Congeries of cross connected concepts
Another thing I found while cleaning out the mental attic was this post over at Harry’s Place. The post is basically aghast the Senator McCain has the audacity to call Senator Obama “elitist” when McCain married an heiress and owns lots of houses. I found it a typical misunderstanding of American culture, and had an exchange I have been meaning to report here (click here to skip to the interesting bits).
I commented
In the USA, “elitism” is not being richer or better than others, it is believing you are better than others and, more significantly, believing as a consequence that you know better than others what is good for that other. It is that busy-body nannyism that is the essence of what Americans mean by “elitist”. It is the air of someone who thinks he is a master and the rest of us peasants. Here is Rick Perlstein demonstrating that attitude in discussing Senator ObamaA commentor named Nick replied
[I]f Barack Obama is elected president with a significant popular mandate, a number of Democrats riding his coattails to the House, and enough senators to scuttle the filibuster of his legislative agenda — all of which seem entirely possible — he will inherit a historical opportunity to civilize the United States in ways not seen in a generation.Perlstein goes on to recommend that, basically, Obama lie about his actual policies by governing like an Old Labor leader despite his campaign rhetoric. Why should he do that? Because it’s for our own good as Americans and we’re too stupid to figure it out so our “betters” need to lie to us to get it done.
One may argue about the acuracy, morality, and efficacy of such a policy, but arguing it’s an attitude that is popular in the USA is ludicrous. And that’s what Senator McCain’s charge of “elitist” means, and why it’s an effective charge that doesn’t work against McCain. It’s re-enforced by the McCain “Straight Talk Express” vs. the Obama’s campaign’s excessive document security, exemplified by the whole birth certificate imbroglio, which gives credence to the “Obama knows best what you little people need to know about him”. Anyone who projects an attitude that is compatible with uttering “little people” is going to find winning elections a hard uphill struggle.
I responded to thatErr … isn’t that the point of being president ergo McCain is an elitist. I mean, the nature of his military and political achievements have long since removed him from the realm or ordinary guyness - as I believe Benji pointed out above.
The fundamental nature of Western democracies is that through the democratic process we basically put our future safety and wealth in the hands of an elite whom we like to believe are competent to manage them. In other words, we abrogate the right to run large parts of our life in a manner of our choosing.
I suppose what i’m trying to say is that you’d have to be a fool to believe McCain’s “aww, shucks, I just speak it like I see it” schtick as though he were some schmo down the local boozer you’d be happy to hand control of the nation’s finances and military to.
isn’t that the point of being president […]?No. Americans can’t stand Presidents who think that way. Read up on Adlai Stevenson for the archetype of that.
the nature of his military and political achievements have long since removed him from the realm or ordinary guynessYou misunderstand my point. Others can believe that about McCain. He is not allowed to believe it about himself. He is very specifically not allowed to think it makes him deserving of being President. To think that is to take the decision away from the citizenry, who alone decide who is deserving of holding that office. McCain can go on about how he is qualified, but to me that’s a very distinct thing.
The fundamental nature of Western democracies is that through the democratic process we basically put our future safety and wealth in the hands of an eliteNot in America. We put our future safety and wealth in our own hands. The government is a tool we use to help us with that, and the people who serve us in government better do a good job or they’re fired. You may think of elected officials as rulers, Americans think of them as the equivalent of contractors hired to take care of things we’d rather not do ourselves. For that same reason, we like to hire people we can think of having a personal relationship with, not someone who thinks we’re idiots who need their expertise. And that goes right back to the previous point, which is people don’t mind contractors who are up front about their qualifications for the job, but can’t stand ones who presume they’re entitled to it.I suppose what i’m trying to say is that you’d have to be a fool to believe McCain’s […] schtickQuite possibly. But the subject wasn’t whether McCain’s technique would work, or work on non-fools, but (1) why it would be effective if it did work and (2) why it has very little to do with how much money or how many homes McCain has. Beyond that, even a cynic recognizes hypocrisy as the tribute vice pays to virtue. McCain at least cares enough to fake it. If a candidate isn’t even willing to do that or is so out of touch that he isn’t even capable of faking it, that’s a very bad sign.
I think this hits on a common misunderstanding of how the American Street views its government. I will admit that it’s faded over the years and isn’t as strong as it was in the past, but the American Street still, by and large, views its elected officials as hired help, rather than a ruling class, because the USA is a non-intrinsical class system. The USA has a class structure, but it’s flexible and changeable, not something determined at birth. I suspect that’s why Senator Obama is so popular in Europe and Governor Palin so despised. Obama is very European — he speaks well, sounds off on big things, and has a cultured disdain for the little people, who will be told what he thinks they need to know, and told to work and shed their cynicism. Other than that, and surrendering to the forces of darkness in Iraq, I haven’t seen any real explanation for what’s good about Obama. Even his supporters are generally reduced to “well, I hope he’ll do the right thing, even though his stated positions are completely different or all over the map”.
Palin, in constrast, is a hick with a bad accent. Her ascension is a massive affront to the very idea of a ruling class and its ideals. That’s the real reason for the viturpation, not her policies, as we can tell from the fact that the viturpation started before she announced any. Her very presence provoked paroxysims of rage, which tells you that it is, in fact, her appearance that’s enraging. Unlike Obama, with Palin there’s no good way to delude yourself that she’s what you want, instead of what she is. That, to intellectual elite, is True Evil.
This has also lead me to think that while America is an anti-intellecutal culture, one must keep in mind that “intellectual” doesn’t mean smart or even educated, but someone who believes they are of a superior kind because of it. Americans like smart people, and they like educated people. Just think of Albert Einstein’s or Stephen Hawking’s reputation on the American Street. But they do insist that such people do something useful with their intelligence and education and not just claim superiority.
| erp Monday, 13 October 2008 at 09:33 |  |
Very well said sir.
| Robert Duquette Monday, 13 October 2008 at 13:18 | |
I second erp’s motion.
European elitism is in full view in this commentary by Michelle Goldberg in the Guardian.
Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn’t understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her “connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills?
None of Palin’s children, it should be noted, is heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq, and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described “fuckin’ redneck”. Palin is a woman who can’t even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import.
So becoming a mother at 17 means you can’t ever go to college? So joining the army means you can’t ever go to college? Here you see British class snobbery at its fullest. There are the ruling classes, who go to college and do not fight, and there are the working classes, who work and fight and have babies. Once you go down the latter you can never be part of the former.
Another example:
There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It’s worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is how she responded to Biden’s comments about how the middle class has been short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue Bush’s policies:
[… Palin quote …]
Evidently, Palin’s pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy filibustering.
Apparently it is a sin among lefty journalists to disregard a question from a lefty journalist. All politicians duck or redirect questions to suit their own agendas, usually through sleigh of mouth, Palin did so explicitly, which is a slap in the face to journalists who seem to think they actually run things. But Palin was going for votes from actual people, not self-regarding journalists.
Throughout Goldberg’s piece you can sense the utter contempt she holds for ordinary people, Americans especially. It seems that many liberals equate military service with economic, social and intellectual failure. If it wasn’t for those stupid rubes who volunteer for military service, or who are forced into it through economic deprivation, there would be no military and liberal nirvana would descend upon the world.
| Ali Choudhury Monday, 13 October 2008 at 14:38 | |
“but the American Street still, by and large, views its elected officials as hired help, rather than a ruling class, because the USA is a non-intrinsical class system.”
I don’t know about that. American politics has a large element of hero-worship to it, especially when it comes to presidents. Obama’s messianism would be laughed out of the building here. In the US, it fits in with a job whose occupant is expected to solve every problem in public life.
| erp Monday, 13 October 2008 at 16:32 | |
Hero worship is reserved for Democratic presidents — Roosevelt, Kennedy, Clinton. and even Carter, the worst president in my lifetime.
Republican presidents Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Ford, Reagan, Bush(s) were and continue to be vilified in the media. Eisenhower was a military hero who was only slightly less vilified.
Re: McCain/Palin. I don’t support them — I oppose Obama/Biden for the obvious reasons. See Bret’s post here for an excellent round up of reasons.
| erp Monday, 13 October 2008 at 16:46 | |
Mr. Duquette, I regret I didn’t revise and extend my remarks before commenting above (I hadn’t read your comment) and find your quotes quite hilarious, especially this one, ” … who can’t even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import.”
If anything could better describe Mr. Obama’s modus operandi, I can’t imagine what it could be. These lefties just can’t imagine how amusing they are.
| Annoying Old Guy Monday, 13 October 2008 at 19:57 | |
I second erp’s comment, and note that the creeping hero worship of American Presidents (culminating in Senator Obama, who is literally compared to Jesus Christ by his supporters) is an ugly and un-American thing, much like the creeping Socialism of both major political parties.
I do wonder, though, if the messianism that surrounds Obama is so laughable in Europe, why is he so popular there? It’s an essential part of Obama’s self selected image (“we are the one we have been waiting for” , “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”). Or is that just a mirage created by the chattering EUlites?
| Andrea Harris Monday, 13 October 2008 at 21:03 | |
Concerning the Guardian woman, it continues to astonish me how people are paid good money to display their total ignorance in public. For example, has she really no idea that people of all ages and all stations in life (single, married, widowed, mothers, fathers, currently pregnant) go to college in America now? And doesn’t she know that one of the big draws to a lot of people who join the military over here is the fact that they’ll pay for your entire college education? These things aren’t secret — and now you don’t even have to go overseas to find out; she could have gone on the internet from the comfort of her British home and visited any university website, and every branch of the US Military also has a website.
And her attitude is straight out of the Thirties or something. All that stuff about unmarried women having to lead hopeless lives of poverty, ignorance, and the purdah of social shame isn’t true in the UK either, and what do you know, the British military also will fund your education. That took me about five seconds of typing into the Google search field and a couple of clicks to find out.
Stupidity that widespread should hurt.
| Andrea Harris Monday, 13 October 2008 at 21:07 | |
Oh, and one more thing I forgot — what on earth is all this jabber about Palin’s accent coming from Hickville? She sounds normal to me. Maybe that means I’m from Hicksville too, even though I grew up in Miami and have never lived anywhere else but a large urban area — and a very multicultural one too. You want Hicksville, you should have heard my mother, especially after a couple of drinks. My mother was from a small town in Tennessee and only graduated high school. Of course, my mother could also do the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink, do intricate math figures in her head, and her handwriting could have gone straight onto an upper-class invitation card, but when she was a girl a high school education actually meant something.
| joe shropshire Tuesday, 14 October 2008 at 00:06 | |
Mencius Moldbug sets tongue to cheek and explains it all for you, here. Second-best snippet:
And Sarah! Sarah! Sarah is the Prole to end all Proles… Look at that hair, girl! Does it say bridge in the front and tunnel in the back, or is it the other way around? I also love the fact that the only scandal they can dig up on her is one involving the fact that her ex-brother-in-law threatened to “put a bullet in” her father. If Governor Palin turns out to be in some way related to Tonya Harding, I shan’t be in the least surprised. Dear!
| Harry Eagar Tuesday, 14 October 2008 at 01:34 | |
If three generations, degenerating all the time, of Tafts do not demonstrate Republican elitism, I don’t know what could. Ditto Kennedys in the other party.
I have a rule: I NEVER vote for anyone whose father or mother held the same or higher office. NEVER.
I am an antimonarchist, a lonely position in the modern version of American democracy.
However, I think you guys are misunderstanding Palin. She’s AoG, so she certainly considers herself among the elect. AoGers really do despise the rest of us, you know. Can’t get a lot more elitist than being the chosen one of god almighty.
| erp Tuesday, 14 October 2008 at 08:21 | |
Joe, I’m afraid I’ve lost too many brain cells to grasp what in the heck this guy is talking about. I get he doesn’t like the president, but rest of it is gibberish.
A short summary please.
| Annoying Old Guy Tuesday, 14 October 2008 at 09:18 | |
Mr. Eagar;
Well, actually, no, I don’t know that member of the Assemblies of God despise the rest of us. None of the ones I know personally do, and I certainly do not see that at all from Governor Palin. If she’s just faking it, that is fine with me.
P.S. Besides, they have a very cool acronym, almost perfect one might say.
| Peter Burnet Tuesday, 14 October 2008 at 09:52 | |
Harry, my dear old lapsed Catholic friend, you’re confusing the elect with the elites. The elites want to rule you and decide what is good for you. We of the elect simply want to kill you, although the non-literal “wets” among us tend to prefer banishment.
I’d love to hear your take on what the Mayflower Puritans were all about.
| Harry Eagar Tuesday, 14 October 2008 at 12:57 | |
The Puritans were unquestionably elites, because they knew (or suspected or hoped) they were elect.
No one wants to rule more than AoG (and related) sectaries. I picked the word ‘despise’ carefully. It slops over into hate in some cases. I could tell you stories.
| h-man Tuesday, 14 October 2008 at 13:38 | |
Here’s two members of of the AoG who want to rule.
| Ali Choudhury Tuesday, 14 October 2008 at 15:13 | |
Britain isn’t in Europe.
| erp Tuesday, 14 October 2008 at 16:39 | |
It is in the minds of non-Brits.
| Harry Eagar Wednesday, 15 October 2008 at 13:10 | |
By the way, unless the video of Palin’s exorcism is a very clever hoax, and/or the date attached to it is inaccurate, I was correct to conclude that she lied about her religion to Time.
When I first heard a few clips of her speeches as an Alaska local pol, I thought to myself, She sounds like AoG (they have a distinctive vocabulary and delivery, and I’m very familiar with it), but then I read her Time interview and she went out of her way to establish her religious career as being of two parts: born into a Catholic family but for years attended a non-denominational Christian church.
Turns out, if you believe that, about three-fifths of her spiritual life went down the memory hole.
But now we see that although she ditched AoG membership about the time she embarked on a career as a professional pol, she was still participating in AoG exorcisms years later, and within (apparently) just a few months of the time she gave the Time interview.
There’s something about that in the gospel of Luke, I think.
| Andrea Harris Wednesday, 15 October 2008 at 20:10 | |
Harry, you need to add another layer of tinfoil to your hat.
| Harry Eagar Wednesday, 15 October 2008 at 21:56 | |
You’ve seen the video?
| Annoying Old Guy Wednesday, 15 October 2008 at 22:30 | |
I have.
