Elitism

There are many aspects to elitism and its effects. What many call racism is actually elitism. And what many see as simple bullying is actually the result of elitist mentality. The reactionary position in the face of elitism is just as crippling. The inability to discern better from worse rationally and scientifically can result from a self-blinding reaction against elitism. The Bolshevik experience in Russia, for example, was a failed experiment in egalitarianism in part due to politically assuming that the natural human common denominator will be enlightened or humane. 

Two stories about Israel in this week's media strike me as illustrative of the down side of elitism in a nation which sees itself as bound by a form of racial and religious singularity. The first story concerns the ongoing harassment of Arabs in Israel's West Bank. Palestinian and Bedouin residents on the West Bank who recently developed a source of electricity from renewable sources for the first time in their history could lose their self-generated power on a political-legal technicality. The illegal Jewish settlers in this same desert area are provided with government grid power by Israel. This is a blatant example of apartheid based in religion, racialism and elitism.

The second story involves the refusal of 'religious' orthodox Jews in Israel to serve in the nation conscription for the Israeli army. These are the same 'religious' Jews who greet any deviance from their orthodoxy in their own self-segregating neighborhoods with extreme hatred and violence. These are patriarchal elitists, bullies, who are most cowardly in the face of bearing the military responsibilities for their own social, political and religious elitism. They hide behind Torah to justify their antisocial behaviors. This is typical of religious patriarchal elitism of any stripe.

To equate elitism exclusively with skin tones is indeed straight-forwardly racist. However, the layers of elitism in human society are far more intricate. Religion, capitalism and politics are all seed beds of elitism. Sexism, practiced by men or women, is also a layer of human elitism. Oppression of sexual minorities is the last bastion of human elitism, which unites the least elitist with the most in politics and religion. 

Conquering internal elitism comes with the realization of my own vulnerability and mortality. My own physical and mental limitations teach me more about the hollowness of my own elitism than anything I can read or hear. However, confronting my own elitism cannot be allowed to obscure my own ethical and compassionate judgments in my humanist practice. Equivocation is not a cure for elitism. It is simply a balancing reaction in the initial stages of becoming at one with humanity. Learning to connect with the humanity of any human being I encounter is the key to practically undermining my own elitism. Blanket political correctness is just a lazy way to deny and conceal the elitism that exists underneath it.