A question about Elitism as a concept.

[Stranger of Sorts]

As far as intellectualism goes, there's a time and place for it but sometimes it makes sense to be stupid.

I'd rather be wrong for an intelligent reason than right for a stupid reason.

What if the intelligent option is to be stupid? Ahhah!

 

[Danny Ocean]

In politics, Elitism is simply the opposite of pluralism. Pluralism is the idea that political power is spread between several groups, all of which are tolerated. Elitism is the idea that political power is focused within a single group, which is defined as an 'elite' by the possession of certain characteristics which others cannot easily obtain. Other groups are ignored or not tolerated.

Outside of politics, when people mention elitism, what they really mean is arrogance. Elitism is everywhere. It's not bad, it's just a fact of life. The problems come when groups flaunt their credentials, or do not accept new members, or set the standard too high.

 

[oppp7]

I really want to hear an argument against elitism...

 

[manaman]

But something that comes up a lot, especially in politics is that "intellectuals" are "Elitist".

You are posting this on the internet the greatest tool for the exchange of information the world has ever had, and you still can't be bothered to look up terms your a little shaky on the grasp of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitism
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Elitist

Elitist: consciousness of or pride in belonging to a select or favored group

Good or bad, intellectuals that take pride in being intellectual are elitist, but being elitist is not necessarily a bad thing when it's justified. What people take offense to is unjustified elitism.

Hey, its not my fault I'm right so often.

Right, that would be my fault. I have to remember to make the next version a bit more of a klutz.

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

Your definition is off. An elitist is someone who looks down anyone he perceives as inept or inferior. Making fun of the guy who's got a .1 k/d ratio, recommending Bible Black to a naive anime fan, or telling someone to lurk more is an act of elitism. Pretentious or pompous are words I would use with the OP's definition of elitism.

I have to say I've noticed alot more elitism on here than on other boards.

Search button trolls aside, this place was middle of the road while I was posting regularly. Some of 4chan's boards blow it out of the water in that regard.

 

[Miumaru]

Hard not to feel like an elitist sometimes though. But I base mine on common sense, not so much book smarts. When people stop being so stupid and gullible and conservative because they were brainwashed, I may not feel so superior than them.

 

[manaman]

Hard not to feel like an elitist sometimes though. But I base mine on common sense, not so much book smarts. When people stop being so stupid and gullible and conservative because they were brainwashed, I may not feel so superior than them.

That's rich. Conservative = brainwashed.

Right. I am sorry but that is pretty much the view point pushed forward on people. They tell you to pat yourself on the back, because you are opened minded for believing exactly what they tell you.

You have no real idea if your side is right, it's just the people who explained it to you made them make more sense to you then how they explained the opposing side. At most you have a biased basic understanding of all but a select few of those stances. It would take to long to research them in their entirety, so I know that to be true. Your bias then stays that way due to the media exposure of the other side as loony that you subject yourself to, and trust me the same thing happened years ago when the liberals where in the minority. Exactly the same things, the rallies, the crazy speaches, the call to action, the laments at the state of the country. The extremes of both sides are exactly the same. Both sides have valid points, and can learn from each other, but cooperation will never happen when both sides have power to gain from belittling the other side.

 

[Miumaru]

Hard not to feel like an elitist sometimes though. But I base mine on common sense, not so much book smarts. When people stop being so stupid and gullible and conservative because they were brainwashed, I may not feel so superior than them.

That's rich. Conservative = brainwashed.

Right. I am sorry but that is pretty much the view point pushed forward on people. They tell you to pat yourself on the back, because you are opened minded for believing exactly what they tell you.

You have no real idea if your side is right, it's just the people who explained it to you made them make more sense to you then how they explained the opposing side. At most you have a biased basic understanding of all but a select few of those stances. It would take to long to research them in their entirety, so I know that to be true. Your bias then stays that way due to the media exposure of the other side as loony that you subject yourself to, and trust me the same thing happened years ago when the liberals where in the minority. Exactly the same things, the rallies, the crazy speaches, the call to action, the laments at the state of the country. The extremes of both sides are exactly the same. Both sides have valid points, and can learn from each other, but cooperation will never happen when both sides have power to gain from belittling the other side.

I formed most of my views on my own. Alot more than most conservatives raised to not question God. And I use conservatives to specifically mean those who think God induced hate is a political stance. So yes, I KNOW I am right because I am not hindering human rights. Maybe republicans are right, but conservatives are BAD people. Being religious and political is not automatically a conservatives. Banning gay rights because God said so does. Seperation of Church and State is something long forgotten and its sad. And why the fuck should I not be allowed to marry cause some old bigot conservative says so? So yes, I am biased toward ignorant wastes of life who ruin it for the rest of humanity. And even Hitler had a good side, but I doubt you would be arguing against people calling him bad. Yes, I am comparing conservatives to Hitler. Cause Hitler didnt start off as a murdering warmonger of hate...he started out as a politician of hate.

 

[manaman]

snip

You have your terms mixed up. I am against religious fundamentalism as a political movement, and defiantly against the restrictions to freedoms living by the rules they wish to force upon people would cause. I am not against religion in general.

Edit: I am not against people that wish to live by the rules of their religion, but I don't see how it is any of their buisness how I am living my life. They should have the choice to live in the way they wish, as much as I should have the choice to live in the way I wish, as long as we don't interfere with each other excessively (as in: I shouldn't be able to pillage and murder at whim). Just wanted to clarify that a bit.

Being conservative does not mean you have to have anything to do with religion. Core conservative values are family unit oriented, smaller goverment, less goverment interference in peoples lives.

Liberal core values are supposed to be progress and reform, with maximum civil liberties along the way.

Neither party that claims those titles follows those values, and they both twist those words, and associate them with groups that have little or nothing to do with them other then sharing some minor bit of the ideology.

I think at this point it's easy to see how exactly the message you tried ended up corrupted in how I viewed it. I get where you are coming from, but it still reeks of the biased political rhetoric I hear all the time. Especially the last bit. It makes you sound as closed minded as you are trying to make the people who's values you oppose sound. Both sides are sitting around patting themselves on the back for being openminded. If it wasn't such a problem I would crack up about.

A little side note. Separation of church and state doesn't mean what you think it means. Remember that at the time the English had a powerful state church. It was to allow the churches freedom from interference from the goverment to fulfill freedom of religion, while at the same time making sure that situation could not be repeated in the new country. While the goverment could not force people to follow any specific religion they could other wise influence this by giving preferential treatment, to one religions or another. Seeing how religious persecution figured heavily in the fairly recent history of some in the new world I think they wanted to avoid that at any cost. Funny how that turned out.

 

[Miumaru]

snip

You have your terms mixed up. I am against religious fundamentalism as a political movement, and defiantly against the restrictions to freedoms living by the rules they wish to force upon people would cause. I am not against religion in general.

Edit: I am not against people that wish to live by the rules of their religion, but I don't see how it is any of their buisness how I am living my life. They should have the choice to live in the way they wish, as much as I should have the choice to live in the way I wish, as long as we don't interfere with each other excessively (as in: I shouldn't be able to pillage and murder at whim). Just wanted to clarify that a bit.

Being conservative does not mean you have to have anything to do with religion. Core conservative values are family unit oriented, smaller goverment, less goverment interference in peoples lives.

Liberal core values are supposed to be progress and reform, with maximum civil liberties along the way.

Neither party that claims those titles follows those values, and they both twist those words, and associate them with groups that have little or nothing to do with them other then sharing some minor bit of the ideology.

I think at this point it's easy to see how exactly the message you tried ended up corrupted in how I viewed it. I get where you are coming from, but it still reeks of the biased political rhetoric I hear all the time. Especially the last bit. It makes you sound as closed minded as you are trying to make the people who's values you oppose sound. Both sides are sitting around patting themselves on the back for being openminded. If it wasn't such a problem I would crack up about.

A little side note. Separation of church and state doesn't mean what you think it means. Remember that at the time the English had a powerful state church. It was to allow the churches freedom from interference from the goverment to fulfill freedom of religion, while at the same time making sure that situation could not be repeated in the new country. While the goverment could not force people to follow any specific religion they could other wise influence this by giving preferential treatment, to one religions or another. Seeing how religious persecution figured heavily in the fairly recent history of some in the new world I think they wanted to avoid that at any cost. Funny how that turned out.

Civil rights should never be a political point. It should just be something we all have. And if its not what I think it is, then it should be. The Bible is not a legal document, the Bill of Rights is.
Honestly, I dont much care for politics, but am invovled enough soley because if I am not, then my rights get infringed upon. All I ultimatly champion as you may notice is human rights and equality. If I had that, I would care less. And dont blame me for thinking conservatives are the kind of people who SAY they are conservatives. O'Reily, Glenn Beck, Bush, Cheney. They say they are conservatives, and they ARE hateful bigots. So excuse me for putting 2 and 2 together and get 4 when apparently its 7. Any non bigot who is a "conservative" should really just say they are something else. More Nazi ref, Nazi's didnt start out as what they became, but Hitler latched onto them and made them that. Anyone who agrees with pre-Hitler Nazis is but not the after, would probably just not use Nazi as what they are.
And anyone who truly cares about family values will prefer a kid with gay but loving parents, instead of them being orphans.

 

[manaman]

snip

You have your terms mixed up. I am against religious fundamentalism as a political movement, and defiantly against the restrictions to freedoms living by the rules they wish to force upon people would cause. I am not against religion in general.

Edit: I am not against people that wish to live by the rules of their religion, but I don't see how it is any of their buisness how I am living my life. They should have the choice to live in the way they wish, as much as I should have the choice to live in the way I wish, as long as we don't interfere with each other excessively (as in: I shouldn't be able to pillage and murder at whim). Just wanted to clarify that a bit.

Being conservative does not mean you have to have anything to do with religion. Core conservative values are family unit oriented, smaller goverment, less goverment interference in peoples lives.

Liberal core values are supposed to be progress and reform, with maximum civil liberties along the way.

Neither party that claims those titles follows those values, and they both twist those words, and associate them with groups that have little or nothing to do with them other then sharing some minor bit of the ideology.

I think at this point it's easy to see how exactly the message you tried ended up corrupted in how I viewed it. I get where you are coming from, but it still reeks of the biased political rhetoric I hear all the time. Especially the last bit. It makes you sound as closed minded as you are trying to make the people who's values you oppose sound. Both sides are sitting around patting themselves on the back for being openminded. If it wasn't such a problem I would crack up about.

A little side note. Separation of church and state doesn't mean what you think it means. Remember that at the time the English had a powerful state church. It was to allow the churches freedom from interference from the goverment to fulfill freedom of religion, while at the same time making sure that situation could not be repeated in the new country. While the goverment could not force people to follow any specific religion they could other wise influence this by giving preferential treatment, to one religions or another. Seeing how religious persecution figured heavily in the fairly recent history of some in the new world I think they wanted to avoid that at any cost. Funny how that turned out.

Civil rights should never be a political point. It should just be something we all have. And if its not what I think it is, then it should be. The Bible is not a legal document, the Bill of Rights is.
Honestly, I dont much care for politics, but am invovled enough soley because if I am not, then my rights get infringed upon. All I ultimatly champion as you may notice is human rights and equality. If I had that, I would care less. And dont blame me for thinking conservatives are the kind of people who SAY they are conservatives. O'Reily, Glenn Beck, Bush, Cheney. They say they are conservatives, and they ARE hateful bigots. So excuse me for putting 2 and 2 together and get 4 when apparently its 7. Any non bigot who is a "conservative" should really just say they are something else. More Nazi ref, Nazi's didnt start out as what they became, but Hitler latched onto them and made them that. Anyone who agrees with pre-Hitler Nazis is but not the after, would probably just not use Nazi as what they are.
And anyone who truly cares about family values will prefer a kid with gay but loving parents, instead of them being orphans.

I do believe I said family unit, not family value. Family values vary by family.

I can and do blame you for bashing one group, and calling them closed minded when you yourself just said you are not overly involved in politics and only follow it in some minor capacity for fear of your freedoms being ripped away from you. I am getting the feeling you don't even really know what freedoms are, and which ones you do and don't have.

Civil liberties are not freedoms either. You misunderstand the subtleties of the difference between many terms because you only have information that was handed to you to form opinions with. They might sound like freedoms at first, but the subtle difference lies in the fact that civil liberties are granted by the state, and the liberties they give are not intrinsic, but at the whim of the state. In other words the idea is that the state is all powerful, and chooses which liberties to give to the people. Where the idea behind freedoms is that they are intrinsic, and the state cannot take them away, or infringe on them.

Anyway this is a short response becasue you invoked Nazis. Which means this is no longer a discussion. I won't argue online, discuss sure, but arguing is pointless.

 

[Miumaru]

snip

You have your terms mixed up. I am against religious fundamentalism as a political movement, and defiantly against the restrictions to freedoms living by the rules they wish to force upon people would cause. I am not against religion in general.

Edit: I am not against people that wish to live by the rules of their religion, but I don't see how it is any of their buisness how I am living my life. They should have the choice to live in the way they wish, as much as I should have the choice to live in the way I wish, as long as we don't interfere with each other excessively (as in: I shouldn't be able to pillage and murder at whim). Just wanted to clarify that a bit.

Being conservative does not mean you have to have anything to do with religion. Core conservative values are family unit oriented, smaller goverment, less goverment interference in peoples lives.

Liberal core values are supposed to be progress and reform, with maximum civil liberties along the way.

Neither party that claims those titles follows those values, and they both twist those words, and associate them with groups that have little or nothing to do with them other then sharing some minor bit of the ideology.

I think at this point it's easy to see how exactly the message you tried ended up corrupted in how I viewed it. I get where you are coming from, but it still reeks of the biased political rhetoric I hear all the time. Especially the last bit. It makes you sound as closed minded as you are trying to make the people who's values you oppose sound. Both sides are sitting around patting themselves on the back for being openminded. If it wasn't such a problem I would crack up about.

A little side note. Separation of church and state doesn't mean what you think it means. Remember that at the time the English had a powerful state church. It was to allow the churches freedom from interference from the goverment to fulfill freedom of religion, while at the same time making sure that situation could not be repeated in the new country. While the goverment could not force people to follow any specific religion they could other wise influence this by giving preferential treatment, to one religions or another. Seeing how religious persecution figured heavily in the fairly recent history of some in the new world I think they wanted to avoid that at any cost. Funny how that turned out.

Civil rights should never be a political point. It should just be something we all have. And if its not what I think it is, then it should be. The Bible is not a legal document, the Bill of Rights is.
Honestly, I dont much care for politics, but am invovled enough soley because if I am not, then my rights get infringed upon. All I ultimatly champion as you may notice is human rights and equality. If I had that, I would care less. And dont blame me for thinking conservatives are the kind of people who SAY they are conservatives. O'Reily, Glenn Beck, Bush, Cheney. They say they are conservatives, and they ARE hateful bigots. So excuse me for putting 2 and 2 together and get 4 when apparently its 7. Any non bigot who is a "conservative" should really just say they are something else. More Nazi ref, Nazi's didnt start out as what they became, but Hitler latched onto them and made them that. Anyone who agrees with pre-Hitler Nazis is but not the after, would probably just not use Nazi as what they are.
And anyone who truly cares about family values will prefer a kid with gay but loving parents, instead of them being orphans.

I do believe I said family unit, not family value. Family values vary by family.

I can and do blame you for bashing one group, and calling them closed minded when you yourself just said you are not overly involved in politics and only follow it in some minor capacity for fear of your freedoms being ripped away from you. I am getting the feeling you don't even really know what freedoms are, and which ones you do and don't have.

Civil liberties are not freedoms either. You misunderstand the subtleties of the difference between many terms because you only have information that was handed to you to form opinions with. They might sound like freedoms at first, but the subtle difference lies in the fact that civil liberties are granted by the state, and the liberties they give are not intrinsic, but at the whim of the state. In other words the idea is that the state is all powerful, and chooses which liberties to give to the people. Where the idea behind freedoms is that they are intrinsic, and the state cannot take them away, or infringe on them.

Anyway this is a short response becasue you invoked Nazis. Which means this is no longer a discussion. I won't argue online, discuss sure, but arguing is pointless.

And in a similar way all you said is null to me since you just apparently peg me as a ravening hypocritic liberal who isnt worth your time. its impossible not to "argue" on something like this unless both people agree 100%, which would then just be pointless.
But I will still say one last thing. I want equality above all else. True equality. I dont neccesarily want gay marriage, but if we cant marry, then make all marriage illegal. Id settle for that.

But go on being a textbook elitist.

 

[manaman]

snip

I don't know why I am letting my self get dragged into this, but I will give this a try because it's a bit of a different topic.

We where discussing differences in political ideologies and both clarifying our points before. You attempted turn it into a "with me completely or completely against me" argument. When I kept saying all along that both sides need to listen to each other, and that nothing is ever going to be solved if people will not cooperate.

As far as arguments go: It's not that I won't lower myself to that, I just know these arguments don't ended well. At times I can see that there is no longer any discussion happening, which invariably leads to heated arguments over which stance is correct. These are the times I tend to stop. I welcome discussion, but in an argument neither side listens to the other, and both sides get mad at that fact.

You brought up that I was trying to "null you" like I was trying to win. Which means you figured we where arguing the entire time. No, that isn't what was happening at least not on my part. I didn't say either stance was correct. I continually clarified terms and pointed out some minor hypocrisies in your statements, and the likely roots of those hypocrisies.

Mainly what I was trying for was to get you have a look at your ideas so you would stop some of the hating without reason you seem to be doing.

Look at it this way: Just because I don't agree with my friend about a strategy, and we discuss the merits of both of our respective strategies does not mean we are in an argument. In fact something quite brilliant can happen if we listen to each other. We could both form a far superior strategy then either of us could alone, incorporating ideas from both.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I'm always called an elitist by my friends, honestly I have no idea how they could possibly know. I'm much better than them in every way...

Shit.

 

[Miumaru]

snip

I don't know why I am letting my self get dragged into this, but I will give this a try because it's a bit of a different topic.

We where discussing differences in political ideologies and both clarifying our points before. You attempted turn it into a "with me completely or completely against me" argument. When I kept saying all along that both sides need to listen to each other, and that nothing is ever going to be solved if people will not cooperate.

As far as arguments go: It's not that I won't lower myself to that, I just know these arguments don't ended well. At times I can see that there is no longer any discussion happening, which invariably leads to heated arguments over which stance is correct. These are the times I tend to stop. I welcome discussion, but in an argument neither side listens to the other, and both sides get mad at that fact.

You brought up that I was trying to "null you" like I was trying to win. Which means you figured we where arguing the entire time. No, that isn't what was happening at least not on my part. I didn't say either stance was correct. I continually clarified terms and pointed out some minor hypocrisies in your statements, and the likely roots of those hypocrisies.

Mainly what I was trying for was to get you have a look at your ideas so you would stop some of the hating without reason you seem to be doing.

Look at it this way: Just because I don't agree with my friend about a strategy, and we discuss the merits of both of our respective strategies does not mean we are in an argument. In fact something quite brilliant can happen if we listen to each other. We could both form a far superior strategy then either of us could alone, incorporating ideas from both.

The null thing was me saying that your whole point became meaningless to me because you seemingly are too good to continue this with me. Its more intended to just be an insult since I dont actually just expel everything said to me. Maybe I am losing myself a bit, but I get fired up on the subject of human/equal rights, and I cant personally excuse those who try to restrict them for such dumb reasons like God. Ive been thinking through what you said. Hell, Ive come to understand not all republicans are conservatives and just are a political party.
I dont think its right to cop out of an argument though, even if it seems fruitless. Arguing and discussion are two sides of the same coin, and you really cant avoid it.
I have noticed some of the hypocracy. How can I go on about not hating yet hate so much? But I reason it, atleast to myself, as shades of grey. I focus my hate on conservatives instead of just republicans, because I dont want to overly generalize. I honestly try not to, believe it or not. If conservatives did no always come off as bigots, Id disect it even more, but show me a true conservative who is not a bigot, or I wont change that. And discussing strategy is not the same as discussing what is right and wrong, not truly. You could compare them a bit, but not completly.
I dont want to be angry and hateful, but how can I when I see such stupid and ignorant people on the news all the time?

 

[Anstrup]

I really want to hear an argument against elitism...

Well, the Elite is like the head of the class, right? And Elitism is the belief that Elites should rule/lead.

Well look at any feudal scoiety in history, where the little people are oppressed. Thats my argument against Elitism