Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Ignorance Is Bliss

Is it just my impression, or are we hearing less these days about debutantes and “coming out parties?” I have this dim recollection of a group called “the Four Hundred,” whose extravaganzas for its feminine offspring coming of age must have kept a lot of catering businesses solvent. The families responsible for these rituals were once considered the “elite.”

My how things have changed! Apparently being elite in its traditional style has gone from de rigueur to gauche? (I figure a touch of French might help restore some of the class lost in the process.) The nouveau elite are now post graduates of Ivy League and other prestigious colleges. To my knowledge there’s no record of Michelle Obama having a coming out party.

I think I see a trend. The former elite seem to have decided that there’s more to be gained by poor mouthing than “flaunting it.” However elitism is defined, there is a majority that doesn’t have it that resents those who do. In a democracy a majority theoretically rules and if there’s one thing the formerly elite want to do it’s to rule.

What this has done to the national discourse is another matter. The point in getting a doctorate from a top college seems lost when two of the hottest properties in a form of entertainment known as politics are a woman who went to four community colleges in four years and another who got her B.A. when she recently completed a course by mail twenty years after enrollment.

This phenomenon is not limited to women. Two men born and educated in New England became president while speaking like old cowhands from the Rio Grande. An important  lesson for contemporary politicians is that if you’re better educated than the people whose votes you want, don’t let them know it.

This path to popular political approval was foreshadowed by reaction to a Nixon Supreme Court nominee who was criticized for having a mediocre judicial record. A Senator from Nebraska came to his defense by saying “there are a lot of mediocre judges, people and lawyers” and that “they are entitled to a little representation.” He was ridiculed by the unknowing at the time. But when all’s said and done Senator Roman Hruska may be the Aristotle of his time and possibly the most prescient, if not the noblest, Roman of them all.

No comments:

Post a Comment