Elite, Elitism
The elite is that social category responsible for society’s management, ‘chosen’ or ‘elected’, as its etymology suggests. Elitism designates the doctrine promoting the selection of the best, not according to birth, but according to objective capability.
Very close to the notion of ‘aristocracy’, the notion of ‘elite’ has likewise degenerated in contemporary society. Elites now lack aristocratic qualities, that is, they don’t comprise ‘the best’, and traditional aristocrats (except for certain exceptions) no longer belong to it, having long ago been neutralised.
Contemporary elites are ‘recruited’ according to criteria that have nothing to do with excellence or character. These criteria are now nepotism, connection, membership in a lobby, a clique, a mafia, a clan (sociological or ethnic); or else these criteria relate to the ability to make money. The elites of contemporary society are no longer selected, but recruited on the basis of corporate or market principles.
Recruitment is thus no longer on the basis of competitive criteria or of excellence. This blocks the circulation of elites. Two phenomena contribute to this: first, egalitarianism and an educational lack of discipline that no longer allows the best to advance; and second, the dominant ideology’s aversion to ‘elitism’, meritocracy, or selection, all of which have become taboo since May 1968.
Selection and inequality nevertheless still occurs, it’s human nature. The present system of elite-formation is chaotic and unjust. And anti-elitism leads to the social jungle.
