Comments on: Democracy & Elitism 3: burning down the straw man, and who are these out-of-touch “liberal elites,” anyway?

By: Democracy & Elitism 4: equality, opportunity and leveling up the playing field | Scholars and Rogues

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 23:20:18 +0000

[...] you’ve read the previous installments in the series (part 1, part 2, part 3), it should be clear that I see elitism, properly understood, as an important key to a more [...]

By: JS OBrien

JS OBrien — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:50:51 +0000

Larry, you can watch practically any commentator on Fox or listen to practically any conservative talk radio host and hear the words “liberal elite” used in a pejorative sense within minutes. I googled the term in quotes and got 129,000 hits. Clearly, the term exists. Reading parts of just a few of the google hits, it is just as clear that the term is used almost universally to air “right wing grievances,” or what the right seems to think are grievances.

Whether a liberal elite exists or not is immaterial. I think it’s clear to anyone doing enough research that race doesn’t exist in any meaningful way. But that doesn’t make its reality, in the minds of many, a fact. People will act on perception. In those cases, perception becomes reality. It’s certainly worthwhile to examine perception, why it exists, and its root causes. I think that’s what Sam is trying to do here.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:23:52 +0000

Let me try this again: you yourself have erected a straw man in the form of supposed right wing grievances against “liberal elites.”

As I understand the term “straw man,” it describes something that doesn’t really exist. What I have done is reproduce things that I have heard said by actual people, and in doing so I have tried, as best I can, to represent those words as accurately as possible. If not actual quotage, I’m trying to provide plausible paraphrase.

So to your charge of straw man, I’d reply “no, composite.”

As you demonstrate, the phrase which is used so often with tautological obviousness refers to a phenomenon that both logically and empirically can’t and doesn’t exist. But no one of real intelligence doubts that reality is complex and that political convictions are themselves manifestations of human diversity. The problem of elites is the problem of an opaque political process. And when I see Blackstone’s in a list of political donors to Senator Kerry, I feel confident that Blackstone hopes to purchase Senator Kerry’s support for retaining capital gains treatment of hedge fund income. Not that they wouldn’t avow a higher motive.

True, true and true, but I’m not sure what your point is. Best I can tell you’re agreeing with me.

By: larrybruce

larrybruce — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:43:59 +0000

Everything is explained by Kerry’s Senate committees.

By: larrybruce

larrybruce — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:38:19 +0000

Let me try this again: you yourself have erected a straw man in the form of supposed right wing grievances against “liberal elites.” As you demonstrate, the phrase which is used so often with tautological obviousness refers to a phenomenon that both logically and empirically can’t and doesn’t exist. But no one of real intelligence doubts that reality is complex and that political convictions are themselves manifestations of human diversity. The problem of elites is the problem of an opaque political process. And when I see Blackstone’s in a list of political donors to Senator Kerry, I feel confident that Blackstone hopes to purchase Senator Kerry’s support for retaining capital gains treatment of hedge fund income. Not that they wouldn’t avow a higher motive.

By: Russ Wellen

Russ Wellen — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:34:05 +0000

Thanks, Sam. And on behalf of all of us, thanks, Jeff.

By: Jeff Watson

Jeff Watson — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:22:36 +0000

This is the real elite, a bundh of diverse thinkers without all the invective and hyperbole that infects many progressive blogs.
http://edge.org/about_edge.html

Jeff

By: Ann

Ann — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:51:07 +0000

Including yourself. It’s the internalization of those false dichotomies and toxic memes (there, I used the word) that destroys the very people who should show us all how ridiculous those stereotypes are.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:41:28 +0000

But Russ, you ARE a performance elite. You may not have gone to college but you’ve clearly done a good job of educating yourself (and the issue isn’t where you got the ed, but that you got it). I think it would be nearly impossible for a thoughtful reader to consider your body of work here without concluding that you were an accomplished intellectual.

Be proud of your accomplishments and don’t let those who’d keep you down convince you that you have anything to be ashamed of.

By: Russ Wellen

Russ Wellen — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:29:23 +0000

Tough to admit how much concerns about elitism have colored my past and held me back. (To this day, I still boast about not having a college education.) Great series, Dr. S.

By: larrybruce

larrybruce — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:36:00 +0000

Slammy, although you won’t have to know all of Western intellectual history for the test, it’s a bit shameless not to understand the straw man argument when there’s enough Google about it to choke on. Here is Safire in NYTimes on Obama’s use of straw man: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/magazine/07wwln-safire-t.html

Happy Pearl Harbor Day!

By: Lex

Lex — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:23:36 +0000

Aw, jeez, you sent me to Kerry’s website. Next time i go through airport security, the TSA is going to think i’m some kind of commie and strip search me like a terrorist.

I don’t understand the “real America” meme. What’s so great about being broke, meth-addled and ignorant? (and for the record i live in the “real America”) Yeah, how’s that for a stereotype…

I’ve also lived in the ghetto of, arguably, America’s roughest city. I don’t see any difference between the trailer ghettos of “real America” and the public housing ghettos of the inner city beyond a lower population density and the color (but not behavior) of the residents. Actually, i feel safer in Detroit than in the cracker ghettos of “real America”, ’cause white people are fucking crazy.

Who would want to be a “real American”? There’s a straw man that deserves the torch more than any other. I’ll stand with the working class any day, but a working class that revels in the shit they’re forced to live with is an affront to the solid working class of old. Most of the things that “real America” blames on the “commie libruls” from the coasts was won by real working men and women who had real pride in who they were and refused to be pushed around by the privileged elite.