Those guys have infinitely more power than some museum curator or academic who uses some annoying language.
Not that I necessarily agree with this whole "elitism" debate, but how so?
You can scrutinize Trump and Musk all you want. Every average joe on the street thinks they can run a business better or run a website better. They're not untouchable.
Try to question the generally accepted principles of "White people stole land" or "humans cause climate change" or "we need safety nets for the poor otherwise you'll kill them".
What institutions does Trump have on his side? Hollywood? Mainstream media? Public education? The government?
I don't care for the elitism mantra, but it's absolutely silly to pretend that the left of today is still the side that's "rebelling against the man". Clearly they're not.
Try to question the generally accepted principles of "White people stole land" or "humans cause climate change" or "we need safety nets for the poor otherwise you'll kill them".
These are questioned literally all the time. Less so in academic circles but I think the influence of academia on the views of the general public is massively overstated. If academics actually had the influence many people think climate change would've been taken seriously decades ago.
What institutions does Trump have on his side? Hollywood? Mainstream media? Public education? The government?
Trump and the GOP literally are about to take control of every branch of the federal government and have control in more state governments than the Democrats as well. While legacy media may still be anti-Trump things like Fox News, Joe Rogan, etc. are just as "mainstream" as something like the NY Times.
If academics actually had the influence many people think climate change would've been taken seriously decades ago.
You're only really proving the point here. People have the freedom to vote however they want. But they're voting against the grain by voting against the entirety of academia.
As you said yourself, this is not questioned at all at the institutional level. So your viewpoint is the viewpoint of every major institution in the US.
Trump and the GOP literally are about to take control of every branch of the federal government and have control in more state governments than the Democrats as well.
You do realize the government doesn't elect the vast majority of its people. Even considering cabinet appointments, there's civil servants all the way down that are working to do what they can to ignore Trump and his people.
Again, this is clearly not the 1960s. Left-Leaning individuals have swamped the government since then. J Edgar Hoover isn't around to be a boogeyman for progressives any longer.
I feel like we've completely lost the thread of my original statement. What do you consider makes someone elite? To me it is wealth and influence and if we take for example the discussion about climate change oil execs are far more elite than academics or mid-level bureaucrats in the EPA. I'm just saying that by most definitions Trump, Musk, Thiel et al. are far more elite than the academics this article believes are "the elite".
Institutions by and large arriving at conclusions like “climate change has a significant human causal factor” is not a function of ideological control, but empirical methodological consistency.
If recognizing this makes me an elite, then fine we can talk about why people might want to push against that, but making it about class control of institutions and narratives gives short shrift to why certain narratives might be prevalent where a certain level of epistemological rigor is present. Maybe that epistemological rigor is a cultural thing and we can examine the perspectives of those who are part of that culture and who are not. But again, to characterize it as a “control of institutions” issue is a misleading characterization.
Government and academic institutions aren't the only institutions that exist though. Conservatives largely dominate private industry and those institutions are also hugely influential on our daily life.
Im not saying that those things aren't influential. I’m pushing back on the idea that “the elite” somehow only consists of left wingers in government and academic spaces. Why is Trump not considered the elite? Why not Elon Musk or Joe Rogan or Chris Rufo? Why aren’t the upper execs of Exxon elite? All of these people have infinitely more influence than the curator who is considered an example of the elite according to the article.
Why is Trump not considered the elite? Why not Elon Musk or Joe Rogan or Chris Rufo?
You're not getting it. Either intentionally or you refuse to understand. Again, I'm not wasting my time on this, but I've already stated why people think this way. Because they don't have power.
Musa describes the inner workings of a group that has gone by many different names: the PMC (Professional-Managerial Class), the New Class, the cognitive elite or the symbolic capitalists. This group enjoys higher wages and more autonomy than most workers, and its power is derived from knowledge-based work, which requires (at the very least) a college degree.
Elites are defined by people who use a laptop to do their work, and not their hands. So it’s a more expansive definition of elite than the 0.0001%ers who have $100M+ of wealth. In some cases, the cultural elites defined here (and consistent with the article of the OP) may earn less than non-elites (a Capitol Hill staffer making $50k is a member of the elite; a plumber who makes $150k is not).
I don't really agree with that definition. That's basically just dividing elite vs. non-elite between white-collar and blue-collar workers. I do agree that "eliteness" isn't solely based on wealth but influence is also important. I just don't buy that the influence of academic's is nearly as large as it is made out to be.
You don’t need to agree with the definition but this definition of elite is what the NYT author is using, not yours.
A secretary or medical billing clerk is white-collar, but not elite. A barista who moonlights as an artist or poet at night is not white-collar, but is elite. Elites are defined here by their occupations as knowledge workers who apply their creative talents to make new, intangible work products. As such, people who do routine tasks, albeit on the computer, are not elite. People who are members of the educated, creative class, regardless of income, are elite.
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u/TheDemonicEmperor Social Conservative Nov 18 '24
Not that I necessarily agree with this whole "elitism" debate, but how so?
You can scrutinize Trump and Musk all you want. Every average joe on the street thinks they can run a business better or run a website better. They're not untouchable.
Try to question the generally accepted principles of "White people stole land" or "humans cause climate change" or "we need safety nets for the poor otherwise you'll kill them".
What institutions does Trump have on his side? Hollywood? Mainstream media? Public education? The government?
I don't care for the elitism mantra, but it's absolutely silly to pretend that the left of today is still the side that's "rebelling against the man". Clearly they're not.