It’s the condescension, stupid: the curse of the progressives
This excellent Slate article can be summarized as follows: if you look down on people, it’s unlikely that they’ll start looking up to you.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
He’s right on but misses the big picture.
The other side (that might be ‘us’) does not / is not:
A: Want people to go hungry / not support a saftey net.
B: In the tank for big business
C: Et cetera
Ergo, the only way to be commited leftist fighting the system… is to be a cocoon / intelectual closed circle (that you’ve described) in which there are windmils to fight.
Example: Me, I’ll pay for health insurance for the remainers of the poor not covered under existing programs. But, socialists, like Mike Moore, really want the whole system taken over… and they play yhe center left with propaganda about das system (re: things like A,B&C)…
The whole Obama as elitist is really a joke when you consider the other two candidates: McCain the son of an admiral, married into an extremely wealthy family; Clinton, daughter of a textile tycoon, former first lady. The elitist label seems like just another tactic by his opponents to undercut support from a key constituency.
And it’s working.
But if I’m going to vote against Obama, it’s not because he might say things that sound elitist, it’s because I don’t like his policy on Iraq, his ideas on health care or his approach to the economy.
Similarly, I don’t care if McCain might have had a thing for an intern, McCain used to be buddies with Charles Keating many years ago, or McCain may have laughed with someone called Hillary a b***.
Just don’t care.
Don’t be fooled by this superficial stuff.
kungfu: LOL. Delightful parody. The way you floated above it (and us) all . . . so elite and effete. Well done. Sounded almost for real, very socialist, even for you I bet.
I’m stunned that someone in the MSM not only could recognize this phenomenon, but also dared write about it. Of course, this is another example of the left having a revelation about something that’s been obvious to the rest of us for years, even decades. Thomas Sowell even wrote a book about it, “The Vision of the Anointed.”
For years, liberals’ argument/problem with conservatives always boils down to their condescending accusations that we are: a) too stupid to understand the “nuances” of an issue, b)too intolerant to even listen to other opinions, and c) too devoted to the party and its goals to see the truth when it’s staring us in the face.
The first accusation is becoming more common, since honest and courteous political discourse in this country is nearly gone. The second and third, I suspect, are projection. Liberals avoid walking in our philosophical shoes as if they’d be somehow infected with conservatism. As for sticking by their people, Bill Clinton is the first on my list. Hillary’s second, Obama and Jeremiah Wright are tied for third. Liberals will stick by them, terribly afraid of another Republican administration.
As for their own constituencies, I can’t understand why black people keep voting Democratic. They get used for their votes and then ignored. Same with all their other blocs, none of whom would be allowed within two blocks of a Dem fund-raiser. Mostly, they’re just protest fodder. They hold signs given to them by white handlers and coordinators. I generally visualize the cast of The West Wing.
We just keep getting Democratic millionaires, lecturing us on issues they haven’t dealt with for 30 years. And, yes, I know there are conservative millionaires, but at least they have the class to be rich, and not hide from their wealth.
One more thing about how Greenfield defined “elitist.” It is not entirely how you grew up or who your folks were. It’s how you see the world. Obama used to be on food stamps, but he’s way more of an elitist than John McCain. He thinks only a strong, paternal government can help the country; McCain, whose family got rich by serving this country, thinks, to an extent, people can take care of themselves. And that’s the difference between liberals and conservatives in general. That Jeff Greenfield could recognize it and see liberals’ condescension for what it is, is hopeful.
Elitism isn’t about money, and it isn’t about power; it’s about attitude.
The best answer to liberal consdescension is conservative sarcasm. As in “well, the author of that article had to have been a rocket scientist!”.
Well obviously Obama is an elitist and so is his wife.
kungfu: Believe it or not being born to a life of military service is not something most Americans find snooty.
But sucking up to the billionares in San Fran while you concoct plans to help the little people..is.
Elitism counts. If ones does not believe that a candidate understands your point of view and will stand up for you regarding issues of national importance, then one will lose confidence in the candidate.
Here is summary proof of the validity of that perspective. From what I have read of Obama, I have not been able to find that he has ANY experience as a student in a publicly funded educational institution in the US. Private school in Hawaii. Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard for post secondary education. Here is where this lack of experience with what the hoi polloi has an effect. Barack Obama was chairman of the Annenberg Challenge , which constituted an ineffective spending of $50 million in grant money to improve Chicago schools.
Here is the summary of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Experience.
Is it not possible that if Barack Obama had some experience as a public school student, that he might have helped the board make better decisions regarding what to fund? For example, someone with a public school experience might have been able to draw on his experience to decide that a given ed school pie-in-the-sky approach would not work, and thus would not be worth funding.
Barack Obama as Chief Executive is the Annenberg Challenge writ large. Because Obama’s experience has not been in the mainstream, he has little gut feeling for what would work and not work in mainstream America. I fear that his achievements as President would be the same as his achievements in chairing the Annenberg Challenge. Zilch. Nada. Empty Set. I am not concerned about his bowling score. I am concerned about his lack of proven competence as a leader, as opposed to campaigner. Come to think of it, he isn’t that great a campaigner.
Great Orwell excerpt. Though he showed a little of that elitism himself when he said,
Many who used their brains might have and do disagree.
When Orwell wrote that during the great depression, socialism was at high tide everywhere, Europe, the USSR and here. I think he would not have made some of the assertions in that article had he been around to watch the death blows to socialism that occurred in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
Like the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the communist regimes in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself with the resulting exposure of just how worm eaten, barren and hopeless all those regimes were. Even those where there was enough to eat. Then there was the Tiananmen massacre in China. Today, we can all gaze upon the socialist success story that is Zimbabwe and the fecklessness of a socialized Europe that can’t even muster the will to defend itself from hostile immigrants.
Orwell hit the nail on the head when he said
How true, for both belief systems.
Mr. Greenfield is correct and does a good job of explaining what many of us have thought about those limousine liberals. However, he is too clever by half in that by condemning the ‘bluenoses’ he implies that socialism itself is really ok, when you separate it from the fools.
There are plenty of stupid liberals as well as stupid conservatives and plenty of fools in between. But the greater truth that he stops short of in his condemnation of foolish elitist liberals is that socialism’s fundamental tenets are flawed.
Oh if only they could all go to the neighborhood bar and have a boilermaker with the proles and talk fishing, sports, nationalization of industry and wealth redistribution, then they’d see!
Yeah right.
I ain’t buyin it, but nice try Mr. Greenfield.
“…That Jeff Greenfield could recognize it and see liberals’ condescension for what it is, is hopeful.”
Actually, Greenfield has generally had a pretty good grasp of what’s happening on his (liberal) side of the aisle, and he’s been pretty forthright about it. I’ve never thought of him as a shill for the Donks or for any particular candidate, which is why I’ve generally enjoyed his commentary over the years. I’m with Tim P on where he gets it wrong, or where he doesn’t drill down enough, namely, the concept that if it (socialism, liberalism, etc.) were just “explained” better and with less condescension, then we proles would be just peachy with it. Yes, the condescension rankles, but no, we don’t need the program explained. We understand it just fine. Which is precisely why We.Just.Don’t.Want.It.
I saw this very idea at work 10 or so years ago in a tape of a county zoning board meeting or somesuch (don’t remember the locale). The zoning board spokesman was describing some project, to which a number of the citizens objected. He then said, “Ok, let me explain it to you again”. He didn’t add “my little kindergarteners”, but he could have. Whereupon, Joe Sixpack in the audience cut him off, saying, “Yeah, we know all that, we know how it’s supposed to work, we don’t need it explained again. This is not a misunderstanding. We don’t want it built. Period”. Mr. Spokesman was completely flummoxed and tried explaining again. Again he was cut off. He had no answer to honest disagreement. I’ve seen this same reaction from libs for many years now. That someone could disagree on merit is something that never enters their thinking.
My view is that people should uphold their own integrity and standards, not my own or anyone else’s. Given human society and how human hierarchy works, that’s not particularly practical.
society is designed, and so is the human species, to make you act according to the standards of your fellow human beings. The problem with this is that it often violates individual human rights.
But you can’t get rid of societal standards, either, because that would create anarchy and bring about a total collapse in the social, and thus family, order.
What you can and should do is to motivate people into building up their own personal set of values that is just as good if not better than the greater society’s.
The military has to condescend often due to the fact that they don’t hold politicians, for the most part, to the same honor code as military members do for themselves. They don’t even hold most of America to the same standards of self-sacrifice, honesty, and virtue as they hold themselves. And when a military is involved in warfare, self-sacrifice, honor, integrity, and virtue goes up disproportionately compared to civilian life, if civilian life is not involved much in actively sustaining the war effort.
When you hold yourself to a high standard of behavior and lower that expectation for others because you don’t expect others to be as strong as yourself, that is condescension. But it is condescension without the belief that you are inherently superior or that others are inherently inferior because of their blood or social status. It is condescension with respect to civilian control, if disgust with civilian attitudes at times.
The Left, because they see themselves as born to rule, only see the masses as being necessary for voting them into power. And that is only necessary because Leftists cannot replace the US Constitution, yet, with something more to their liking.
In terms of condescention , I think militant Darwinsits and Global Warming Alarmists are the worst
Waltj–
Your zoning board experience resonates. There are many examples of that kind of thinking in Thomas Sowell’s book. Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Barack Obama and hundreds of liberals think that if they just explain their initiative (or tax or regulation or sop to one of their contributors) thoroughly enough, talking nice and slow so we lumpen masses can understand them, we can’t possibly disagree or vote against them. Once we “get it,” we’ll toss aside our concern over price or limitation on our liberty and gleefully jump on board their progressive bandwagon.
But if we don’t…
If we hear them out and still disagree, what does that mean? Could it mean they’re arguing from a fundamentally flawed position or they don’t really know their constituencies? Of course not. It means we really do see the rightness of their argument, but in our short-sightedness or greed or ignorance we choose to do wrong.
If only they could strap us down so we could really listen and hear what they have to say, they could de-program us. Perhaps some taxpayer-funded “Re-Education Centers” would do the trick. It’s for our own good, really.
The nerve of these people.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/1924872/Michelle-Obama-Barack-has-hit-boiling-point.html
Michelle Obama: Barack has hit boiling point
Barack Obama is struggling to contain his anger and frustration over the constant barrage of questions about his character and judgment, his wife has revealed.
He is said to be itching to turn all his fire on John McCain, the Republican candidate, who is benefiting most from Mr Obama’s protracted tussle with Hillary Clinton.
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This guy is a joke. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.. the best word to describe him is “brittle”
And btw what happened to all the Happy Talk about not campaigning negativity.. and he’s going to rise above it.. he’s The New Politics.
I never believed that crap to begin with.
But hey.. all you reporters.. why aren’t you challenging the Obamas to live up to the basic premises of their campaign?
Is he capable of getting “unity”? Nope
Does he have a history of “working across the aise”? Nope
Does he campaign any less agressively? Nope
Is he “beyond racism”? Nope.. he wallows in it
This guy is an embarassment.
In the George Orwell book cited, The Road to Wigan Pier, he made this, I think, penetrating observation: “The underlying motive of many Socialists, I believe, is simply a hypertrophied sense of order. The present state of affairs offends them not because it causes misery, still less because it makes freedom impossible, but because it is untidy; what they desire, basically, is to reduce the world to something resembling a chessboard.”
Sorry about the bold for the whole posting. I obviously used the html tag wrong. Thought I was just applying it to the quote at the start…
[note from neoneocon: Ooops! I was trying to edit your previous comment to remove the bold, and I inadvertently deleted it. Sorry!]
My fav George Orwell quote is, “All left-wing parties in the highly industrialised countries are at bottom a sham”