Sarah Palin’s introduction on to the scene of national politics, some say, has re-ignited the Culture Wars. While this may be true, she has also ignited a new war, the Elitist Wars. There has been much questioning about the mind set and intellect of the people who support her and many Liberal writers have been asking lately, what is wrong with elitism? Their point is this, “Wouldn’t you want the best pilot flying planes, the best soldier leading troops, the best athletes playing ball, etc.” A very good point and something that we as Americans cherish beyond all, the winner. The next point they raise is why you wouldn’t want an intellectual elitist as your leader. Again, a good point and seemingly difficult to refute. Not really, when you read history and some of its wisest philosophers.
Looking back into history, a la 18th century, I can turn to my idealistic icon, Sir Edmund Burke, the wisest of Conservative oracles, for some insight. Burke had been prescient in determining the true cause of the French Revolution; a clash between pragmatic thought and the intellectualism driven by the Age of Reason. Sound familiar?
The Elitist Wars: Volume I (The Media)
This war has been going on now for almost four centuries and has evolved little. The only thing that has changed is the method of dissemination that fires revolution. In Burke’s time it was pamphlets written by philosophers and political activists, today it is op-eds and news reports written by journalists. But like today, it was this coupling of writers of the day and the oppressed commoner which caused the French Revolution to be handled so gruesomely. Burke had this to say about writers and the media outlets of the day.
“Writers, especially when they act in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind. ... They became a sort of demagogues. They served as a link to unite, in favor of one object, obnoxious wealth to restless and desperate poverty.”They have become the propagators for the message of the Liberal elite and intellectuals. Also many of its, “journalists” feel they are the privileged and anointed members of this particular faction. Handing us, the dolts, oafs, and peasants, the necessary information required so we can keep on breathing through our mouths while they dictate policy and “take care of us.”
Burke, calling them instigators is being at the very least, polite. The media, in present times, represents the most abhorred traits in humanity; hypocritical, high-born, recremental, falsifying cabal only capable of dumbing down the masses into drooling dullards with worthless ten minute sound bites and talking points.
Now is this to say that the media will fire a bloody revolution with the physical results of the Terror in France? No, it probably will not and the chances of it are very slim. But what it does cause is the over simplification of the truth and turns this into reality. A reality that becomes accepted by pop culture as the norm or gospel. Have you ever wondered why when you hear something come out of an actor, the media or an activist’s mouth you can detect the shallowness of their position? You cannot quite put your finger on it, but you know it’s there; this is because it is a talking point, nothing more. There is no substance to it nor is there any depth, it is the cause du jour.
In basic marketing, and that is all media reporting is today, there is a very simple way to make people remember something, repeat it three or five times. Eventually when you repeat it enough people stop questioning it, accept it as reality, and move on to the next issue. It is saturation bombing of useless information to shift you in a certain decision making direction. Now, this is an explanation in the simplest of terms, the actual techniques used by news agencies, politicians, activist groups, corporations, etc. are much more complicated.
Governor Palin is a fine example of a victim of this technique. Palin portrays herself as a folksy slice of Ameircana and I do not doubt she has those attributes. But that is not what is being debated here. Her appeal is that she is like everyone else and is taking all of us to Washington to fight and reform. Unfortunately for her, the media has made her into a caricature of the image she is trying to portray. They are in effect saying she is trash because she is so average; she is not worthy to lead because she is so common. Though in most instances they are not saying so bluntly, they are shrouding it platitudes and patronization. This is not a defense of Palin as more of an inductive approach to what the media has done to her. The very same techniques have been used for and against Obama by the media also.
Burke understood these media techniques used by intellectual elitists and how they would readily fire up the local populaces against a perceived enemy. He also warned about the dangerous waters the French were treading in because of it. But the fervor caused by the French Revolution made his warnings fall on deaf ears and it was not until two years after his death he was vindicated. Out of this Age of Reason and Revolution was born the tyrant that Burke warned of, Napoleon.
-CT
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