"Elitism"

Author(s): E. S.
Source: Minerva, Vol. 12, No. 1 (January 1974), pp. 1-7
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41820180
Accessed: 21-08-2018 15:04 UTC

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 " Elitism "
i

After millennia of inequality, there is now a strong and influential con-

viction abroad that it should come to an end. The ideals and the practice
of citizenship in the national state, of democracy and socialism with all
their miscarriages, represent a titanic exertion by some parts of the human
race to improve conditions which appeared throughout most of human
history to be inevitable, necessary, and even desirable. Powerful and
demanding ideologies have insisted on the eradication of the inequality
of human beings; earnest and subtle political philosophies have argued that
the only fit condition of the human race must be a regime of equality.
Equality was the great theme of the nineteenth century. The great
reforming movements of that century were all guided by the goal of greater
equality. The removal of the civil disabilities of Roman Catholics, Jews,
and dissenting Protestants, the prohibition of the slave trade and the
emancipation of the slaves, anti-clericalism and the steady restriction of
the powers of the church in Protestant countries and, more haltingly and
less successfully, in Catholic countries, legislation regulating the conditions
of industrial employment, the extension of the electoral franchise to
hitherto excluded classes - were inspired by the ideal of reducing
inequality among human beings. Revolutionary movements - socialist or
communist and anarchist - looked towards the regime of equality as the
proper end of human evolution. Along with all these, there was an
increasing activity to provide more opportunities for education of the
classes which had hitherto been neglected.
This last effort was given force by the belief that education was the
sure means of fitting human beings for the equality of condition which was
thought to be their proper state. Of course there were always other motives
behind the expansion of the opportunities for education. Concern for
national industrial strength, the desire to assimilate the potentially danger-
ous lower classes into the national culture and into respect for the
institutions of authority, and the desire for the prestige of the national
state were considerations which impelled the opening up of the educational
systems of Western countries to a wider participation. But there was also
a fundamental belief on the part of educational reformers that being
educated, i.e., knowing important things about man and the universe which
one would otherwise not have known, elevated the dignity of the knower.
(Nowadays although the same motive is present, its idiom has been lost
and the motive is often denied; it has been supplanted by an idiom of
hedonistic subjectivism which thinks- in so far as it thinks at all- with
words like "excitement", "experience", and "creativity".) The person
who knew about the nature of the universe or some part of it was improved

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2 Comment

by that knowledge. Th
state of being of its p
greatest minds was a
possessed them, even
of having taken into on
constituted in itself an
at a higher level of bein
The belief that educa
lation of this belief, al
also as entailing impr
undergone education.
only improvement of th
nationality, or of co
improvement of the per
possessed - by the kno
archaic and desiccate
reforms, they believed
acquire had an intrins
effect of bringing its p
It was not only the e
cational opportunities
beneficiaries also were
the syllabi of such ins
which taught not only c
of the nineteenth centu
working men in the la
twentieth centuries -
Schiller also - to see th
well as occupationally
skills.

II

Much has changed sin

level of education have
for providing and see
as an objective of educ
than it was at one tim
inculcating respect for
among educationists. T
into disfavour and " cr
lation of the already k
since it is now though
carrying, indeed even a
to speak with the voic

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 " Elitism " 3

On the other side, the be

ment of the economy is
there is a mighty army of
all contending that know
Individuals and their soc
productivity through edu
nineteenth-century argu
benefit to the individual
education.

The relatively recent argument for " investment in man for obtaining
more education in order to gain a larger income, is part of a wider argument
on behalf of education. Education is a qualification for social ascent - those
who obtain more education are enabled to enter more esteemed and more
remunerative occupations, since entry into these requires educational quali-
fications such as degrees, diplomas, certificates, or other evidence of the
successful completion of courses of study, or years of education, or the
successful submission to examinations.

In societies with expanding production and expanding opportunities for

ascent into occupations involving the use of literacy and studiously
acquired knowledge - because the number of such occupations was
increasing - the desire for the dignity of higher status rose with the oppor-
tunity for it. From this was derived an additional impetus to the desire for
education. The relatively popular desire for higher education came first
and most frequently in the United States, but it was not absent elsewhere.
There must have been many virtuous and industrious young men like Jude
the Obscure who ached out their hearts in the desire to be at a university.
For them a university education was a translation simultaneously into a
transfigured life and into a more elevated occupation and position in
society. The two things went harmoniously together.
The perception of educational opportunity - and the consequent occu-
pational opportunity - stirred dispositions in human beings which had been
deadened by the preponderance of wealth, especially landed wealth, and
familial connection as the qualifications for high positions in society.
Education was, unlike inheritance and kinship, a qualification which could
be acquired. The social and spiritual transfiguration of the individual's life
became possible through education. A surge of aspiration passed through
large parts of Western society. The economies of the industrial countries
accorded an increased importance and employed a larger proportion of the
working population in those administrative and other occupations for which
education had been traditionally required. The very increase in the desire
to be educated increased the demand for educated persons because it
increased the number of occupational roles which required education as a
condition of entry. The growth of the welfare state and of " science-based "
industries likewise increased the demand and opportunity for education.

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 4 Comment

All of this represented

class but of its offspr
keepers, farmers, craf
movemept into middle
imagery of the popula
for granted. Becoming
of those who ruled socie
more successful had a
society - into the elite i

Ill

The contemporary argument for investment in individuals is intended to

improve human capital so that it can produce an income which they them-
selves receive. The older idea of education was intended to improve them
by enabling them to share in values, in symbolic realities which had
hitherto been reserved for the "more fortunate", i.e., those who had
wealthy parents. Both entailed a raising of social position - the former
through a more respected occupation carrying with it a higher income, the
latter through an elevation in human dignity by participation in a higher
realm of being.
Both admitted the idea of hierarchy; both accepted it. The former
accepted a hierarchy of occupations ranked by status and by income; the
latter accepted a hierarchy of values. Both accepted that some things were
better than other things.
This is the assumption of the present-day argument for the universalis-
ation of educational experience, for the campaign against illiteracy and
against " dropping out ", for the campaign for permanent or recurrent
education. Everyone who receives an education will receive benefits in the
form of an occupation higher than that he would have practised without
this amount of education. His status will be raised by incumbency in an
occupation made possible by education: he will thereby be enabled to
escape from a derogatory status, from a condition of inferiority. He will
rise towards something higher, he will become the equal of those who have
hitherto enjoyed higher status.
The equality sought in this social ascent through education is equality
with what is regarded as higher. If it were not regarded as higher it would
not be sought. If being a lawyer, or a scientist, or a government official, or
an engineer or physician were not higher, entry to these occupations would
not be sought so zealously by those whose parents did not occupy such
positions. If being a computer programmer were not thought to be higher,
it would not be proposed as the proper occupation for young blacks whose
parents have been factory labourers, domestic servants or share-croppers or
simply unemployed. Correspondingly, if being an unskilled labourer, a van
driver's assistant, a street sweeper, a railway porter or a floor sweeper in a

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 "Elitism" 5

workshop were not reg

by educationists that
avoid being confined i
The insistence on equ
some things are better
than others, and that
criminate between bet
it as the coming into po
spiritual and artistic a
in acknowledging that s
lation of or contact w
inferior works.

There was an acceptan

individuals could escap
assumed that there w
suifering, brutishness
some, perhaps many,
passion, or the misfor
ligence, or sheer want
advantage of such opp

IV

There was never any

become the equal of s
the swift, the clever, t
there would be many
fall behind. This was
There has been a grea
this last period is " an
elite of professors a
scientists because it b
gain their present and
who oppose what they
at present most emin
social connections rath
might believe both pr
universities goes fur
universities because th
than others, that some
more merited than oth
than others. The criti
are better than others
United States, " anti-e
should not be taught ho

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 6 Comment

middle classes", but

culture ". Examination
Institutions like natio
" elitist But that is e
intended to be gatherin
stitutes evidence of dis
the world are attacked
their students to exer
because they attempt t
training students and
I do not think that it
provides the motive fo
express sympathy of a
lectual activities. They
which things, works,
movement " from 6 el
of course be an act of
nonetheless, if it is no
the students would hav
education still remain
every sort of post-sec
universal higher educa
and Great Britain and
educational institutions.
ing the distinguished u
from acquiring the be
capable, is an effort t
higher educational opp
The validity of the hier
of equality, which als
of equality which wishe
and elevate the lower stratum.1
The movement for mass higher education is still a powerful movement
to turn the entire generation of young persons into members of the middle
class. Its implications are disparaging to the dignity of the working classes,
and they sit ill in the programme of those who claim to be equalitarian.
The " anti-elitism 99 of many programmes of university reform exploits
populistic sentiments without sharing the positive beliefs of populism; it
exploits only the negative disposition of populism to attack that which is
distinguished in the quality of achievement or bearing.
1 It wishes to do it by granting the name of " university " to all those institutions on
behalf of which the " elitism " inherent in the position of universities is denounced. The
argument for the " comprehensive university " has some genuine practical merits, but it is
also an acknowledgement of the centrality of the university as we have known it. This is
of course a trivial example of the ambivalence of those who charge serious universities
with 44 elitism ".

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 " Elitism " 7

The critique of " elitism

reform could, to draw on
be interpreted as an at
bourgeoisie of the educa
which are less important
hamstring those univers
atmosphere which compe
highest standards. Its ul
which such accomplishm
end by rendering imposs
which science, scholarshi
The " anti-elitist " cam
successful partly because
product of the great mo
ledges the standards which
with a self-contradiction
the real reason why the "
fail is that such a titanic
generated in the past cent
of its participants a passi
the effort to understand what man and the universe are about. Such
passionate desires carry with them a standard of care for the truth and
arouse the desire to be linked to others, in the past and present and
future, with a like care.
Anti-elitism is doomed to fail because the human spirit is superior to it.
But it is unpleasant, it muddles opinion and it damages the self-confidence
of the academics of weak character of whom there are too many even in
our greatest universities.
E. S.

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