I
was recently discussing with my wife the propensity for people who
regard themselves as much better than average or are among the
learned class to look down upon those who are less educated than
they. It's a very common attitude of those who are literate,
cultured, and/or intellectual. They often feel that they are among
the privileged class and thus have the right to belittle and slight
those who are not educated or are otherwise disempowered. Not content to just look down upon the less fortunate, the elite often feel entitled to
tell the masses what to do—after all, their noble position places
them at an advantage and the power that they wield enables them to
take charge. The privileged ones know best, don't they?
My
wife suggested the term “elitist hubris” to describe them. I've
titled this post “Privileged Presumption,” as an alternative
description (and I like to play with alliteration). Maybe the best example of this attitude over the last
several hundred years is the way in which the West (Europe and the
US) has dealt with aboriginal and undeveloped people all around the
world. Encounters between Western people (who are largely white and
powerful) and those less educated and primitive (who are often darker
skinned and vulnerable) have most always exhibited some aspect of
elitist hubris.
For
example, when the Spanish Conquistadors entered the Americas in the
16th century, they regarded the Incas and Aztecs as
inferior people who needed to be subdued and converted. When the
European powers entered the African continent in that same time
frame, they looked upon the natives there as savages who required
domination. Similar events happened in Australia, the Middle East,
and the Far East. It was repeated again and again: those with
superior knowledge and power believed that they had the right to
exert their will on “backwards” people—often under the
justification that they were boosting the simple people into the
civilized world.
There
are two types of groups of people who tend to practice this process
of privileged presumption and who often cooperate with each other: academics and the powerful. Those in
power have the capacity to enforce their desires on those who are
weak. The academics often provide the rationale for what those in
power do, in exchange for protection and privileges. Those two groups
form a complementary team that solidifies the superior position of
both of them.
Another
way we moderns sometimes practice elitist hubris is to look down upon
people from the past, who did not have the benefit of our superior
modern knowledge. It's easy to consider past beliefs and behavior as
rather primitive, compared to our advanced knowledge of today. How
could those simple people have thought that the sun circles the
Earth? How could ancient people have believed in a pantheon of gods,
when we know there's but one God? How could those naive people have
believed that an amulet could cure disease? We know so much more
today, and this knowledge can cause us to look upon the ancients as
simplistic people, if not also rather foolish. We rarely pause to
note how arrogant and elitist we are behaving, when we do this.
More
on hubris next time...
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