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Emile comments on Elitism isn't necessary for refining rationality. - Less Wrong
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Comments (91)
I'm quite surprised by your use of "smear". I'm aware that "elitist" has negative connotations, but not nearly as bad as "sexist" or "racist".
To clarify the connotations you're seeing, would you agree that MIT is "elitist"? Do you think saying that is a slur?
I consider LessWrong to be "elitist" in the same way that MIT is - if anything, LessWrong is much less elitist than mainstream academia.
Neither LessWrong not MIT would use "elitist" in their self-description, but both would answer "yes" if asked whether they are elitist.
I find this confusing too. Maybe Epiphany is coming from somewhere like the American place where a prosecutor will always remember to address a defendant with a PhD. as 'doctor' in order to turn the jury against them.
Thanks for theorizing that - my situation was different from the situation most of you guys probably had growing up, I was disadvantaged. That might be the cause for the differing viewpoints. I have realized I'm pretty ignorant about other points of view on elitism. Care to explain yours? I want to understand them.
I probably internalized something like this growing up:
I haven't been very aware of social class issues or using 'elitism' as an actual term. So my quick association with someone calling out elitism as a bad thing is that they're saying that people shouldn't try to be very good at anything. People who grew up more social class aware might have quite different instant associations.
Hmm. That's interesting. What's interesting is that I relate with you completely about knowing that there are people who are good at things and wanting to work to become one, and not seeing anything wrong with it. I even want to defend the right to work to become good at things.
But I don't call that elitism.
Why do you?
Because that's what I think the people who say LW should be more elitist are saying.
I did not attend MIT but I am really curious about other people's ideas about elitism and I realize now that I was ignorant about them before. Would you mind explaining your ideas on elitism please?
I don't really have well thought-out ideas on elitism, but I think there are places like MIT that have high standards that everybody accepts as normal, and I'm not sure of what distinguishes situations where the high standards are accepted, and situations where those standards would give rise to accusations of "elitism".
Overall I don't consider "elitism" a very useful word because it's vague and can describe many different things: "my group has more qualities than other groups", "you should grand me special respect just because of this group I belong to", "some people are more skilled or more gifted than others", etc. - add to that a general negative connotation, and it seems like a multi-purpose boo light, along with "fascist", "anti-American", "defeatist", "terrorist", "cult", "fanatic", etc.
(have you read the sequence on words? It's very relevant here, especially the bit on sneaking in connotations )