Great unwashed elites?

Posted by Frank Gerjevic

Posted: June 12, 2008 - 2:23 pm

Who are the elites and how did they get to be that way?

What's your definition?

I remember wincing when I heard a legislator wondering how Alaska's need for a fiscal plan could be sold to "Joe Sixpack." This was in 1999, and it was the first time I heard an elected official here publicly distance himself that way from his constituents. Unless he thought the Sixpacks lived in somebody else's district.

I take the current devaluation of the word elite to mean the affluent, the well-educated and sometimes, the condescending. People like to think of themselves as "elite." Elite suggests special forces, halls of fame, brilliance and beauty. But if you qualify only on money and degrees and a particular world view then it's a crock. You may be a "have" rather than a "have-not," but there's nothing elite about a sense of superiority. That's common as dirt.

We need elite leadership. But I'd like to see some from a wide swath of citizens whose common attritubes are intelligence (there's more than one kind) and care.

One the other hand, maybe I wouldn't recognize elite if I saw it. I've been assured I have no aesthetic sense because I've always liked the whale mural on the wall of JC Penney.

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