I shun the idea of typical contemporary elitism derived from heredity, attendance at the “right” schools, big bucks in the bank (or under one’s thumb) or association with political power for its own sake. But, in The Revolt of the Masses (1930?), Jose Ortega y Gasset presents a strong argument in favor of a genuine elite. A brief sample:
“…we distinguished the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter the one who makes no demands on himself, but contents himself with what he is, and is delighted with himself. Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, and not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendental. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life. Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. ‘To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law.’ (Goethe)” – Ortega y Gasset
Much of Ortega’s description of genuine elitism evokes echoes of Viktor Frankl’s humbly transcendent “pursuit of meaning” found in “From Death Camp to Existentialism” (later revised and expanded as “Man’s Search for Meaning”) wherein he describes an existentialism counter to that common to such as Sartre, filled with hope and even joy in the midst of terrible circumstances.
This isn’t much different from comparing successful people to those who punch a clock and go home. The successful people consider the 40 hr work week as minimum requirements to survive and continue their efforts long into the night building on their strengths while the common man stops off at the store on the way home, picks up a six pack and some chips and thinks how neat it will be to watch another reality show.
That’s going in the right direction, TF, but Ortega takes it further in applying the concept of transcending one’s own (and one’s family’s, etc.) well-being and choosing to work for the betterment of society at large. What Ortega finds offensive in an overly-democratized society (as opposed to a democratic-leaning government) is the constant ratcheting downwards of societal standards as the least common denominator comes to dominate
discourse
the arts
behavior, etc.
The “excellent man”–Ortega’s elite–will always be found in small numbers… and be “outvoted” in setting societal trends in a democratized society. Example: common folks in Europe’s early 19th Century were as much the target audience for Mozart and Beethoven as were rich folks, and the gentry and nobility. Die Zauberflöte, for example, was a popular hit. In the mid and late 19th Century in the Americas, a Shakespeare company touring “the wild west” could expect sellout crowds, and literacy was much wider spread even in those newly settled regions than it is in today’s urban environments. Sure, books were rare in “the wild west”, but because of that, often what was read was much better written than much that is published today. (Lots of folks couldn’t afford to spend money on special books to teach their own children to read, so The Bible, selections of Shakespeare, Blackstone and other more or less timeless works were often the first books read by beginning readers!) Sure, they had dime novels and other light stuff, but the core literacy was higher, because they started with better material.
Dumbing down, loose morals, slack ethics: largely due to the fact that the trend setters and opinion makers of our society are dumb, loose and slack, and the junk offered to occupy increased leisure time (wasted time, more often than not–life on hold, unlived, wasted) just serves to lower even further the lowest common denominator.