ‘make sure only a few (ie an elite) can follow you’.
And keep in mind – there’s a lot of Bush v Kerry-ism in all this. Sneering at people who use big fancy words that the good Christian people of Texas would never use is one of the ways Bush has won the hearts and minds of his fellow Murkans. Of course, Bush also probably eats and sleeps and walks and sits down, and that’s not a reason to stop doing any of those. But the anti-elitism thing – that gets put to some very strange uses these days…
“but it’s only the more.. classical, artistic, literature-based ones that get hit with the tag.”
Just so. It’s the cultural baggage thing. There may be some good reasons for that – but I think it’s a mistake all the same.
Oops, crossed with Mike. H.E. Baber removed an inflammatory piece? What a drag! I didn’t see it. I could go on for hours and hours about the dishonest way both Bushes but especially Junior use the anti-‘elitism’ ploy – but Tom Frank has already done it, so I’ll try to restrain myself.
OB, are you regretting your 2000 vote for Nader now?
“OB, are you regretting your 2000 vote for Nader now?”
Surely only a couple of hundred Florida Naderites need feel regret? Hilary Clinton fans must be well chuffed at the result anyway.
And the answer is no.
I’m kind of chasing this up following the post above. But as I gestured at in the previous comment, my feelings are probably guided by rarely or never hearing that word in common practise, whilst the others (teleology aside, which is rarer and more specifically used) I would hear at least monthly, and my puffed-up notion that if I never hear a word, it can’t be useful. No fish and tomatos intended.
No fish and tomatoes taken!
No, I knew that was what you meant, and I was saying I’ve had the same experience. Buckley does indeed use words I’ve never heard or read at all, so naturally I suspect they must be very arcane indeed and inserted simply to show off and generally annoy.
But I just really didn’t know quotidian was that rare. I rilly rilly didn’t. Thought it was almost kind of – you know – quotidian.
Sorry I missed seeing you last week. Being without internet access at the time, I didn’t know you were a loiterer in Bedford Square area.
That’s cool. Hope you enjoyed bloomsbury – it’s beautiful and I’m very attached to it (having spent on and off six years studying there), although it has got seedier in the last few years with some of the scarier kings cross element being displaced here.
I was going to say that you should see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7971-2004Oct28.html for a great article, but after reading the other comments in here I suspect you’ve already done so. Anyhow…
All this reminds me of high-school and how the smart kids are “egg-heads” and “nerds”. What I think we’re dealing with is an undercurrent of bias against intelligence in this country, perhaps in the world. I really do think it starts at a much deeper level. Maybe it has something to do with insecurity. “Don’t stand out or you’ll make the ‘normal’ one’s feel bad and they’ll ostracize you”. Didn’t you get that when you were young? I’ve never forgotten the reaction I got at work the first time I used the word “nebulous”. The conservatives have recognized this as a very potent force and have expertly harnessed it in their service.
Nice visiting your blog. I stumbled on it by googling “charges of elitism”. I doubt I’ll ever be back, but it looks good.
“All this reminds me of high-school and how the smart kids are “egg-heads” and “nerds”. What I think we’re dealing with is an undercurrent of bias against intelligence in this country, perhaps in the world…The conservatives have recognized this as a very potent force and have expertly harnessed it in their service.”
I know, I know. I’ve pointed that out many times here. That’s how Bush, absurdly, gets to pose as just folks, despite the fact that he would be lucky to be running a hardware store if his name were not Bush, simply because he’s ignorant and incurious and proud of it. And that’s why I find it so depressing when non-conservatives help conservatives make their ridiculous ‘case’.
Sorry you won’t be back, nice meeting you – in a nebulous sort of way.