In a column titled "Hard to define, harder to shake," Inquirer columnist Karen Heller slams the blogosphere as a "courtesy free sewer," while taking issue with the word "elite":

Connecticut is elite. New Jersey, with the highest median income in the country, is not.

All these designations change when viewed from a national perspective. Then the entire East Coast is elite, although not the South, including Hilton Head.

Everything west of Chester County is not elite - except Minnesota and every Chicago ward Obama ever visited - until you get to the mighty arugula-and-latte states of California, Oregon and Washington.

Then you might as well be in France.

Republicans, defying their long history, are not elite, voters and politicians alike. Blue-collar, working-class, union-member Democrats are not elite either. Except, improbably, Michael Moore.

However, every Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton is elite, except for his wife - but only when Hillary is compared to Obama and only when it became clear she couldn't win.

Today, there are only two parties: Republican and elitecrat.

Smarty pants

Throughout time, elitism has been associated with birthright, breeding and wealth. Now it refers to education.

Scratch that. Bush the Sequel turns the notion on its head. He went to elite schools. He just chose to ignore what they offered.

Now, it's being smart or, heaven forbid, appearing smart that's elite.

Reading challenging books, even ones borrowed from the library, is elite, as is watching PBS's NewsHour, though both cost nothing. Improving the mind, instead of the biceps or the property (by clearing brush), is elite.

Any challenge to bad policy, poor governance or faulty reasoning is now dismissed with charges of elitism. People don't want to debate intelligently, consider divergent opinions and experiences, or listen and learn. Instead, they respond with closed ears and name-calling. Being labeled elite is akin to being told to shut up. How can you respond to that?

Perhaps this explains the Republican preference for the term "elite" and the Democrat preference for the more generic term "the rich."

But I don't like inaccurate terms, nor do I like generalizations. (Hence my need to float long-winded blog posts in the courtesy-free sewer.) I don't need the term "elite" any more than I need "the rich" -- because I try to keep an open mind so I can better navigate the sewers of the elite and the rich. (But hey, I can remember that back in the old days, "sewer" was used in a sexual, often anti-gay context. Times change and so do words. Go figure.)

The reason this intrigues me is that I have devoted several posts to grappling with the definition of what many regular sewer bloggers would call "the elite" -- and frankly I'm a little jealous that they can get away with using one word as code language for what I've been unable to pin down despite so many posts. Might it be easier to just say "elite" and accept my assigned role in the courtesy-free sewer?

I don't know. But as I pondered Karen Heller's thoughts, I recalled Glenn Reynolds' recent quote from Jerry Pournelle which "EXPLAINS THE WORLD." I liked it so much that I'm tempted to substitute "word" for "world" and offer it as as definition of "the elite" but I won't. I'll just quote it to supplement my ongoing effort at defining the elusive "they" who believe they have a right to rule:

The purpose of modern government is to take money from the folks who save and pay their bills and live within their means, and use that to hire government workers; and to keep their power by using the money to buy votes from those who do not save and pay their bills and live within their means. And of course the money comes from those who work and save and pay their bills and live within their means -- who else will have any money for the government to take?

Or am I unduly cynical? But you ain't seen nothing yet.

Without advocating the expression, I decided to revisit my ongoing struggle to come up with a definition of whatever this difficult to define group is to be called.

The following were compiled from three ponderous posts.

Here's Herman Kahn:

In becoming a mass profession, they open themselves to sharper criticism as a group because their average standards necessarily decline, their contacts with outsiders wither, they become less self-conscious as a stratum but more actively self-serving, and they make clear their belief that they should wield social power.

They are everywhere, and you really don't want to get in trouble with them. Not if you want to avoid being hassled at your job, go about unmolested, not get targeted or audited by bureaucrats, or scolded at the local church groups, PTA meetings, or (for the wealthier and snobbier) even humiliation at smug cocktail parties and country clubs.

The social people take note of deviations, and even silence at the wrong time. You can get on their shit list by saying that there are still glaciers in Alaska after returning from a trip there and seeing them.

The social people want endless government reaching everywhere. Anything that is good for government (meaning anything that generates the need for more government bureaucracy) is considered good -- regardless of whether it solves the underlying problems. In fact, if it aggravates the problem, so much the better, as aggravating the problems leads to cycles of government-grown, government-aggravated growth!

What I will call the Enemy Class exists in and around the public sector. It comprises the great majority of those administrators, lawyers, experts, educators and media people whose living is connected with the State. Its leading members are people like Anthony Giddens, Greg Dyke, Elspeth Howe, Mary Warnock, Polly Toynbee, Peter Mandelson, and others. They articulate and advance the interests of perhaps a million other people--from television producers and heads of executive agencies, down through the university lecturers and social workers and white collar bureaucrats, to the lowest grades of civil servant and local government officer. Add to the list all the racism awareness and anti-aids consultants and the workers in those non-government organisations that receive money and status from or via the State.

These are the people who really govern the country. They are the ones who decide what statistics to gather and how and when to publish them. They decide what problems can be identified and what solutions can be discussed. They advise on policy and implement policy. Because of their numbers and education and beliefs, and the formal and informal bonds that hold them to each other, and because of their ability and willingness to give and withhold benefits, they set the tone of society. They can require not only external conformity to their will, but can even to some extent shape the public mind so that conformity seems right and natural. They provide the boundaries and language of debate. They define the heretics and schismatics, and arrange for them to be persecuted. They are the modern equivalent of an established church. More precisely, they are what Coleridge called the Clerisy.

....consists primarily of intellectuals in the social science establishment: the philosophers, psychological theorists, political scientists, legal scholars, sociologists, criminologists, economists and historians whose theories have shaped our modern legal system. It also consists of an activist wing of fellow-travelers: social workers, counselors, therapists, legal-aid and civilliberties lawyers, "inmate rights" advocates, "progressive" politicians and activists, and so on...

It's a sprawling intellectual consensus...united in a single premise: that the criminal isn't responsible for his behavior... Forces and circumstances outside his control "cause" him to behave as he does. He should be forgiven, or treated therapeutically, or placed in a better environment, or counseled to "cope" with his uncontrollable inner demons. But he must not be held accountable for his actions-- and, under no circumstances, punished for what he "couldn't help."

Dr. Helen, went so far as to suggest that the latter class might learn something from the former:

...rather than a bunch of "fat cats," most millionaires are just the opposite: people who worked, lived below their means and saved a lot of money. Or as one politician put it, people who "worked hard and played by the rules." All of us could learn from them. Jealous that they have not achieved this level of wealth, now many controlling types of people are scheming to take money from others through high tax rates that penalize the "shy millionaire" as much as the real "fat cats," whatever that means. Instead of scheming like a bunch of thugs, perhaps the government and those that approve of their thuggery should learn to be more like the shy millionaires by spending below their means, saving, and showing some class.

After all, I was once on the fast track to being one of them:

...it helps to know who they are.

There but for the grace of the unknown went I.

I'm not saying they believe in rule by divine right, mind you.

That anachronistic mindset countenanced a certain form of accountability....