Well, I wanted to post a comment on my friend's blog, but it kept not being quite coherent enough for prime time. So I'll post what I want to say on this blog which noone ever reads...
Chanson has an excellent post about why she is leery of the "elitist" label. I agree pretty much with her entire post (not completely, of course!). One phrase that stuck out for me was that acquiring knowledge requires a certain amount of humility. Another idea I really appreciate is that even the stupidest ideas have merit.
It struck me as I was thinking about this that elitism as a search for excellence is not a bad thing at all. We should be as proud of our intellectual elites as we are of our athletic elites. However, many times elitism goes hand in hand with arrogance and social division.
Two examples of "elites" which are harmful are in medicine and journalism. Imagine a doctor, a specialist, examining a patient. She is expert in her field, perhaps the leading specialist. She has fully examined the patient and knows what is wrong. However, her expertise gets in the way of her actually listening to the patient when he describes something that doesn't fit with what she knows is wrong.
Second is the attitude non-religious reporters have when they report on religious people. There is often an air of "I can't believe that someone actually thinks this! Isn't it weird?" There is often scorn or wonder in their voice as they talk about the latest crazy thing the fundies have done. The reporter hasn't been able to see the value in the beliefs of the other person, or even see the other person as someone who has actually thought about their beliefs in any sort of rational way. The attitude seems to be, "I am smart, I can't see how anyone believes this, the other person must be stupid!"
One of the commenters on the thread said something like, "noone wants to be told how to live his life..." Right! and the elite should not have the right, just because of their intelligence, to tell the stupid how to live.* This arrogance is exactly what I am talking about, this dehumanization of people because they are less intelligent than you. Soon you get disdain for people who believe differently than you do (because, after all, you are the smart ones!) and more division and less conversation. *The intelligent elite should have the right to try to convince others that their way is best---but the intellectual elite have (quite frequently, actually) been dead wrong.
One last thing: we don't talk about elite housecleaners, or elite plumbers. Why is that? We don't talk about elite stay at home moms (except to make fun of the "supermom" tendency). If being an elite is really something that is available to more than the very smart people you hand out with, why don't we allow people who are entirely different than us to be elite?
One more last thing: as far as I know, the best way to get past thinking that intellectual elites should decide how the other half live is to get to know non-elites as people. As chanson said, even the least intellectual opinions still have value. I know that I can get to know non-intellectuals and work with them at church. Where does a non-theist person go to have his presuppositions challenged? It's not enough to read other opinions (although it is valuable), you have to get to know the people, in person is best. Where does this happen?
