Bottom Line:
If Senator Obama is part of a new elite that assumes all thoughtful and good people, fit to rule, are SLAG (secular, liberal, and globalist), then he will lose this election.
Argument:
Of late, Senator Obama has been accused of being an elitist. He may be an elitist, but if so he is one in the painful sense of one trying to “make it” from outsider roots. He is also part of a “new elite” tied to university, think tank, and government work and not part of the “old elites” which were centered in the business, church, or society structure.
As a result, he can easily deny being in an elitist in the old sense, but miss the problems many are beginning to feel with the new elites and their assumptions about the rest of us.
(The use of the term “elite” is very confused in popular discourse. In one way, we all hope Senator Obama is part of an elite. Nobody wants to intentionally elect a mediocrity president! Senator Obama is obviously brilliant, eloquent, and has an attractive personality. He is not average any more than McCain or Clinton are average. The word, I think, is being used to describe a “snob” or someone out of touch with how the vast majority of people live or what they face as a part of an insular community. That is the why I will use it.)
The rise of the Information Society has made college and university education very valuable. Those who are good at “education” have gained an important status and possess a lifestyle (if not the wealth) that many admire. The rising generation of students I teach often put a higher value of this “lifestyle” than money making (in itself no bad thing) and look up to the “thinking class.”
Senator Obama is part of this new elite which makes its living primarily through the distribution and communication of ideas. As a result, with the great gifts of that group, he has many of the prejudices and limitations of that narrow class. It also means that normal responses by Senator Obama to charges of elitism, like mentioning early poverty, will not work.
Senator Obama is not elite because of his wealth, which is fairly modest for someone of his accomplishments, but because of his job and his skills in the new information economy have made him one of the new elite.
The new economy is highly meritocratic in terms of entrance. It cares little about background, if one has the skills needed by it. That is a very attractive feature of this new elite. On the other hand, certain attitudes and political ideas, accidental to the actual skills needed to enter, have become overwhelmingly adopted by members. There is great social pressure to conform to these ideas to maintain elite status.
There is no inherent reason tied to acumen or job skills for Internet moguls, for example, to adopt left-of-center ideas, but many have.
The primary reason for this is the rise of the new elite out of university or college culture, which has long been overwhelmingly left-of-center for those who stayed in it. Attitudes of students may vary over time, but for the last fifty years or so, education has not been friendly to Republicans or to conservative values. (This again would not have to be true. At the time of the death of Burke, intellectual “peer pressure” moved in a Tory or traditionalist direction in Britain.)
Senator Obama, for good and ill, is a product of such a culture. The writers here at Scriptorium are as well. However, Senator Obama has not, I believe, critically examined the assumptions of that culture. Instead, he has adopted it uncritically. If this is correct, it will make communicating with the vast majority of the country difficult for the Senator.
Since many in academic culture (or the new elite) associate their standing with moral virtue or intellectual superiority (much like the aristocrats of the old elite in Victorian England. . . with as little justification), the rejection of their language, attitudes, and ideas by the rest of the nation will not be taken well by them. They will assume that “others” are simply stupid or wicked for rejecting their social assumptions or politics.
Senator Obama, if he wishes to win, must show even more of the ability which he has shown in the past to challenge the shibboleths of the culture that has nurtured him and given him his start. He must see that with all the great blessings of the meritocracy to which he belongs, there are also follies and blind spots.
The New Elite: Some Comments
Wealth and the new elite status are not the same thing.
In our society, the “right” job (such as being a University professor) or connections can lend elite status without granting one great wealth. In fact, education and status in the academy functions much like a Church job did in the Middle Ages.
For much of the establishment, the professors of our “elite” colleges and universities function as the church. They tell us what is true, good, and beautiful . . . even if their report is that there are no such things. While professors and academics (I include non-profit think tanks) make a good living, their wealth and earnings are not what gives them elite status: it is their education and putative expertise.
This expertise is what Senator Obama appeals to when he describes himself as a constitutional law professor, a non-profit worker, or a graduate of elite schools.
On the other hand, a member of the new elite can lose “elite” status (or much of it) in the leadership class, if he or she adopts views not considered mainstream to that class. Being elite is as much about adopting a set of ideas as it is based on actual education or accomplishment. Enjoying the movie “Expelled” or having a kind word for Evangelical Christianity would cost you elite status for many with whom Senator Obama associates.
Senator Obama has many of the attitudes of the educated mainstream elite. This group should not be confused with “all the bright people,” but instead consists of those people who make their living in education. Many (if not most?) bright people do not become professors and teachers. This is stating the obvious, but this is sometimes forgotten in the very, very insulated world of education. Many educators have little or no experience outside this bubble . . . and right down to thinking in “September to Summer” for their schedule are different than other people. This is not always bad, but it can separate them from everyone else.
Educators are so overwhelmingly left-of-center that it can be hard for them to muster the charity to take their opponents seriously. Senator Obama does take his foes seriously, but has a tin-ear in talking about them. However, the mere fact that he tries to be charitable to groups that many of his peers consider beyond the pale of polite conversation makes reaction to his comments shocking to others in his class.
They view the comments of the Senator as amazingly kind and do not understand the reaction to them. At worst, it confirms in them the bigotry and irrationality they suspect exists outside the think tank, government, and university jobs they hold. The danger for the Senator is that he will not recognize his poor communication and false assumptions (gained from his new elite status), but instead will give up trying to hear other points of view with respect.
Elite Status: from WASP to SLAG
Elite status in the United States has for too long been tied to race, sex, and religion. This is sadly still true of the old elites.
All of us are thankful that the new elite has begun to shake free of those prejudices. This must continue and as the racial and gender balance at most elite institutions show there is much more to be done. Any unearned dominance of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (the WASP) just because they are WASP must end. It is wrong.
It would be sad, however, if while continuing to fight the old prejudices “new elite” status replaces old bigotries (WASP ) with new ones. It would be no blessing if we went from demanding that all “right people” be White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant to implicitly expecting “our sort” to be Secular, Liberal, and Globalist (SLAG). WASP prejudice is wrong, but so is a demand that a believing Roman Catholic tolerate SLAG assumptions and slights at every turn only to be denied a long term role in the new elite due to her deeply held non-SLAG beliefs.
(”She is a nice enough person, but just not one of us.”)
Senator Obama has too many followers and aides who speak only the SLAG language and assume that all “right thinking people” are SLAG. If Obama cannot diversify his message to talk to the vast majority of Americans who are not bigots, but are bright without being secular, not liberal, and patriots, then he will lose , , , even in this Democrat year.
Most Americans are not SLAG (secular, liberal, and globalist) and are not religious, conservative, and patriotic due to poverty, stupidity, or wickedness. Recognizing this is key to the future of the Obama candidacy. At the moment, the Senator’s campaign shows no signs of getting this. Instead, it continues to communicate that it is here to “help” the non-SLAG reach SLAG ideas.
That is a recipe for electoral disaster.
