“Elitism” is a term used very
frequently these days. It’s used by pundits of every stripe to pour scorn over
ivory tower academicians or “coastal elites” guilty of being dynamic,
productive and progressive. There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth
over how these “coastal elites” failed to understand white rural and small-town
America, leading to the rise of right wing populism. I believe that reading to
be superficial and only partially accurate.
This topic deserves a deeper
exploration, and will devote a few posts to an exploration of the topic of
elitism, real or perceived, and its role in society.
The definition of “elitism”
according to the Oxford Dictionary of British and World English is the belief that society should be led by an
elite, or the superior attitude or behavior associated with an elite.
Elite is a French word of Latin
origin, meaning “the elected ones”, from the Latin “eligere”, or “to elect”. It designates “a group or class of people seen as having the most power and influence
in a society, especially on account of their wealth or privilege”:
My suggestion is that elitism is
far from being a monopoly of cosmopolitan, left-leaning intellectuals. There are
actually multiple elitist groups in American society and elsewhere, vying for
power, forming shifting alliances with one another and accusing one another of
elitism.
Let’s look at the supposedly
non-elitist group that progressives are accused (and accuse themselves) of not
understanding: religiously conservative white middle America. This group has
been deified and pandered to as “the real America” and “the silent majority”
and reviled as “flyover America”. Both characterizations are simplistic. Voices
from within that group paint a more complex picture. A fascinating essay by
Forsetti’s Justice that recently appeared in AlternNet[i]
describes an insider’s view of white rural America, emphasizing the role that
fundamentalist religion plays in keeping large swaths of the population
impervious to reason. This article is not from a know-it-all New York City-based
editorialist or a Harvard sociologist who has never set foot in a farm. It’s
from someone who grew up in that world and experienced it from within. The
essay is long but worth reading, and I won’t summarize it here. I will say that
it is consistent with my experience of white rural America and with what I hear
from others who grew up in that environment and eventually left it.
The role of religion in American society
and politics is larger than in any other Western countries. Most European
countries have had Presidents and/or Prime Ministers who were not religious,
and quite a few that were openly secular. In 2016 America, that would be
unthinkable. Millions of people are conditioned from an early age to believe one
or more of the following statements: 1) The Bible contains absolute truth, and
all the truth you need to know is in the Bible; 2) If anyone tells you
otherwise, they are prideful sinners who are trying to tempt you into the ways
of the Devil; 3) Any development or theory that contradicts the literal truth of the Bible is sinful and
must be rejected. People who promote such sins are the enemy; 4) your pastor
will explain to you what the Bible means, and all you’ll ever need to know you
can learn from him; and 5) Your white skin means you are one of the chosen who
keep the True Faith, and you are blessed. Darker people were cursed because of
some sin committed by their ancestors, and they are cursed.
Needless to say, not everyone in
white rural America is so benighted. However, enough people are, and I have
personally met people believing some or all of the statements listed above, and
people who have never read any other book than the Bible. As an example, here
is a true episode from a couple of years ago. I was driving through the rural
Mid-South, between Alabama and Mississippi. I turned on my radio to what I
believed was the local NPR station. A well-educated, articulate voice entirely
free of Southern accent filled my car’s cabin. The speaker sounded like an
academician giving an interview to the real NPR. It took me a minute to realize
how wrong that first impression was. This was a fundamentalist Christian radio
station, using the same wavelength used by NPR in the rest of the state. The
professorial-sounding individual being interviewed was saying the following:
evolution is a conspiracy by godless scientists to drive the faithful away from
the Truth. Any news stories describing evolution you may see in the mainstream
media are lies concocted by this evil cabal and are not to be trusted. And then
came the punchline. “Why”, he asked, “would scientists be so wicked as to deceive
good, God-fearing people”? “The only possible reason is that they are in
league with the Devil”. In the 21st century, I was listening to
someone on live radio accusing scientists of being agents of Satan. I started
scanning the dial for other stations, but all I got was preachers, Bible quotes
and “Christian Rock”. I could find no station that wasn’t promoting fundamentalist
religion for some 100 miles. A fascinating anthropological experience, but a
deeply unsettling one.
A great book by Jerry DeWitt
describes this reality from the inside. Mr. DeWitt, a former Pentecostal pastor
from rural Louisiana, writes of his profoundly life-altering experience as he
progressively lost his faith. The book is called “Hope after Faith: An
Ex-Pastor's Journey from Belief to Atheism”. It’s a fascinating read and a
remarkable example of intellectual honesty. It gives the reader an insider’s
look at the workings of white rural churches throughout middle America,
traveling pastors, training centers, Christian “revivals” and the social milieu
surrounding them. Not surprisingly, infighting, politics and greed feature
prominently in this behind-the-scenes story. What the book shows is the extent
to which entire towns full of apparently reasonable people practice magical
thinking on a daily basis. It also shows the extent to which magical thinking
is identity-defining for these folks, leading them to reject outsiders and
ostracize anyone who questions their beliefs. Towards the end of the book, Mr.
DeWitt loses his job for appearing in a Facebook picture with Richard Dawkins,
the British biologist and author of atheism-promoting books such as “The God
Illusion”. Mr. DeWitt had gone to Texas to attend a convention at which Dr.
Dawkins was speaking, to expose himself to secular thinkers and gauge his own reactions
to their perspectives. The fact itself that he had attended that convention and
his picture appeared on Facebook was enough to cause his entire town to turn on
him, including his own family. The
in-group peer pressure is tremendous in fundamentalist America, because
fundamentalist beliefs define the
identity of a whole tribe of Americans.
Another essay, by rural Ohio-native
Patrick Thornton[ii]
focuses on the reality bubble in which rural America is trapped, due to
geographical and especially cultural isolation. Mr. Thornton, who now lives on
the East Coast, points out that growing up in Middle America does not expose
people to experiences they would need to develop a realistic worldview. “My
high school had about 950 students. Two were Asian. One was Hispanic. Zero
were Muslim. All the teachers were white” he writes. What changed Mr.
Thornton’s life and opened his mind was going to college. “The first gay person
I knew personally was my college roommate - a great man who made me a
better person. But that’s an experience I would have never had if I didn’t go
to college and instead decided to live the rest of my life in my hometown” writes
Mr. Thornton. Since three quarters of Americans don’t attend college, and many
dwellers of Southern and Midwestern states live all their lives in their native
states, there are large segments of the population that simply don’t experience
enough of life to understand the modern world.
What all three writers emphasize is that rural white Americans do not
see themselves as under-educated, under-informed and in desperate need of
change. Quite the contrary. They proudly and self-righteously see themselves as
a religious, moral, racial and cultural elite,
the custodians of truths and traditions that must be jealously guarded from the
assaults of godless liberals, inferior races and false religions. In their own
way, they are as elitists as Boston liberals who have never seen a cornfield. In
fact, their beliefs are textbook elitism. They hold the belief that society should be led by an elite, and have the superior attitude or behavior associated
with an elite. Except, they believe that the elite should be white
fundamentalist Christians, and that this elite has a right to dominate the US
and force everyone else to accept their values.
That is a large part of the reason
why these folks are scornfully dismissive of progressives who try to tell them
that they are voting against their own interests. It’s not because they are too
stupid and ignorant and need help to understand. It is because they have no
interest in listening to progressive messages, since they believe themselves to
be morally superior to “liberals”.
I am not suggesting in any way that
white middle Americans are inherently inferior to other tribes in our society,
nor that they are evil. Many of them are helpful, friendly, caring persons who
make great neighbors, provided no one
challenges their deeply held beliefs. What I am suggesting is that they are
victims of two factors, namely isolation and early conditioning, which program
their minds to see the world in starkly religious terms and themselves as a
moral elite, no matter what their material circumstances may be.
A few years ago, I had an
opportunity to examine the data gathered by an ambitious pilot program of
health education carried out throughout the U.S. South by the American Cancer
Society. The program promoted mammography and Pap smears for the early
diagnosis and prevention of breast and cervical cancer, and tested the
acceptance of HPV vaccination, which can prevent nearly all cervical cancers.
It was a resounding success among African-Americans, in both urban and rural
settings. The group that proved most difficult to reach was rural whites living
in Appalachia. Women attending meetings with local, trained community health
advisors reported being fearful of domestic violence if their male partners
discovered they were talking to strangers about sex-related parts of the body.
They and especially their husbands and boyfriends viewed health advisors as
dangerous interlopers trying to import sexual debauchery into their world. This
was despite the fact that rates of teen pregnancy and cervical cancer among
them were extremely high, indicating that premarital sex and the transmission
of STDs in these areas did not require any outside encouragement by godless
liberals.
The “Left Behind” series is a
hugely popular series of novels[iii]
describing the aftermath of the biblical End Times. The True Believers are
raptured into Heaven, and everyone else is “left behind” to be punished for
their sins in a post-apocalyptic world. The series has a website, and one of
the authors calls himself a “Dr.”, suggesting that he holds a graduate degree.
Millions of people read these books and believe themselves to be chosen by God
to be raptured into Heaven, because of their unquestioning faith in
fundamentalist Christianity. Science and reason are no more than evil
temptations to them. Reality doesn’t matter, because God can alter it as he
wishes. God can make the Earth cooler if he so chooses, even though the
faithful keep burning coal. God will make the infidels pay and will reward the
faithful in the end.
This worldview is no different than
that of Medieval villagers from 1000 years ago. The modern villagers may have
smartphones and drive cars, but they view the world in magical terms as much as
their distant ancestors did. The only concession to modernity is that a
scientist trying to explain evolution to such “true believers” may not be
actually burned at the stake as a heretic, though he or she may be run out of
town, and violence could not completely be ruled out.
If right wing white Christians see
themselves as an elite, how do they rationalize the fact that their
circumstances have been steadily deteriorating? To quote Mr. Thornton again:
“Change has not been kind to the Midwest and rural America. And rather
than embrace it, rural and white working-class Americans are twisting and
turning, fighting it every step of the way. We will never return to the days
where a white man could barely graduate high school and walk onto a factory
floor at 18 and get a well-paying job for life. That hasn’t set in
for much of the Midwest.” Why is this proud group of people being left
behind by the economy?
In the 1950s, a white middle
American’s life was better than that of most other human beings on the planet,
with the only exception of ultra-wealthy jet-setters. They were blessed by God Almighty.
There was no competition to speak of from Europe or Asia, still recovering from
World War 2 devastation. America was the only large industrialized country left
intact, and jobs were plentiful for white males. Then, things started to head
South (or perhaps North, East and West would be a better analogy): Blacks
gained civil rights and voting rights. Women got birth control and started
divorcing their husbands. Abortion was legalized. Non-Christian and/or
non-White Christians demanded equal rights. Even gays, the epitome of
sinfulness, demanded recognition and the right to be married. And to top it all
off, a black man was elected President! These are the factors that many white
Christian middle Americans blame for their current predicament, not worldwide
economic trends such as global competition, digitalization, automation, job
migration to cheaper countries and companies hiding profits overseas. What
could civil rights, race and social trends have to do with the declining
standards of living of white working class America? This is where religious
rationalization comes in handy to explain widely held attitudes.
Fundamentalists regard the Bible as
a single, literally true book, and tend to quote the Old Testament as often as
they do the New one or more. The Old Testament God, you may remember, is a
rather vindictive character, much like a tribal chieftain from the Iron Age. He
makes liberal use of collective punishment, exterminating entire populations
for the sins of a few. Witness the story of Sodom and Gomorrah[iv].
God incinerates two cities, including any innocent adults, children, animals
and even vegetation, to punish a group of men who had attempted to gang rape
Lot’s guests, who were angels in disguise. Interestingly, Lot offers the mob
his two virgin daughters to gang rape at their leisure in order to protect his
male guests. That is seen as a sign of righteousness rather than a horrible
abuse of his innocent daughters, consistent with Iron Age views of women’s
rights. Or read the book of Exodus, describing the ten plagues of Egypt[v],
a series of calamities brought by God upon all Egyptians, including innocent
babies, to punish the Pharaoh for his unwillingness to free the Jews.
Fundamentalist Christians see world
events through a biblical prism. It is not difficult for them to believe that
they are being punished by God for allowing the ways of unbelievers to pollute
society. Fundamentalist pastors have repeatedly stated that natural disasters such
as hurricanes are God’s punishment for gay rights and abortion. In this
worldview, the right wing Christian elite would have a religious obligation to
wrest power from the unbelievers and restore God’s order. Then they will be
rewarded with prosperity.
Interestingly, this attitude is
very similar to that of fundamentalist Islamists. They see Judaism and
Christianity as good beginnings, and acknowledge Abraham, Jesus and Mary among
revered figures in the Quran. However, they believe that Islam is the ultimate
monotheistic religion, destined to supplant the older versions. They see
themselves as the world’s religious elite, and see Westerners as infidels who
are purveyors of idolatry and debauchery. This sets the stage for a religious
obligation to gain power through jihad. At one time, Islam was in fact the most
advanced civilization in the Mediterranean world. During the “Golden Age of
Islam” (750-1258 AD), Islam was the center of science, astronomy, mathematics,
geography and medicine[vi],
having inherited and expanded Hellenistic knowledge. They were also reasonably
tolerant of people practicing other religions living in their midst, though
conversion of infidels was their ultimate goal. At the same time, Europe was
going through the Middle Ages, and the only advanced Christian civilization was
the Byzantine empire. The Muslim Ottomans conquered it in 1453, using a new
fearsome technology: artillery. The fall of Constantinople was the medieval
equivalent of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb. In 1453, Islam was the world’s main superpower.
But the Golden Age ended, and by the time the Industrial Revolution begun, the
Muslim world was hopelessly behind the West in science, technology and economy.
In his comprehensive book “The Middle East: a brief history of the last 2000
years”, Bernard Lewis argues that the decadence of the Islamic world coincided
with the takeover of the Arab empire by Turkish mercenaries who became the
Ottomans. This process was accompanied by rejection of science and education in
favor of religion and militarism. The Turkish Ottoman Empire missed out on the
Renaissance, the Age of Exploration (which was actually spurred by a need to
circumvent the Turkish stranglehold on commerce), and the Enlightenment. By the
19th century, the Muslim Ottoman Empire had very few printed books
or newspapers. Its culture was stagnating and no new inventions were being
created or adopted. Inevitably, the Ottomans were overtaken, defeated and humiliated
by more dynamic European countries that had embraced science, technology and
innovation. Islam has yet to recover from that decadence, and it will need to
abandon fundamentalist religion and rediscover science and reason to do so.
Since then, radical Islamists have
been trying to explain the decline of their civilization by blaming the West
rather than Islam’s own historical trajectory and the endless sectarian
fighting between Shias and Sunnis. They still see themselves as the religious
elite of the world, and violently reject Western culture and civilization as
the work of the devil.
Thus, disgruntled white Christians in
Middle America have more in common with disgruntled radical Islamists in Iraq’s
Anbar Province or Afghanistan than they realize. Both groups are self-righteous
religious elitists who see themselves as the custodians of perfect truths and
disdainfully reject change. The views of these groups on issues such as women’s
rights, gay rights and the relationship between state and church are strikingly
similar.
In summary, I am arguing that religious fundamentalism is a form of cultural
elitism that hinders the progress of civilization, in America and
elsewhere, by refusing to accept rational arguments for change.
Ironically, both Christians and
Muslims were at the top of their respective games when they embraced progress,
reason, science, technology and change. The ossification of traditionalist
cultures into intolerant religious fundamentalism is the root of the decline of
their civilizations.
How religious elitism interacts with othe
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