What We Believe Part II: The Problem With Elitism

Bill Whittle's Part 2 of the explanation of conservative/Tea Party beliefs:



A few minutes to gain valuable insight into the why. It may be a "why" that many of us already intuitively know, but to examine one's own beliefs is always worthwhile.

Thomas Sowell offers this quote about traditions from his book "The Vision of the Anointed":
"For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before."

Sowell's statement, in conjunction with Whittle's explanations, is much of the reason why social and fiscal conservatism so often find themselves represented by the same individuals. The basis for much of the thinking - that individual experiences have given people decades, centuries, or millenia of good choices - remains the same, and to disregard either social conservatism (traditionalism) or fiscal conservatism without good cause, or because of elitist mandate, is foolish. It assumes that the financial or social engineer (whether to stricter or looser policies of society or finance) alone has a better idea - and the elitist engineer must therefore direct society.

The non-elitist who believes they have a better way puts forth his new ideas as an invention, which is adopted by society if it's good, and ignored or rejected by society if it is not.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if someone thinks they can do better - they can prove it themselves.