Elitist Quotes
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The elitist attitude is basically suspicious of, and hostile to, themarket
precisely becausethemarket issovulgarly democraticone
dollar, one vote.
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More Elitist Quotes
Fernando Pessoa was the apostle of an antidemocratic and elitist nationalism. A mystical nationalism was perhaps the only element of ideological coherence in his work. He was always marked by the radicality of his ideological and political attitudes.
— Jacob Leib Talmon, Zeev Sternhell, A?ademyah ha-le?umit ha-Yi?re?elit le-mada?im, The intellectual revolt against liberal democracy (1996), p. 354
In the unexamined American Dream rhetoric promoting mass higher education in the nation of my youth, the implicit vision was that one day everyone, or at least practically everyone, would be a manager or a professional. We would use the most elitist of all means, scholarship, toward the most egalitarian of ends. We would all become chiefs; hardly anyone would be left a mere Indian.
William A. Henry III— William A. Henry III (1995) In Defense of Elitism
Some people think that movements, such as the movements in ballet, are a higher cultural expression , whereas some are just dirt. I think it is elitist to think that a trained movement is more acceptable than untrained and possibly unrehearsed movements.
— Yoko Ono, in Walking on Thin Ice: A Career-Spanning Conversation With Yoko Ono, SPIN, 6 November 2013
In a modern democracy, not only can a libertarian be elitist; a libertarian has to be elitist. To be a libertarian in a modern democracy is to say that nearly 300 million Americans are wrong, and a handful of nay-sayers are right.
bryan caplan— Quoted in Elitism or Populism: Pick Your Poison, by Arnold Kling (November 12, 2006)
In the unexamined American Dream rhetoric promoting mass higher education in the nation of my youth, the implicit vision was that one day everyone, or at least practically everyone, would be a manager or a professional. We would use the most elitist of all means, scholarship, toward the most egalitarian of ends. We would all become chiefs; hardly anyone would be left a mere Indian.
William A. Henry III— In Defense of Elitism
Slothful, feeble, pretentious, pedantic, elitist - these are some of the epithets that eventually become associated with the absent minded scholar, the poor sighted reader, the book worm, the nerd.
Alberto Manguel— The Book Fool, p. 296
Wikipedia lacks the habit or tradition of respect for expertise. As a community, far from being elitist (which would, in this context, mean excluding the unwashed masses), it is anti-elitist (which, in this context, means that expertise is not accorded any special respect, and snubs and disrespect of expertise is tolerated).
larry sanger— "Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism" at kuro5hin (31 December 2004)
The bias against the show is purely elitist. We’re all like the people on the show – the difference is that some of us speak better, or were born richer. There’s nothing that happens on my show that rich people don’t experience.
jerry springer— Interview with Rebecca Hardy, Daily Mail ‘Weekend’ magazine, 27th June 2009; he commenting here on The Jerry Springer Show.
I also think that everyone has an elitist approach to his own art, a complex knowledge of it, whether he is a clockmaker or an engineer. And I think it's perfectly legitimate to make use of this knowledge because it enriches the overall texture of life.
Peter Greenaway— In an interview in Positif, Apr. 86
Academic Marxists, with their elitist sense of superiority to popular taste, are the biggest snobs in America.
camille paglia— p. ix (Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992))
Deliberation seems to be elitist, more appropriate to university seminars and scientific communities than to the general public. Even if everyone could participate in deliberation, would not the more competent and better situated citizens tend to carry the day.
James Bohman— Public Deliberation: Pluralism, Complexity, and Democracy, MIT Press (2000, pg. 3).
The distinctive Sattriya abhinaya defies elitist leanings by depicting activities like fighting, eating, slaying, killing etc. which were frowned upon by the Sanskrit texts.
— By Arshiya Sethi in "sattriya : the redefining of a tradition."
The self isnow the sacred cow of American culture, self- esteem is sacrosanct, and so we labour to turn arts education into a system in which no one can fail. In the same spirit, tennis could be shorn of its elitist overtones: you just get rid of the net.
— 1994 Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America.
A person is not a democrat thanks to his ignorance of literature and the arts, nor an elitist because he or she has cultivated them. The possession of knowledge makes for unjust power over others only if used for that very purpose: a physician or lawyer or clergyman can exploit or humiliate others, or he can be a humanitarian and a benefactor. In any case, it is absurd to conjure up behind anybody who exploits his educated status the existence of an "elite" scheming to oppress the rest of us.
jacques barzun— "Exeunt the Humanities" (1980), p. 117
