Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Obama's Elitism II

Obama is now claiming that he could not possibly be an elitist because of his poor upbringing. Now, if we understand an elitist as someone who thinks (s)he is somehow superior to most other people, then I think there is little question that Obama is an elitist. He is certainly convinced that he's smarter than everyone else and has a better idea of what should be done with everyone else's money.

But if we take him at his word that he doesn't think he's a elitist precisely for the reasons given, what does that mean? Well, it means that Obama sees elitism as something related to class structures. In a class-structured society, the classes are rigid. One cannot enter into a class one was not born into, excepting ritualistic entry, of course. Classes have nothing to do with money, either. Or with education. In England, one can be a poor, uneducated noble -- but you are still a noble, meaning you think of yourself as better than those who are not. Marx of course saw the middle class arising between the noble and working classes, with the middle class overthrowing the noble class, and the working class eventually overthrowing the middle class. And this is clearly how Obama sees the world, if he thinks it is literally impossible for him to be an elitist just because of his impoverished upbringing. However, the United States is a classless society. There has never been a nobility, and the U.S. was founded on the very idea of there being no classes. With 401k programs, the workers are the owners of production, even when they don't directly own their own businesses. Thus such things as snobbery and elitism become connected more with how you think of yourself in relation to others, due to your perception of yourself in relation to those others. Obama is an elitist due to his education and where he got educated (the same could be said of Hillary Clinton as well, who has no business calling Obama an elitist). If Obama were not an elitist, he wouldn't be a politician, let alone running for the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. The fact that he thinks he can run your life better than you can demonstrates clearly he is an elitist. I knew that long before he exposed himself with his comments.

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