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Equality is a pretence
Published 26 July 2007
Why we should speak up for the other e-word
The charge of elitism - even a whiff of it - is now enough to shut an argument down. Polly Toynbee felt no need to elaborate when using Boris Johnson's own words ("I believe passionately in academic inequality") to condemn him in a recent polemic for the Guardian. Johnson had outed himself as a supporter of educational elitism; case closed.
Being elitist, celebrating "the choice part, the best" (the New Shorter OED's definition), has come to be seen as such an unacceptably right-wing stance that the word is now an unequivocal insult. No mainstream politician dare declare himself in its favour.
Well, I am an elitist. And so, I suspect, are you. It is elitism that allows us to set yardsticks by which to measure merit, be it in art, music, education or any other field of endeavour. Elitism allows us to proclaim with confidence that Geoffrey Chaucer was a greater writer than Jeffrey Archer, that Shostakovich was a superior musician to Shakira, and that Ronaldo's most pyro technical displays are still of a lower cultural order than any page of any novel by Philip Roth.
Elitism is what allows us to reply to that most fatuous of propositions, "You must respect other people's beliefs," with the words: "No, I do not respect your beliefs - because I know better." I do not respect your belief that the moon is made of cheese; I do not respect you if your hip-hop-stylee trousers come down to your knees; and I don't have to respect your belief that it is immoral to pay school fees.
The dominant egalitarian creed encourages the view that we are all equal, and our views, preferences and beliefs thus also of equal value. Who's to say, goes the question, whether one thing is better than another? I am to say. And so are you. Because, unless you wish to be part of the increasingly culture-ignorant world in which educated people talk incessantly about "the match", where once they might have discussed something remotely important - might, perhaps, even have read a book - you have a set of values that is ordered; and at one end will be the best.
The left used to be quite comfortable with the idea of elitism. The Communist vanguard was a revolutionary elite. The Labour cabinet minister Douglas Jay famously wrote that "the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves". Now we avoid it so assiduously that we prefer to pretend that a degree from a former polytechnic is the equivalent of one from a Russell Group university, and we have a prime minister who has made a point of eschewing white tie for fear of being seen as elitist, even though the full fig need cost no more than a high street suit.
Being elitist does not mean defending hereditary privilege or applauding wealth and fame for their own sakes - just recognising that there are higher goods which deserve to be cherished, not least because of their power to inspire and benefit others. I think the three elitists who founded the New Statesman, George Bernard Shaw and Sidney and Beatrice Webb, would agree.
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