Elites

Gary Bauer writes an opinion piece complaining about comments made by public figures to the effect that we shouldn't blame all Muslims for the acts of terrorism committed (or attempted to be committed) by the relatively few extremists in that religion.  Apparently, Bauer thinks it's not only ok, but mandated, to target the entire U.S. Moslem community for the attempted "Christmas Tree" bombing in Portland, Oregon recently.

Bauer criticizes "elites" for being overly-sensitive to the feelings of minority communities.  Specifically called out for criticism is the Mayor of Portland, a fellow with that great old American name of Sam Adams, who Bauer labels a "political elite", and General George Casey.  Both Adams and Casey ran afoul of Bauer by reminding folks that it was unfair to blame the entire religion on the acts of a few.

Aside from the total stupidity of Bauer's piece, I'm becoming increasingly interested in the right's reliance on the "elite" label.  It seems to have become standard for conservative columnists, bloggers, politicians and activists to pin this label on anyone who says anything with which they disagree.  The word is fast losing any meaning.

Bauer's use of the word is a case in point.  We used to think of "elites" as people born into wealth and, a bit more recently, people who were educated at a small, select group of "elite" colleges and universities, principally including the Ivy League schools.  Whether one's college education was a useful benchmark for identying a class of people was, of course, always suspect.  Bauer, however, apparently has a very different take on the term.  Sam Adams, according to Wikipedia, is a graduate of the University of Oregon, a fine institution I'm sure, but hardly one that falls into the traditional category of "elite" colleges.  I know nothing about his family background (nor, I'm sure, does Bauer), but I'm guessing that he was raised in Oregon--not exactly a hotbed of the "elite" class.  And what, in any event, is a "political elite", as Bauer described Adams?  Could this term have any meaning whatsoever?  Adams has been Mayor for 2 years, and before that he was a City Commissioner for 4 years.  Does this put him in the elite ranks of politicians?  If Adams is a "political elite", aren't Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint as well?  Who exactly wouldn't be?

And General George Casey is a West Point graduate whose father was a career army officer, rising to the rank of Major General.  Obviously, Casey has risen to a very high rank in the military; because there are relatively few Generals who achieve as high a position as General Casey, one could reasonably describe him as achieving "elite" status within the military.  But Bauer intends the term to be pejorative, so he has a different definition in mind.

All of this is by way of saying that Bauer is but an example of language, as used on the right, running amok.  Conservatives describe someone as an "elite" in order to dismiss that person's opinion or expressed point of view without having to address the merits; it's an ad hominum attack, and an incredibly divisive one.  That the word has no clear meaning makes it easy for Bauer and his ilk to ascribe it to just about anyone whose opinion they dislike.  And they are banking on the fact that most people in this country don't think of themselves as "elites" and viscerally dislike, resent or distrust anyone they think is an "elite".  This feeds off of, and in turn feeds, the growing anti-intellectualism of this country.

Is there a silver lining in all of this?  Perhaps a small one.  Some terms are overused and abused to the point where they lose all meaning and cease to have any emotional or other impact on the listener.  It's quite possible that this is happening to the term "elite".  It's almost like calling someone a "socialist"; does this impress anyone at all other than the already rabid and ignorant right wing fringe?  And as the word continues to be used, at some point or points, users are going to be put on the spot and asked to define the term.  When this happened recently to McCain, he naturally made a fool of himself.