Andrew the Plumber – or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Meme
posted at 2:28 pm on May 5, 2009 by CK MacLeod
When, in the culturally revolutionary poem “A Woman Waits for Me” from Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman wrote that “sex contains all” he was celebrating procreation, but the statement explains… well everything.
It’s clearly a psychosexual thing when a mere headline thread on Joe the Plumber’s homophobic utterance to Christianity Today tops 600 posts (at last count). And let’s not pussyfoot around in some effeminate manner that a man’s man like JtP himself would almost certainly reject: JtP’s statement to the effect that he’d keep his “actually homosexual” friends “away from his children” was clearly homophobic, if the word “homophobic” means anything.
In its way, JtP’s comment is as revelatory as the bull in a politically correct china shop statements regarding Barack Obama’s “socialist” tendencies that made Joe famous, though I doubt that they will receive more than a tiny fraction of the same attention. This lack of interest will no doubt disappoint one commenter in the HotAir discussion who flatly asserted:
Well, Palin is finished. She brought him up enough times during the campaign to make DOZENS of commercials in a future campaign. Cue Palin calling Joe the plumber a great man, then cue Joe the plumber telling “queers” to stay away from his kids.
I don’t personally recall Sarah Palin as VP candidate ever referring to Joe as a “great man,” but that’s beside the point: What matters to people fond of such summary judgments is the stickily fructive association, the “meme,” whose birth he or she is hoping to midwife. For the space of one meme-moment in the schizophrenic meme-universe, any assertion is self-evidently true (or virtually, memetically true) simply for and in having been asserted.
Which brings us to Andrew Sullivan.
Those of us who think of ourselves as residing in the so-called RW (real world), as opposed to the MW (meme world), might wonder why, exactly, Sarah Palin’s having touted Joe the Plumber during the presidential campaign would be more scandalous than Barack Obama’s confirmed association with Andrew Sullivan, that other memiparous plumber without a license. Of course, Obama didn’t refer to Sullivan as a “great man.” Instead, in last week’s 100th-Day “Enchanted Evening” Press Conference, the President merely lifted a typically thoughtless thought, a lucky wanna-be meme, from one of Sullivan’s recent tortured discussions of torture – invoking an apparently false claim regarding Winston Churchill’s supposed rejection of torturous interrogation as wartime exigency, making it the centerpiece of some typically hollow Obamaist posturing.
It somehow completes the circle that Obama would reach, bumblingly, for Churchill’s blessing, when one of Obama’s first acts as president was to return without request a bust of Churchill to Great Britain. Clearly, Obama doesn’t give a brass farthing for Churchill. Whether or not Mr. Obama harbors some congenital anti-colonialist hostility toward the great British Prime Minister, he campaigned on and appears intent on implementing the least Churchillian version of American foreign policy since Churchill was a back-bencher. What’s at least as interesting for our purposes, however, is that the President, with his usual naivete regarding unseemly associations, apparently just assumed that Sullivan would get another Brit right, leading to the presidential utterance that shook the blogosphere, especially after its origins were sleuthed down and verified by Sullivan’s proud Atlantic colleague Marc Ambinder. “Bammy reads Sully!” went the over-meme. Yet the underlying truth, the real Minervan meme-owl flying at this particular meme-dawn, is that Bammy has probably learned this week what so many of Sully’s former friends, colleagues, and fans learned over the course of the last decade: Sullivan is not to be trusted.
Like many other bloodthirsty warmongering neo-con enemies of all that’s good and special in the universe, I used to read the Daily Dish, and considered Sullivan an ally. As the war he cheer-led turned difficult, we all watched him go wobbly on the way to turning as full-throatedly anti-war as previously he had been all in on it, dropping the Andrew the Conqueror persona in exchange for the hair shirt of Saint Andrew – the guy who once upon a time could justify the dismemberment via collateral bomb damage of little Ali, for the sake of defeating the barbarian Saddam, just a few meme-moments later translated into the guy half-drowning the world with tear-soaked blog-posts on waterboarding.
Yet, as with so many other cranks of the left and pseudo-right, it’s the loss of even minimal self-control and good taste around Sarah Palin that exposes how far round the bend Sullivan has traveled, and further underlines why our President needs to put better virtual food-tasters at the top of his staffing priority list. In the same week that the Free World learned where its Leader goes for a juicy meme-morsel, the master meme-chef returned to one of his favorite confections:
[G]iven this blog’s coverage of governor Palin’s various strange stories about Trig, and her continued refusal to provide any medical records to confirm her account, her speech to the Kansas Right To Life organization – her first public explanation for her unusual behavior, since the MSM decided it was a question that could not be asked – is worth entering into the public record.
(Bold-face via Ace of Spades – link below.) Frankly, my imagination fails as I contemplate how the Surfer-in-Chief might respond to this item and to the “Trig Trutherist” precis that follows, or to our valiant correspondent’s closing promise regarding the Governor’s (and the mass media’s) continued inexplicable reluctance to treat his sadomasochistic narcissistic obsession as worthy of validation:
But, hey, maybe at some point, she will. When she does, I will do my best to bring it to you. Maybe one day – who knows? – a journalist might even ask.
“And Bammy reads his blog,” says Ace. My guess is that Bammy used to, and that, furthermore, just in case a journalist might someday even ask about the subject, there’s a comfy spot under the big Obamabus for Sully, near the compartment set aside for Iraq withdrawal, gay marriage, torture, and whatever other Sullivanesque luggage, should events prove the carrying politically inconvenient.
This will not and cannot be the last time that Andrew-world and Joe-world come into conflict, with or without Andrew’s or Joe’s direct participation, so, instead of trying to count the ways in which each appears destined to disgust the other, just as the MW is destined to fight the RW, and internet lunatics are destined to detest Sarah Palin, I’ll urge via re-linking a re-reading of “A Woman Waits for Me.” My self-evidently and irrefutably true-for-its-moment meme today is that this poem explains why, like an infinitely, fatally frustrated Byzantine court eunuch denied direct participation in the rites of succession he jealously guards, Sullivan feels compelled to go against, to undermine, to assault, to supplant, to doubt, and to hate the terrifyingly fecund Empress-in-waiting, to deny, even at the cost of his sanity and his reputation, everything she stands for to all the average Joes.
As His Memefulness himself might say, here’s the “money quote”:
Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,
| In you I wrap a thousand onward years, |
| On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America, |
| The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and ath- letic girls, new artists, musicians, and singers, |
| The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn, |
| I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings, |
| I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and you interpenetrate now, |
| I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now, |
I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death,
immortality, I plant so lovingly now.
Next time you think about writing on Sarah and Trig, Mr. Sullivan, just ask yourself, please, for your own sake, for the sake of your #1 reader, “Who’s meme-ing who?”
Blowback
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mcanamaramcnamara, obviously.sesquipedalian on May 6, 2009 at 5:47 PM
Cuz if she was that amazon Whitman is singing of, she would have said f.u. and played it anyways…..they couldn’t stop her.
If she really was a reformer she should have started with the media. She should have shoved the medias prejudice down their throats.
If she really has ANY opinions about ANYTHING beyond memorized talking points she wouldn’t have needed special rules like no followup questions at her debate.
If she had her own intellectual base of selfhood she wouldn’t have let Team McCain set her up to take the fall as an attack dog pandering to the low information base, or micro-manage her media access.
But…..I don’t think that was it….and this is just my OPINION….I think she thought Katie and everyone would just love her. Because survival of the prettiest always worked before. She never had to work for it.
strangelet on May 6, 2009 at 5:52 PM
And maybe this is just me…..but Life of the Mind is my greatest good….someone without that is a cripple, an amputee, an object of pity.
Who knows, maybe someone like that would make a great president?
But I don’t think so…
strangelet on May 6, 2009 at 5:58 PM
alas, it appears that her engagement with the bible & christian
dogmasteachings has been detrimental to her intellectual development in areas more relevant to the presidency.sesquipedalian on May 6, 2009 at 6:15 PM
BS. Your searches have obviously been distorted by your biases, which are extreme enough to blind whatever common sense you may happen to possess. She’s described as a “voracious reader” by associates. The daughter of a science teacher, she consistently received high grades throughout her academic career. She’s attractive, but I seriously doubt that even Carrie Prejean would be an A student without ever reading a book of “history or philosophy.” Use your brain, grrrl.
I am sure that Reagan and Lincoln would be grateful for your resentment on their behalf, but no one, with minor exceptions, is claiming that Palin is or has shown the character and ability of another Reagan or Lincoln. The comparisons come about for other reasons: outsider, westerner, charismatic following, intensely patriotic, constantly derided by opponents in cruel and excessive ways, congenial and moderate demeanor but strong identification with the party base/movement, etc. Palin suggests the as yet unrealized possibility of something new and important in American politics. If she delivers on that potential, if she can deliver, then the comparisons will take on other dimensions.
Your fixation on the fumbled Couric-Gibson introduction is silly. One good interview and those are the halting steps of someone who was thrust on the national stage unprepared and that, at worst, show how far she’s come. On the other hand, if she repeats such performances during some as yet unscheduled national re-intro, then probably she’ll be cooked.
I have every confidence that people burdened with your prejudices will already have their snark scripted out regardless of what she says and does. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you don’t matter that much.
I don’t know if she’ll try. I don’t think she’ll do it unless she believes she’s ready and needed. If she makes that decision, I won’t bet against her, and it would give me great pleasure to see those who have pre-judged, dismissed, and derided her shown up, but, like everyone else who cares about politics and the future of this country, I’ll be watching in great suspense. I also wouldn’t mind getting some new input, soon, but she also has good reason to bide her time as long as possible, take things as slowly this time as they were rushed during her grand unveiling.
CK MacLeod on May 6, 2009 at 6:42 PM
Cringe! “Anyway”, not “anyways”.
Buy Danish on May 6, 2009 at 6:42 PM
Then what has she read? What has she written?
Knock me out.
okfine
I want you to admit she shows absolutely zero signs of a Reaganesque or Lincolnesque intellect either.
Neither man had a “conventional” “elite” education, but they were intellectual elites all the same.
strangelet on May 6, 2009 at 6:53 PM
And I think it very likely Palin only read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Or she would have known about the servants of Tash.
strangelet on May 6, 2009 at 6:56 PM
How’s this?
Palin’s writing doesn’t give much insight into her conservative policy positions, but it does put on display some of the other, personal qualities that make her an appealing choice for McCain. She has written repeatedly criticizing other state politicians’ possible ethical transgressions, targeting both Republicans and Democrats in her calls for reform. She sprinkles her pieces with quotes from Plato, Henry Kissinger, and her state’s constitution, but also uses expressions like “doggone it” and praises Alaskans for their work ethic and love of freedom and community — a possible asset in a campaign that has focused on questions of elitism and being in touch with voters.
Buy Danish on May 6, 2009 at 7:29 PM
Not my job, strangelet, she’s not my hero and I’m not (one of) her poet(s) – not yet anyway. And I’m not the one looking for or campaigning for (or worshiping) a philosopher-king.
Lincoln was a brilliant and original writer-orator/auto-didact during a high point of American rhetorical culture. There is probably not a single popular politician today who could have made the rhetorical minor leagues in those days. Reagan was Reagan, but people like you in his day would have fallen on the floor and laughed until in danger of asphyxiation or heart failure at the idea that he was a man of “intellect.”
Mrs. Palin gives a good speech. She’s been too busy to write a book – I mean too busy living a life. If you watch some of her Alaska press conferences, you can see that she can be quite smooth, has command of detail, possesses the same forceful and winning personality, same active and engaging mind that showed through in her set speeches, the VP debate, on the stump, and in all of those encounters with sympathetic people that I doubt interest you much. I see impressive insight in the speeches she’s given on her own behalf. I believe she’s shown tremendous courage, character, and openness in the face of almost unbelievable, demeaning and self-demeaning suspicion, hatred, and hostility from people like you and your friends.
She doesn’t bore me. I’ve seen nothing from her, except for the hashed-to-death Couric-Gibson double fiasco, that doesn’t comport with the testimony of that NOW renegade lady who campaigned with her for a while, and detected all manner of mutant X-men super-powers.
I’ll wait to see what she does, just like you.
CK MacLeod on May 6, 2009 at 7:38 PM
and btw “ars poetica” is a generic term. Over the centuries, many poets and other writers have written books, essays, or poems on the art of poetry, under a range of titles. Aristotle’s “ars poetica” is usually referred to as Poetics.
CK MacLeod on May 6, 2009 at 8:25 PM
sesquipedalian on May 6, 2009 at 5:46 PM
Given the present state of civilization, your pacifistic and judgmental position is unlikely to be adopted except possibly by a civilization that has lost interest in its own perpetuation. Jury’s still out whether Europe falls into that category, and whether America’s heading there.
“Calling truman a war criminal” isn’t just “completely outlandish,” but is highly ironic and ahistorical, considering that Truman was one of the men presiding over the international process that established our definition of “war criminal.” Like most pacifists, sesqui, you ignore, in more ways than you realize, the ways in which you are beholden to the efforts of “war criminals” to protect and establish your isles of peaceful luxury and privilege.
CK MacLeod on May 6, 2009 at 8:33 PM
That Times article had not a single example example of anything Palin wrote.
Hearsay.
From the Cliff’s Notes of Plato?
Please, since going back to Alaska she has proven to be partisan, venal, corrupt and a liar. I am not impressed.
She should have gone back and did the right thing, like a stoic Roman matron.
She didn’t. She stooped to fight with daughters babydaddy in the tabloids, stabbed her democratic allies in the back in the Alaskan legislature, pandered to her base on the stimulus package and then lied about it?
O Highlander, where is your honor?
strangelet on May 6, 2009 at 9:03 PM
ssssssssss burned meh.
But then…you know I’m a pythagorean, so that was an easy touche.
But since we are speaking of the Ancients, if Obama is my philosopher king, Palin is your Kylon.
strangelet on May 6, 2009 at 9:16 PM
strangelet, someone who spreads calumnies is not fit to speak of “honor.” Someone who cared about honor would openly retract her previous pernicious and embarrassingly ill-considered misstatements, then proceed with caution and due respect for the patience of others while trying to re-establish her reputation. Instead, you’re just doing the fantasy-meme/”if I say it, it must be true” thing again, and it’s tedious.
You’ve demonstrated profound bias on Palin. In fact, you have a long way to go to convince me that arguing facts on any subject with you can be worth my while.
CK MacLeod on May 6, 2009 at 9:18 PM
and…this is humiliating….but it really is such a pleasure to fence with someone with a proper blade, that gets my intellectual feints and parries well enough to counter them.
strangelet on May 6, 2009 at 9:20 PM
must have been his prorogated humanity. so according to your logic, his post-war deeds negate his decisions during the war?
dropping the A bomb on japan was the American version of the nazis’ and the soviets favorite tactic of “we’ll kill every 10th of so you’ll friends’ll learn,” only in appropriately greater scale.
and why not?
sesquipedalian on May 6, 2009 at 9:21 PM
“we’ll kill every 10th of you so your friends’ll learn,” actually, if you happened to miss my point…
sesquipedalian on May 6, 2009 at 9:27 PM
Dude! You heard her!
She’s Kylon to the life!
I won’t retract that.
hahaha, i can corroborate with linkage every thing I said.
She said she would reject half the stimulus, and wound up taking almost all.
She did stoop to counter-atttack poor Levi, and she has abandoned her previous bipartisanship. That is all documentable.
I will glady retract my comment on reading and writing if you can link some examples.
strangelet on May 6, 2009 at 9:28 PM
While you ostensibly have, and yet you’re a blithering idiot.
Just how many people do you think you could get to vote for you, nishi? And remember, I said vote for you, not laugh at you.
Pablo on May 6, 2009 at 9:28 PM
Cite, please. As you may or may not recall, allowing for the fact that your ignorance is matched only by your delusions of grandeur, the RNC licensed all of the music they used. And the Veep candidate had nothing to do with the selections before or after their use.
For someone so purportedly brilliant, you spend an awfully large percentage of your time being wrong.
Pablo on May 6, 2009 at 9:34 PM
FTFY.
Pablo on May 6, 2009 at 9:35 PM
No, not at all. His deeds during the war can be judged, if they must be judged, only in their actual historical context, including the moral propositions and expectations under which he was operating, not the ones you seek to impose upon him and his decisions retroactively.
I suggest you read Max Hastings’ book RETRIBUTION for a balanced and thoughtful treatment of the end of the war and what drove men like LeMay and Truman. When you’re done, you might read Hastings’ book ARMAGEDDON about the end of the war in Europe, and then try real hard to get deeply upset about waterboarding.
It was the American version of doing what could be done to end a war that had already taken 60 – 100 million casualties, depending on how you count (with much of that large uncertainty left over from sheer incalculable scale of the decade-long Japanese rampage in China), without adding a few million more to the heap of corpses.
If you read Hastings’ book, you will learn among other things how difficult it was even to find a responsible Japanese in a position to offer surrender. The Japanese death culture was virtually on auto-pilot at that time. It was a compromise on the Americans’ part that they chose a relatively meaningless target like Hiroshima instead of the original target of Kyoto. The idea that’s often bandied about by revisionists, that an offshore demonstration should have been enough, is belied by the record of actual decisionmaking (or decisionmaking attempts) after the bombings.
Not sure what you’re trying to suggest.
CK MacLeod on May 6, 2009 at 9:37 PM
As is usual with politics, the underlying facts are subject to a range of interpretations. There are plenty of places you could go to learn Palin’s side. As to where you’d need to go to learn to set aside your preconceptions and pre-judgments, I’m guessing only time can do that for you.
CK MacLeod on May 6, 2009 at 9:45 PM
Great. Corroborate this:
Pablo on May 6, 2009 at 9:54 PM
the best argument i could make to support truman is that one of these bombs had to go off sooner or later in a populated area for humanity to develop the necessary aversion to use, and fear of, nuclear weapons, and i’ll leave it at that.
but destroying dresden months before V-E day?
sesquipedalian on May 6, 2009 at 10:06 PM
Ha! You know, it’s funny, but earlier I was going to suggest that your “classical education” was gleaned from Cliff Notes, since classically educated people don’t say “anyways” – even in the informal Blogosphere. Unless they’re imitating a Valley Girl – which you weren’t. Nope, you were just being you.
Buy Danish on May 6, 2009 at 10:10 PM
It was right here, one of AllahP’s links…he titled it…”Blogger knows how this feels.”
Yup all these bands.
Bon Jovi
strangelet on May 6, 2009 at 10:13 PM
Buy Danish on May 6, 2009 at 10:10 PM
Oh, I have a pretty good classical education..enough to recognize Palin’s literary archetype.
strangelet on May 6, 2009 at 10:17 PM
Why? I was scared of her when she could have been a 72-year-old 4x melanoma survivor heartbeat away from the presidency.
I’m not scared now.
She’s done.
I don’t see why intelligent people defend her.
And I object to the Lincoln comparisons.
strangelet on May 6, 2009 at 10:52 PM
CK MacLeod on May 6, 2009 at 11:08 PM
I didn’t ask you to show that 80′s hairbands objected to the McCain campaign using their songs. I asked you to cite/corroborate this:
With that wonderful classical education of yours, you’d think that you’d be able to read and comprehend…words that you yourself wrote. So, are you really an idiot or are you just a common liar?
Pablo on May 7, 2009 at 4:30 AM
I told you.
It was AllahP’s headline and he gave it a cutesy title like Blogger knows how this feels.
It was part of the whole temper tantrum thing that the newsweek sequestered reporters said McCain’s campaign leaked. AllahP doesn’t save headlines, and you will just say they were lying. It didn’t pop on my first search, not worth any more time.
It doesn’t matter.
She’s done.
But I won’t tolerate any Lincoln comparisons.
Lincoln and Jefferson are my heroes.
You know Pablo, I predicted Palin would split the party….I predicted Obama would win, I even predicted Michelle would be touted as the new Jackie O.
Really you should give me props.
strangelet on May 7, 2009 at 7:36 AM
Highlander, lets make a deal.
Compare Palin to Reagan all you want.
But leave Lincoln out of it.
And I won’t have to fisk your comparisons.
strangelet on May 7, 2009 at 7:40 AM
You told us this:
Proof please.
Pablo on May 7, 2009 at 7:48 AM
Oh, and you know who split the party? John McCain. Duh.
Pablo on May 7, 2009 at 8:09 AM
lol
Here’s proof of Palin mishandling her Alaska constituency.
That and the Impeach Palin! signs.
Now…I expect you will dive into your conspiracy theory that media distortion is warping Palin’s image to Alaskans.
The truth is, Palin is Jacksonian, not a Lincoln or a Reagan. She is the realdeal like JTP said, a Noble Yeoman Farmer, one of the common people. That is bourne out by her stumbles and vendettas, her messy family life, her lack of credentials and intellectual credibility.
But the big question is ……can a Noble Yeoman Farmer govern in the 21st century? Can one even be elected?
I just don’t think it’s possible.
strangelet on May 7, 2009 at 8:22 AM
You gonna support that lie of yours, or are you just going to keep babbling, nishi?
Your memes are ineffective.
Pablo on May 7, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Pablo, you will just say the Team McCain leakers are lying.
There is no percentage in me searching for it.
I can only say what I read, and where I read it. I can’t say anything about the veracity of the claims.
Hmm….ok, this is unfair, Highlander.
I think that is an interesting question.
Palin is definitely a moderate Kylon….I don’t think she is going to execute democide on elites like the original Kylon did on the Pythagoreans…..but she definitely is anti-elitist. This is not, however, anything new.
The question is …..is Jacksonian populism a viable political paradigm in the 21st century?
strangelet on May 7, 2009 at 10:16 AM
I can totally see how it would have appeal in an 18th century largely agrarian nation.
strangelet on May 7, 2009 at 10:18 AM
I’m sure you could define “Jacksonian populism” in a way that made it read like a viable political paradigm for the 21st Century, especially on the level or practical politics. In some respects, especially the idea of a president developing an intimate or pseudo-intimate (quasi-monarchical) relationship with the people and establishing the supremacy of the executive over the other branches, Jackson was way ahead of time. But I’m not sure exactly how much that would tell you that we don’t already know. Read AMERICAN LION and get back to me – though don’t tell sesqui as I’m pretty sure he’d consider Jackson a war criminal.
I’m also not sure why you would consider that vulgar leftist “northstar writers” excerpt of any interest here.
CK MacLeod on May 7, 2009 at 12:09 PM
Oh really?
You’re a bad, bad liar, nishi. Which makes being a raving lunatic one of your better traits. What you aren’t is effective. No one is buying what you’re selling, child.
Pablo on May 7, 2009 at 1:17 PM
Okay, Highlander…you piqued my interest. I just finished Team of Rivals.
I’ll admit some of my hostility to Palin is her antipathy to elites, of which I am one (as you are).
As a pythagorean, Palin’s proud Kylon-like ‘tude sets off my spideysense.
The villagers are never far from their pitchforks and torches it would seem.
How does one reconcile the idea of America the Meritocracy with anti-elitism, anti-intellectualism, and thinly veiled envy?
strangelet on May 7, 2009 at 1:55 PM
Strikes me as an elitist, intellectualist projection – more grist for the mill, more salami from the same slicer, choose your cliche. Apparently, the mere existence of Palin, “Palin,” or the potential of Palinism is a threat to the elites and to self-styled intellectuals.
Meritocracy can operate in two different ways (perhaps others, but these are the two that seem illustrative to me): It can be the organic, imperfect, spontaneously emergent, quasi-Darwinian (as naturally selective) result of a process allowed to run its course over time – or it can be the imposition of a hierarchy according to some prescribed set of values. The former strikes me as much more typically and crucially American, libertarian in the broad sense, suggesting fundamental confidence that economic and political freedom is the best means for arriving at the most practical, long-lasting, broadly acceptable, humane, creative, adaptive, unpredictably positive, also worst-except-for-all-alternatives, demonstrably rather than ideally superior, etc., solutions to enduring problems. The latter strikes me as inherently tending toward totalitarianism or some other form of slavery, not to mention stagnation and certain obsolescence. The theoretical basis for these distinctions is all there, by the way, in the critique of philosophy and science, as well as in diverse hard and soft scientific disciplines, that so many academics and other elitists have internalized as shallow nihilism and as a source of unending excuses for self-dealing and every ill common to classically Asian modes of governance and production.
It’s what you voted for and what people like you always vote for. The only consolation for people like me is that young’uns like you will likely have to deal with the dreary consequences of your choices for much longer than I will.
CK MacLeod on May 7, 2009 at 2:40 PM
Ha! You suffer from a common misconception. When we speak of “elites” we are not referring to all highly educated people, but to a subset. There are plenty of brilliant, Ivy Leaguers (Charles Krauthammer, for example) who are not “elites”. CK MacLeod is not an “elite”. Most people who write for the National Review or the Heritage Foundation are highly educated, but are most definitely not “elites” (just to name a few examples). It has nothing to do with intellectual prowess and does not equate at all to an antipathy to intellectual pursuits. Au contraire.
When conservatives refer to “elites” they are talking about an insular attitude among those who are convinced of their own superiority; a belief that they, as members of an “elite” class know what’s best for people, and who are so convinced of their own superiority they want to run the lives of those they view as ignorant peasants who are beneath them (and beneath contempt); a statist belief that government is the solution; a lack of faith in the individual…and so forth.
Buy Danish on May 7, 2009 at 6:19 PM
Buy Danish, the two meanings of the term “elite” correspond, I think, to the construction I was proposing in the prior comment. There would be the “natural aristocracy” mentioned by Jefferson, and then there would be the kind of Scarecrow elite, membership verified by Oz-certified diploma and accompanied by the usual Emerald City perks and privileges. The amount of overlap between the two is open to debate, though the Scarecrows tend to assert the right to adjudicate membership in good standing, while the naturals in the hinterlands deny any such right, but often remain subject to co-optation.
I’m guessing you’ll agree that the present-day bankruptcy of our national elites is not by any means restricted to the political and financial spheres.
I’m thinking of making these last exchanges the beginning point of a post on Palin, the individual; “Palin,” the media construct; and Palinism, a program, platform, and ideology that has not yet been enunciated, and may never be under that name, but whose outlines we can make out.
And you can call me “CK”!
CK MacLeod on May 7, 2009 at 8:10 PM
…which is also to say thank you, plural (including strangelet though without withdrawing criticisms) for helping me with some of these matters. It’s often a great pleasure to be drawn out, no man being an island and all.
CK MacLeod on May 7, 2009 at 9:01 PM
Well I think I can argue that Obama is part of Jefferson’s “natural aristocracy”.
Pythagoras ran a kind of school for leaders. It was the combination of inherited right, natural and acquired gifts, and training that made the leader of men. Kylon was rejected for Pythagoras training, it is said, because of some unsuitability of temperment. So he raised a commoner army of resentment and wiped out the school.
What I believe–
In that quote, Palin seems unable to grasp that some are are simply more fit, better equipped by either an accident of nature or aquired skillz to lead than others– like Kylon.
strangelet on May 8, 2009 at 7:56 AM
“anyone that thinks they are better than someone else” simply doesn’t conform to my idea of a meritocracy.
This seems unrealistic and resentful…..there is always someone better than you….smarter, richer, better educated, prettier, w/e….the idea of running for office itself mean you think you are better suited to serve and/or lead.
Perhaps that is not what she meant, but it raised my hackles.
I’m sensitive to pitchforks and torches.
strangelet on May 8, 2009 at 8:02 AM
sorry, strangelet, but that’s a petulant criticism. For the umpteenth time, I’m not sure about either Palin or “Palin,” but Palin’s definition of elitism, offered in response to interview questions last October, is simple human morality that you should have picked up in grade school, that the country has been committed to effectively since the Declaration of Independence, and that also happens to lie at the base of Judeo-Christian and most other developed moral-ethical traditions – but Christianity especially.
If “all men are created equal,” then how can “anyone be better than anyone else”?
Transforming the existence of differences between real existing people into a contradiction of the moral precepts underlying a democratic culture has been a cheap and unimpressive tactic for 200 years, where not something much worse (as in the attempt by slavery apologists to wish the Founders’ egalitarianism into the cornfield). It is only under the presumption of equality that Jefferson’s natural aristocracy can emerge. You could put it in terms of natural selection if you wanted to – how a trait that’s adaptive in one environment can be non-adaptive in an altered one, and vice versa – but it’s also common sense and common experience. Beautiful billionaires can be lousy people. Brilliant intellectuals can be immensely stupid about life, and cads, too. And thinking you’re better than anyone else makes probably makes you worse than most in a very important way.
You need to re-read your Dostoevsky, slowly, and paying attention. If you haven’t learned already, life will certainly teach you soon, perhaps very painfully, how common clay feet are among all the walking statues of superiority around you.
CK MacLeod on May 8, 2009 at 10:09 AM
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