What to Do with the Sow's Ears?

If you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, can you make an educated person out of an ideologue? Or, in our day, how accurate is it to continue to refer to those long accorded the status of elites, especially where the life of the mind is concerned, as if they earned that appellation through position alone? Is university employment, or name recognition among readers, sufficient to elevate any individual or group to respected status regardless of the content of his writing or the quality of his thoughts?

On the one hand, that's a perennial problem. Plato attacked the sophists of his day as cynical hacks with no regard for the truth. Since then, an array of writers has pummeled their opponents on the grounds that, regardless of their ability to bring along fellow travelers, their thoughts were grounded less on rigor -- whether in research or reasoning or both -- than on opportunism, convenience, cowardice, trendiness, self-interest, or other impediments to right-minded conclusions.

But today, when the left's disdain for mere history and human nature is being vented against the American people who reelected George W. Bush, it's time we took stock of the vocabulary we employ to describe those who've spent the past four decades descending into the irrational pit they now occupy. I propose that, rather than confer upon this class the dignity and prestige that terms such as "intellectual" or "educated elite" convey, we simply call them what they are: charlatans, frauds, careerists, reactionaries, fools.

This is a step, though not the first, in assigning to them the roles and opportunities that are their due. The first step has been taken: a significant portion of the public knows that academe, the mainstream media, much of the authorial class, and all those who mimic their poses for social gain are profoundly out-of-touch with the world outside their blue bubbles. By now denying them the status to which they aspire, with its attendant privileges, we can accelerate the erosion of their status which they themselves began, and at which they excel.

In practice, this means that prizes, events, opportunities, and personalities that once drew respect and envy should be eschewed and satirized. It means that, wherever possible, we should create new institutions to replace those that have ceased to serve the cause of freedom and security. As things now stand, what was once mainstream has come to occupy an increasingly flawed parallel universe where fame and fortune can be had, but where rigorous learning and integrity are in short supply. Nobel prizes in the humanities and peace, Oscars and Emmys, National Book Awards -- all have ceased to convey genuine achievement and quality sufficient to stand the test of time. Yet they still retain sufficient prestige to provide the mainstream media, academe, Hollywood, and social climbers nationwide with an aura of legitimacy they in fact lack.

Similarly, we need additional exposure nationwide for what were once legitimately called “alternative” news and information sources. Today, if these stations still pull a smaller audience than the combination of networks, they are nevertheless sufficiently widespread and influential to demand the attention of liberal elites, if only to provide them an opportunity to denigrate or dismiss the alternatives as the preference of “Red state” rednecks. Talk radio hosts play an increasingly vital role in this network as well, especially in their flexibility. Rush and Hannity can sway a broad range of public opinion and shore up a conservative base with their coast-to-coast coverage of key issues. But equally vital are the small-market stations, where hosts knowledgeable in local issues and personalities can add much-needed balance to media too often swayed by the likes of Gannett, the Associated Press, or the New York Times Syndicate.

In fact, counter-balancing those coastal behemoths is one of the most important roles of alternative media. I’ve long bemoaned the impact such outlets have on the perceptions of middle class Americans who read mid-size papers and watch network news in order to stay informed but who, as a result of the bias of their sources, adopt views at odds with their core beliefs. Toss in the effects of Hollywood and the rest of pop culture, and it’s easy to find well-intentioned folk spouting leftist ideologies that I’m convinced they would reject if only an alternative view was presented. And given the increasing coverage of alternative media sources, that view is in fact now available.

This is key to counter-acting the decades-long ability of the left to claim the mantel of sophistication and urbanity. No one wants to think of himself as a rube, and if so-called respectable opinion values tolerance over principle and feeling over rigorous thought, millions will adopt these positions as a way of separating themselves from coarser elements of society. Such stances are particularly widespread in urban areas, where a self-defined elite can ape national opinion-makers to form a barrier between themselves and, as they see it, the simians in the suburbs.

That this status quo is under immense pressure is clear from the vitriolic responses of the left to their resounding defeat last week. And it’s here that their most glaring weakness is revealed – the paucity of ideas and empirical evidence to explain their differences with either George W. Bush or conservatives in general. I say “differences” rather than “policies” because, by and large, they’re long on attitude and short on white papers. Intellectual vacuity is a poor foundation upon which to build support for changing a system that has produced history’s richest, most stable, and most powerful nation. Absent their radical social issues, from gay marriage and abortion on demand, for what does the left stand? A weaker America, subservience to a corrupt U.N., and a September 10, 2001, foreign policy? That’s not to say there aren't genuine problems to be solved, nor that Republicans have all the answers. But the left’s intellectual bankruptcy, which was visible on campuses well before the ‘60s revolution put it into hyper-drive, is by this point an undeniable reason for their loss of status.

And so a newer elite is emerging before our eyes. Bloggers who’re better educated and harder working than many mainstream journalists are proving that brains trump guilds any day (much as highly educated teachers in private schools put the NEA’s legions to shame). Coupled with talk radio hosts and more traditional reporters at Fox News and the conservative press, these newer outlets can indeed break through the old networks and chattering classes to expose frauds and reveal omitted information. It’s now time to press the case for conservative views further into the cultural and intellectual realms on which alternative media rely for ideas and inspiration. Given last week’s electoral outcome, with red counties making up the vast bulk of the American political landscape, the right is well positioned to capitalize on the left’s surfeit of arrogance and paucity of ideas. We’re holding the silk purse – no sow’s ears needed.