In Defense of Elitism

Fülszöveg

"Bill Henry was one of the toughest, smartest, and most original men of letters in our generation. In Defense of Elitism shows him at his most provocative and controversial. Even when I disagree with his arguments, I admire the rigor of his thinking, the style with which he sets these ideas forth. A fitting memorial to one of our most original minds." —Henry Louis Gates Jr.
This book really has a simple premise: that since modern America took shape at the end of World War II, nearly every great domestic policy debate has revolved around the poles of elitism and egalitarianism—and that egalitarianism has been winning far too thoroughly. This debate underlies the thorniest social issues of our era, from feminism, multiculturalism, and proposed bans on hate speech to affirmative action, racial quotas, the erosion of political parties, and the reenshrinement of the more aggressive forms of "progressive" taxation.
We have foolishly embraced the unexamined notions that everyone is... Tovább

Fülszöveg

"Bill Henry was one of the toughest, smartest, and most original men of letters in our generation. In Defense of Elitism shows him at his most provocative and controversial. Even when I disagree with his arguments, I admire the rigor of his thinking, the style with which he sets these ideas forth. A fitting memorial to one of our most original minds." —Henry Louis Gates Jr.
This book really has a simple premise: that since modern America took shape at the end of World War II, nearly every great domestic policy debate has revolved around the poles of elitism and egalitarianism—and that egalitarianism has been winning far too thoroughly. This debate underlies the thorniest social issues of our era, from feminism, multiculturalism, and proposed bans on hate speech to affirmative action, racial quotas, the erosion of political parties, and the reenshrinement of the more aggressive forms of "progressive" taxation.
We have foolishly embraced the unexamined notions that everyone is pretty much alike (and worse, should be), that self-ful-fillment is more important than objective achievement, that the common man is always right, that a good and just society should be far more concerned with succoring its losers than with honoring and encouraging its winners We have devoted our rhetoric and our resources to the concept of entitlement, the notion that citizens are not to ask what they can do for their country, but rather to demand what it can do for them. Vissza