Perhaps nowhere else [than in America] will you find such a discrepancy between people and myth, between life and the representation of life. An American said to me: “The trouble is that we are all eaten by the fear of being less American than our neighbor.” I accept this explanation: it shows that Americanism is not merely a myth that clever propaganda stuffs into people’s heads but something every American continually reinvents. It is at one and the same time a great external reality rising up at the entrance to the port of New York across from the Statue of Liberty, and the daily product of anxious liberties. The anguish of the American confronted with Americanism is an ambivalent anguish, as if he were asking, “Am I American enough?” and at the same time, “How can I escape from Americanism?” In America a man’s simultaneous answers to these two questions make him what he is, and each man must find his own answers.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Americans and Their Myths, The Nation, April 6, 2015 edition
Liberal elite (also known as the metropolitan elite in the United Kingdom) is a political stigma used to describe politically left-leaning people, whose education had traditionally opened the doors to affluence. It is commonly used with the pejorative implication that the people who claim to support the rights of the working class are themselves members of the upper class, or upper middle class, and are therefore out of touch with the real needs of the people they claim to support and protect.
Liberal Elite, Wikipedia
Elite: A select part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities: the elite of Britain’s armed forces.
Definition of elite, Oxford Dictionary
I was recently accused of being an elitist liberal in a Facebook post by a conservative friend in language that reeked of its own peculiar elitism. I was fair game for criticism of some sort since some of my own language used on the topic of Ted Cruz was over the top, but I found his charge of elitism particularly curious since it was used as a pejorative. After all, I grew up in a poor family in the same small town in which my accuser grew up in his own poor family, and each of us subsequently found a measure of success in life due to our respective personal efforts and drives to succeed. So what makes me an elitist and him not? Because we last set eyes on one another in 1963 when we graduated from high school, I can only attempt to analyze my own condition; I leave his analysis to his own introspection.
The inherent difficulty in reacting to a charge of this type is that I have to brave a further charge of immodesty by being willing to acknowledge that I believe I am more ‘intelligent’ than the average American. Yet I find I must risk being called an elitist or being seen as immodest in order to write this piece. I have a lifetime of evidence for my claim, but I won’t offer a litany of reasons for my belief since doing so would only further a charge of immodesty or even arrogance. I do wish to make it clear that I am not claiming to be the most intelligent American; I leave that claim to the likes of Thomas Edison or Bill Gates or anyone else you care to name. I do, however, believe that I was granted above average intelligence at birth together with a strong psychological drive to use that intelligence, and that I was fortunate enough to enjoy good parental nurturing of both gifts during my formative years.
By making this claim, I am automatically opening myself to an accusation of being an elitist. After all, how dare I claim to have more intelligence than another; indeed, the bulk of others within my target group? Alas, I will likely only further my elitist attributes by acknowledging two further personal beliefs: that I possess a good measure of common sense and usually use it efficiently; and that common sense is highly lacking among people of any intellectual condition.
The problem in my making such claims is found in the above-quoted definition of ‘elite’ in the Oxford Dictionary. Inherent in my claims is the notion that I find myself to be ‘superior’ to the rest of the group – in this case, the group consisting of all Americans. To someone else, my claim to be of greater than average intelligence might well imply that I am supercilious as opposed to merely acknowledging the fact of possessing a greater-than-average intelligence. But why should I be wary of another’s interpretation of who I am, even so wary as to engage in the limited discussion contained within this paragraph? Upon reflection, I confess that I don’t know, and this realization means that I must leave the resolution of my status as factually correct or as braggart to the reader.
In truth, I take pride in my intelligence and have often used it for my own benefit, for the benefit of my family, for the benefit of my clients, and for the benefit of others with whom I am not acquainted. In so saying, I am not trying to argue that I am the only person to do all of these things. In fact, it is my firm belief that all people try to do the first two things to the best of their ability, and that all service professionals, educators, and merchants of every stripe attempt mightily to do the third. However, I am unconvinced that everyone tries to act for the benefit of others, for far too many Americans seem to be empathy impaired and only find joy in being wealthier or more powerful than most others. It is this last belief that makes me a liberal because I believe that our great wealth ought to be shared.
If my willingness to be labeled a liberal and to claim above average intelligence for myself makes me one of the meritocratic elite so despised by dedicated, right-wing Americans, then so be it. If someone does so pigeonhole me, they must understand that I find great irony in their classification. A major principle of modern American conservatism is that government should stay out of the way of individuals and let them succeed by using their native talents. Apparently, however, demonstrated intelligence in the form of a university degree or degrees is a status for which the farthest right-wing has great disdain – even though the likes of Ted Cruz possess such degrees but prefer to be labeled as members of the Tea Party rather than as a mere conservative or, God forbid, a liberal.
There once was a political party in America known as the American Party who were strongly anti-immigrant and especially anti-Catholic. Today, few remember this party by its correct name, for it became known to history as the Know-Nothing Party because its members were instructed to say that they knew nothing when asked about their pro-protestant, anti-immigrant beliefs. This was simply another form of burying one’s head in the sand in hopes of not being seen or caught out. I do not aspire to hide my beliefs, and refuse to be classified as a Know-Nothing of any stripe.
Ours is a country of constitutional checks and balances, so I am dismayed at the absence in contemporary American politics of the parliamentary notion of the loyal opposition. We only truly get things right in our governmental deliberations when men of principle on either side speak out clearly and strongly for what they believe and subsequently find common ground somewhere between the extremities of their respective positions. This is called debate and the result is known as compromise. I not only don’t understand the far right’s need to vilify those willing to assume the label of ‘liberal’ or who appreciate the value of meritocracy, I also find it reprehensible that those farthest to the right wish to limit the application of our meritocratic principles to the privileged few – especially when their denial is exercised against skin color, against religious belief, against sexual preference, or against some other attribute deemed unacceptable within their concept of what it means to be a ‘true American’.
Sartre had it right: too many of us are afraid of being labeled as anything specific for fear others may think ill of us and call us un-American. Joe McCarthy understood us better than we knew. As for me, I long ago learned that if you are willing to stick your head above the parapet by asserting any form of leadership, someone will take a potshot at you for having done so. It comes with the turf. But if you believe in something heartily enough to take action of any kind, you must accept this inevitability. You must come to appreciate the empowerment inherent in the phrase ‘So be it!’ and learn the value of letting the chips fall where they may.
It isn’t another’s opinion of you that matters; it is your own opinion of yourself and the quality and strength of your adherence to your own ideals that does. So use your brains and don’t let the labels get you down. Wear them openly, with pride!
