Intellectual elitism: the radical notion that educated people know things

I found myself in a familiar place a recent evening; in front of the television watching Fox News, because I usually get more of a laugh there than with some of the lamer Adult Swim shows (Oblongs, anyone?). A popular topic among those on the red side is intellectual elitism. You know, those latte-drinking, ivory tower liberals who think their opinions are more valid because they have facts and an education to back them up. What nerve. I can't wrap my head around the idea that someone's opinions could be less valid due to their expertise. On one hand, I can understand how Jim-Bob the (insert blue collar job) might be shaken up by long strings of big words, but how can people actually make political arguments based on this? "The ivory tower crowd are saying that we should take this course of action," say pundits in an incredible tone of smugness. Yeah, that's right, guys. The guy with the background says this, but don't listen to him. He thinks he's smarter than you. He doesn't drink at the townie bar or have a position in a company. Shows how much his opinion is worth. The sarcasm here should be apparent. Bill O. the clown (not to rip off Keith Olbermann's terminology) regularly makes implications that if someone dedicates years of their life to a course of study, they must be out of touch with society, out of touch with "real people." This idea is ridiculous. If anything, an educated person has a better understanding of society at large. Such arguments are ad hominem cop-outs. By saying "ad hominem," I'm using technical terms to describe part of an argument-specifically, personal attacks. I would like to point out that I am not engaging in another fallacy here, either. It is equally moronic to assume that anything a person says is true due to their education. An example of this would be reactionary hate-monger Dr. Michael Weiner (pseudonym: Michael Savage), whose degree in nutritional ethnomedicine has little to do with the topics he addresses on his radio show. When someone attempts to discredit another person by calling them an intellectual elitist, what they are really saying is, "This person knows more than I do, so rather than get crushed by him/her in a conventional argument, I'll pretend that being uninformed makes me better." I swear I wasn't thinking of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin when I started writing this piece, but she just popped into my head as a perfect example. "I'm not going to answer your questions because you're one of the elite Washington insiders." Translation: "Joe Biden's facts, background and mastery of the issues make me want to pee myself, so I had better find a way to make my incompetence appeal to the base." Ironically, what is more elitist than a person with expertise in a given field making statements are claims often found on the other end of the political spectrum. Claims like "America is the best country in the world." This isn't meant to be an angry rant, but I do wish people would put more thought into their arguments. If someone must make personal attacks, make them over something legitimate and not try to make a person's positive aspects appear negative. This kind of backwards thinking is detrimental to society.

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