In Defense of Elitism We need it. Johnah Goldberg About a decade ago, one of the Smithsonian museums here in Washington had an exhibit on the history of human civilization, or something along those lines. I didn't see it, but a friend of mine went and his description always stuck with me. One of the displays was a comparative timeline of different cultures. At, say, 1250 you'd see what the British, the Japanese, the Chinese, or the Arabs had come up with. The sight that really struck home for my friend was a beautiful Renaissance Italian clock, with movable...