Elitism, the Media, and Sarah Palin

It occurred to me recently that I used to hear "elitism" as a charge leveled largely by the Left against the wealthy, the well-born and others with social power.  Today, I seem to hear it mostly leveled by the Right against the intelligentsia.

In this second sense, the charge strikes me as pernicious because, if successful, it undermines our ability to make sense.  Take, for example, the media and political world's various responses to Sarah Palin.  Those in the media who ridicule Palin for her folksiness, her hairstyle and her blue-collar background can reasonably be accused of elitism.  But those who point out that Palin frequently has no idea what she's talking about and regularly spouts complete nonsense are not being elitist -- or at least, can't be accused of elitism simply for pointing that out.  To put it another way: the fact that Palin comes from small-town Alaska doesn't make her fair game for criticism; the content of her messages absolutely is fair game, and must be.

Those who take the media to task for documenting and pointing out Palin's ignorance are sending a subtle, but real and dangerous message. That message is: being informed makes you suspect.  This is a dangerous attitude generally, for obvious reasons, but it's especially dangerous when applied to those who aspire to political power. It's important to note that "informed" doesn't necessarily mean "formally educated" -- you don't have to have a PhD in order to know what you're talking about when it comes to governance, foreign relations, domestic policy or economics.  You just have to know what you're talking about; you have to be informed. One of the beautiful things about our current information environment is that you can be common as muck and still become very well informed, as long as you're willing to do the work, and there's nothing "elitist" about insisting that candidates for high political office (or, for that matter, anyone who passes him- or herself off as an authoritative political voice) do that work.  If the media didn't call public figures on their ignorance, it wouldn't be doing its job.

Now, the question of whether the media treat conservative ignorance and liberal ignorance evenhandedly is an important but separate question -- and it's one for another posting.