Posted on 05/16/2008 4:13:51 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
So we all know that Cindy McCain is loaded. She’s an heir to the Anheuser Busch fortune and has millions upon millions. I love how the McCains & Clinton’s have 10-100X the millions that Obama has and he’s the elitists. Whatever.
I want to challenge the idea that money is what defines whether one is a member of the American Elite. In doing so, I rely mainly on Christopher Lasch’s work The Revolt of the Elites.
According to Lasch:
The new cognitive elite is made up of what Robert Reich called “symbolic analysts” — lawyers, academics, journalists, systems analysts, brokers, bankers, etc. These professionals traffic in information and manipulate words and numbers for a living. They live in an abstract world in which information and expertise are the most valuable commodities. Since the market for these assets is international, the privileged class is more concerned with the global system than with regional, national, or local communities. In fact, members of the new elite tend to be estranged from their communities and their fellow citizens. “They send their children to private schools, insure themselves against medical emergencies ... and hire private security guards to protect themselves against the mounting violence against them,” Lasch writes. “In effect, they have removed themselves from the common life.”
As Lasch further explained: “[T]he new elites, the professional classes in particular, regard the masses with mingled scorn and apprehension.” They regard the values of “Middle America” as mere mindless patriotism, religious fundamentalism, racism, homophobia, and retrograde views of women. “Middle Americans, as they appear to the makers of educated opinion, are hopelessly shabby, unfashionable, and provincial, ill informed about changes in taste or intellectual trends, addicted to trashy novels of romance and adventure, and stupefied by prolonged exposure to television. They are at once absurd and vaguely menacing.” (28) “A skeptical, iconoclastic state of mind is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the knowledge classes.” (215)
So understood, elitism is not just a question of money. Instead, it must be understood in a broader socio-economic context. Put another way, money may be what opens the door to membership in the modern American elites, but acquiring a certain set of sensibilities and attitudes is equally essential.
The question before us thus is not whether McCain has more money than Obama. The question is which of two better exhibits the sensibilities of the modern American elite. (Of course, Hillary Clinton is a virtual paradigm of the elites as defined here.)
I think it is fairly obvious that Barack Obama is far more likely to be at home in “an abstract world in which information and expertise are the most valuable commodities” than would be John McCain. I also take it that, as the West Virginia results suggest, white Middle Americans worry that Obama shares the opinions of “makers of educated opinion” about their values and beliefs. Certainly, his infamous Pennsylvania speech hinted that Obama regards them as “hopelessly shabby, unfashionable, and provincial, ill informed about changes in taste or intellectual trends, addicted to trashy novels of romance and adventure, and stupefied by prolonged exposure to television”:
“It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
(To be sure, no one can deny that there is more than a little overt racism in those results, as well.)
I also think it will be instructive to revisit an Obama comment about the goals of his campaign:
I believe in our ability to perfect this union because it’s the only reason I’m standing here today.
This phrasing fails to account for the critical difference between striving to create a “more perfect union” and perfecting it. Apropos of which, it’s been said of Lasch that:
Lasch sets himself against the ideology of “progress” ultimately because progress is incompatible with the idea of limits, either natural or moral. It therefore leads not just to silly forms of utopianism, but to dangerous ones as well. The petty bourgeoisie, Lasch believes, are or were inoculated by their experience against such perfectionism, at least in its secular forms. This is simultaneously an attraction of the philosophy of this class and a reason why its cultured detractors include those elites for whom the commitment to secular progress is essential because, in the Western intellectual tradition, progress is mobility.
Lasch stresses, however, the positive side of this petty-bourgeois project. In the place of progress, Lasch says, the lower-middle class traditionally embraced the virtue of hope, a virtue precisely because it arises out of a recognition of limits. For those, this reviewer included, who reject today’s liberal progressivism because it is essentially immodest, Lasch’s rejection of progress in favour of hope generated by an acceptance of limits is enormously appealing. It strongly recalls (though Lasch, the staunch Americanist, does not say so) the liberal modesty, moderation and limits that Camus urged at the end of L’Homme revolte.
I’m not at all sure that John McCain is adequately “inoculated” “against such perfectionism.” I’m positive, however, that Obama isn’t. Instead, he is the epitome of “those elites for whom the commitment to secular progress is essential.”
Words matter. Ideas have consequences. If this election is to be a contest between the petty bourgeoisie and the elites, understanding what those words really mean is going to be essential.
You are right her father was a big time distributor ... she is not an heir to Anheuser Bush!
Both are Senators and by definition are elitist boobs. Repeal the 17th.
I read the first of the article and said who was the idiot that researched this story??? If they cannot get that much correct, what comes next is meaningless dribble.
This article is proof positive of why we can’t trust government, whether it’s Republican or Democrat. They have contempt for their fellow citizens and think of themselves above it all. They have the means to hire a team of security, therefore they are not affected by the banning of guns which places ordinary citizens at the mercy of common criminals.
And the moral to the story is....
Never vote to increase the size of government because government is the tool of the elites.
Elitists aren’t necessarily rich, but they do look at someone like Joseph Stalin and say, “Oh sure, he was brutal. But who did he kill that actually mattered?”
Yours truly,
The Woim
From Wall Street Journal
This is a summary of the article:
She graduated from Southern Cal and was a special-needs [Special Education] teacher.
After her Dad died she became involved with his beer distributing firm and is now the chairwoman.
Sales have doubled since she has taken over from her father.
She and Sen. John McCain have a marriage prenuptial agreement; her assets remain separate.
She is involved around the world clearing land mines - travels to these countries on a detonation team and serves on their board of directors.
The McCains have a 19 year old serving in Iraq, another son in the Naval Academy, a daughter who recently graduated from Columbia Univ., an adopted daughter in high school, and a son who is the finance guy at the beer firm. Raised kids in Phoenix, AZ rather than Washington DC.(better atmosphere). He commuted.
In 1991, Mrs. McCain came across a girl in an orphanage in Bangladesh. Mother Teresa implored Mrs. McCain to take the baby who had a severe cleft palate. She did so without first telling her husband. The couple adopted the girl who has had a dozen operations to repair her cleft palate and various other medical problems.
They have a Family Foundation for children’s causes. She’s active with ‘Halo Trust’ - to clear land mines, provide water and food in war ravaged and developing countries. She will join an overseas mission of ‘Operation Smile’, a charity for corrective surgery on children’s faces.
She has had two back surgeries and became addicted to pain killers. She talks openly about it which she says is part of the recovery process.
Unfortunately, all we hear about is her former drug problem. Whatever you may think about John McCain, she sounds like an intelligent lady who is a real humanitarian.
Today they wish to influence policy and even control our country, most of them are extreme lefties, and want to mold our world to fit their own vision.
I agree completely.
The Woim
My difinition of 'elitist' is someone who believes that most matters, if not all, are best left to 'experts'. In other words, 'you' have no say in anything.
So rabid ignorance, hyper bigotry and the most extremist type of provincialism are now being defined as being "part of the knowledge classes"!
Isn't it wonderful what 40 years of indoctrinated instead of education in the US Publics Schools has lead us to? A self styled political "elite" who are wholly, and pathetically, incapable of anything resembling thought or reason but feels really good about themselves.
How this for an elitist statement?
April, 2006 SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: “ My friends, I’ll offer anybody here $50 an hour if you’ll go pick lettuce in Yuma this season and pick for whole season. So — OK? Sign up. OK. When you sign up — you sign up, and you’ll be there for the whole season. The whole season, OK? Not just one day. Because you can’t do it, my friend. Sign up.”
(END VIDEO CLIP) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2006856/posts?page=176#176
“Unfortunately, all we hear about is her former drug problem. Whatever you may think about John McCain, she sounds like an intelligent lady who is a real humanitarian.”
Please, be realistic. We didn’t hear a word about her ‘drug problem’ until she got caught STEALING drugs from her own charity! She got no jail time, like anyone else would, because she chose ‘rehabilitation’ instead.
Her distributorship is for Anheuser Busch who is VERY humanitarian, as long as you are an illegal alien or an enviro freak.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2016284/posts?page=9#9
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