Christopher Rush

There’s been a lot of talk lately about this whole “excellence vs. elitism” issue, and quite frankly, we here at Redeeming Pandora are mystified by the whole thing.  Clearly “elitism” is the way to go.

I suppose part of the reason this has somehow become an issue is because of the apparent recent backlash against appearing arrogant — and while we are certainly in favor of humility over arrogance, the notion that “elitism” connotes “arrogance” is wholly unwarranted and driven by the anti-intellectual morass Ray Bradbury warned us of way back in Fahrenheit 451, which Western Civilization as a whole has apparently ignored (our walls are becoming TVs, aren’t they?).  The mob of ill-educated, technology-idolizing, history-forgetting humanity out there who encourages us to read Shakespeare in “modern English” and ignore original versions in favor of contemporary reboots (excluding Battlestar Galactica, of course) wants us to think “elitists” are snobbish, arrogant, uppity, loathsome, and despicable members of society.  To this I rightly say tish and pish.  It is they, in fact, who are the snobs; they are the arrogant ones — the people who tell us to look down on others because they (the others) are better at something (probably most things) than they (the people telling us to belittle the elite) are.  The attribute of “snobbery” is not intrinsic to “elite” people — it is innate to “snobs.”  Likewise, “arrogance” is not a natural component of elitism — it is a hallmark of arrogant people.  That some desire is to conflate the attributes is actually a sign of their own guilt and timorous introspection of their own inferiority.

What is “excellence”?  Can you define it in some meaningful way? … I’ll wait. … I thought not.  Neither can I, in fact.  It is rather a vapid sort of expression, today.  Those who arrogantly decry “elitism” like to use “excellence” as if it somehow superior — so much so we are all compelled to acknowledge those who are excellent as excellent.  We see immediately the hypocrisy involved in the “excellence” camp: these people (though we are using generalities, we all can identify, unfortunately, particular individuals in our lives who mistakenly embrace this “excellence” camp, so you can mentally picture these misguided souls as we continue our exploration), knowing they are less skilled in some particular area than the elite want everyone to embrace the erroneous and inaccurate belief “elite = arrogant,” as if someone a moral inferiority can be foisted upon people of a certain skill or ability level where it does not innately belong, thus distracting us from their own moral impropriety by being even more arrogant by embracing this vapid notion of “excellence” to obscure their own inability (which likewise has transmuted into a moral inferiority, likewise unwarrantedly).  This is rather akin to what C.S. Lewis refers to along the lines of the “all I want” syndrome in Screwtape Letters — people who think they are not being greedy by only wanting what little bit they want are, in reality, being thoroughly greedy.  Likewise, the people who want us to think they are not being arrogant because they are not those people, are, in fact, thoroughly arrogant — pharisaical, in fact.  I acknowledge I am running the risk of likewise falling into this abysm, and some may already think the tone of this essay is entirely hubristic and self-defeating, but such is not my purpose.  I simply wish to express my incredulity at this so-called issue, proffering my perspective at how I see these concepts in contrast to so many I’ve heard weigh in on this so much lately.

It would be one thing if those who are propounding “excellence” were propounding the Greek concept of areté, which we all know incorporates the moral aspect of virtue (depending on which classical source you are consulting at the time, of course), coupled with the pursuit of justice and self-restraint, essentially the fulfillment of one’s ontology — being the best of whatever of its kind: a sculpture could embody areté, being the best possible sculpture of its design and theme and purpose; a person, of course, should strive to embody areté, being the best possible person he or she can be.  This sounds to me like the English concept of “elite”: being the best.  Again, I reject the unsupportable claim elite or areté is, ipso facto, arrogant — where is the basis for this?  Consider those who are the best at what they do: Neil Peart, Jack Benny, Gregory Peck, Carol Lombard, C.S. Lewis, Wayne Gretzky, Cary Grant, Bob Hope, Jessye Norman, Danny Kaye, Itzhak Perlman, Carl Lewis, Ingrid Bergman, Edmund Burke, Lou Gehrig, Jim Henson, Sammy Davis, Jr. … to whom could we apply “arrogant”?  Sure, some of the elite are arrogant in their own way, at certain times (Michelangelo, Michael Jordan, Katharine Hepburn, Frank Sinatra), but most of those who are truly elite, the best at what they do and the best at who they are supposed to be … they are, rather, humble, generous, humanitarians — not arrogant or snobbish or vainglorious.  They don’t lord their skills over others; in fact, they are exactly the people so many others want to be with, the people others want to learn from, precisely because they are elite.  Did not Chesterton say “a great man knows he is not God, and the greater he is the better he knows it”?  Yes, he did (see The Everlasting Man).  Why study under, why imitate anyone other than the best?  The great who know they are not God yet still great?

The deleterious nature of the vapid “excellence” the anti-elite embrace (perhaps out of jealousy) trumpets as its rallying cry “do your best,” as if “close enough is okay” is somehow a laudable mark at which to aim our life’s energies.  I’m not saying there is something wrong with “doing one’s best”; the problem is that we are too ready to turn our temporary campsite at the “do your best overnight campgrounds” into a permanent residency, forgetting we were only at basecamp and supposed to move on up the trail to richer, more rewarding, more challenging habits of mind, strength, skill, and virtue.  We become complacent and forget we are to become better than who we are right now, because who we are right now is not Christ-like enough according to God’s standards.  What part of “be holy, for I am holy” sounds like “just do your best”?  I’m not saying you have to do harm to yourself until you are perfect, nor am I saying we should never be joyful or content in this life — but we should never be satisfied with less than a continual pursuit of Christ-likeness.  “Just do your best,” the motto of those who want us to be “excellent,” seems, then, to be saying “doing things in your own strength, by your own ability, at wherever you are right now, is good enough.”  I disagree.  With “do your best” comes an implicit “but not better than anyone else.”

True, “elitism” has with it a connotation of selectivity, a sense only a small number of people can make the grade, fit in, be elite.  Why, though, is this bad?  “Excellence” becomes tied to egalitarianism, the forced homogeneity of Late Modernism that can’t stand superiority of any kind (even if learning from and modeling those who are superior are exactly what we as a moribund culture need).  Following Jesus, becoming Christ-like, means leaving the statistical majority and entering the practical minority.  Holiness requires us to be better than our sin-created standard of satisfactory, better than whom the majority of the totally depraved world demands us we settle to be, but as noted above, being elite does not then mean we lord our superiority (or basic difference) over others: true elitism embraces Colonel Potter’s reminder “the only person I have to be better than is who I am now.”  Not that this contradicts what we’ve said earlier: being “the best” is a personal issue far better than “to excel,” the verb form of excellence that intrinsically bears a competitive, “compare yourself to others” sense.  Elitism connotes humility, in stark contrast to excellence’s implications (at least, in how I’ve been hearing it used so much lately, when it has been used to mean anything at all).  What better example of elitism do we have than Jesus?  He, being the most elite of all, since there is only one God, modeled the importance of becoming like Him, like Love itself, yet showed us how to do that without moral superiority (certainly without social superiority!), without arrogance, without holding His already pre-existent equality with the Father an object of rapine.  Those who are elite become elite for the sake of emptying themselves out for others again and again and again.  Knowing the greater they are, they are still not God.

“Excellence” is nothing substantial.  “Excellence in education” means … what?  Higher SAT scores than other schools?  More Ivy League admittances than others?  That is competition, the precise opposite of Christ-likeness, the precise opposite of Love.  Would you rather have elite soldiers fighting for your country or excellent soldiers?  Would you rather have elite teachers guiding you through the Realms of Gold or excellent teachers “doing their best”?  Do you field your fantasy baseball league with utility infielders, or do you go for as many Golden Glove winners as possible?  Would you prefer your chef to be elite or just doing his best?  Do we want to laugh at the best jokes, listen to the best music ever, watch the best movies, the best TV series, read the best books (including comic books, of course), play the best games, have the best friends (while being the best friend), eat the best food, imitate the only true God … or shall we settle for those who give it the ol’ college try, who “do their best,” who are excellent, and thus, concerned only with standards made by human finiteness?  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want “Hey, he tried” as my epitaph.  True, it is one thing to know you’re adequate, but to have a fellow member of your profession say, “yes, you, sir, are adequate,” well … (we miss you, Bill).

If we return our usage and understanding of “excellence” to the Greek concept of areté (the way Robert M. Hutchins and Mortimer Adler used it), I’d be in favor of saying “let’s be excellent.”  Until then, though, “let’s be elite.”  Being elite allows us to escape from that morass of banality with which the world overloads our senses, desperately trying to convince us this incarnation is all that exists.  Again I say tish and pish.  Elitism is not a coterie of snobs: “excellence” is — and it’s worse, because it pretends it isn’t.  The true elites know who they are, are fine with that, and are willing to help show others how to get there.  “Conform to our mediocrity,” says “excellence.”  “Individuality is fine as long as we all do it together,” says “excellence” (we miss you, too, Frank).  No thanks.  I would rather imitate the God of Love; the God who isn’t short of cash, mister; the God who demands conformity to His only (elite) Son.  Perhaps someday someone will convince me this is less desirable than being excellent and satisfied with “doing my best,” like the Susan Wise Bauers of the world want me to be (no offense intended).  I’d say “don’t wait by the phone,” but that expression is lost on this generation, who can’t be parted from their phones even in the bathroom.  On that happy note, instead, I’ll just say, I welcome your excoriating refutations.  As always.