Jonah Goldberg has a problem with elitism, yet he doesn't seem to know it:
Whenever a political movement arises -- like American conservatism -- which challenges the elite-bureaucracy's authority they are accused of working against "the people" and the "downtrodden."
To be blunt, I as a Liberal have no problem with a certain, common elitism. If out of an enormous pool of interviewees the guy or girl who is the fastest, most fluid, most convincing writer with the biggest vocabulary gets the copywriting job, I'm not ruffled. I'm fine with the notion of someone who's spent his or her entire life coordinating disaster relief getting appointed to head FEMA. Every society is in part predicated on one kind of elitism or another; our system is better than most -- I'd much rather people achieve influence and power based as much as possible on their own merits, rather than by dint of inherited wealth and connections.
And it is exactly this system that Jonah Goldberg has a problem with. He wants it gamed so that when, for example, he tangles in public with Juan Cole, the latter is constrained in such a way that Jonah would not suffer a smackdown so deeply embarrassing that it would have driven someone less self-conscious and more sensible than he from the public scene ages ago. Ideally, someone like Juan Cole would not be allowed to exist in Jonah's utopian elitist framework.
(Really, read the post -- it's worth it just for the oblique shout-outs to old fascists and Pinochet, even as Goldberg supposedly maintains his notion that fascism is a primarily leftist phenomenon. Hysterical)
"But Mommy, it's the *wrong kind* of elitism!"
5.09.2006
Ore : 9:04 AM
Ore : 9:04 AM
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Comments for "But Mommy, it's the *wrong kind* of elitism!"
I don't know why we bother. The guy is an over-priviledged self hating Jew.
- Posted at 9:39 AM | By
"...shut up and go back to selling Linda Tripp tapes on Ebay"
Exactly! Smack that suck'a down!!
Exactly! Smack that suck'a down!!
Georgie, not funny. Not even a little. Now stop making out with Butchie's sister and behave!
- Posted at 3:44 PM | By
Good news that Teh isn't dead in a ditch somewhere.
- Posted at 10:54 PM | By
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