In Defense of Elitism Quotes

“The dominant mood of contemporary American culture is the self-celebration of the peasantry.”
― William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism

“A brand of anti-intellectual populism is running amok, eerily reminiscent of the nineteenth-century Know-Nothing movement, albeit a mirror image of it in political terms.”
― William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism

“It is scarcely the same thing to put a man on the Moon as to put a bone in your nose.”
― William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism

“The columnist George Will likes to quote a line that he says Cardinal Wolsey uttered about Henry VIII: “Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out.”
― William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism

“Gradually and reluctantly, however, I realized that the wrath directed at elitism has less to do with money than with populist, egalitarian scorn for the very kinds of intellectual distinction-making I hold most dear: respect and even deference toward leadership and position; esteem for accomplishment, especially when achieved through long labor and rigorous education; reverence for heritage, particularly in history, philosophy, and culture; commitment to rationalism and scientific investigation; upholding of objective standards; most important, the willingness to assert unyieldingly that one idea, contribution or attainment is better than another. The worst aspect of what gets called “political correctness” these days is the erosion of the intellectual confidence needed to sort out, and rank, competing values. It used to be that intellectual debate centered on the results of such assessment.”
― William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism

“Among other prominent errors in the texts were assertions that Robert Francis Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., were assassinated during the Republican presidency of Richard Nixon rather than the Democratic regime of his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, and that George Bush defeated Michael Dukakis in the election of 1989 rather than 1988—a calendar howler that ought to have jumped out at any author, editor,”
― William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism

“One of the books scheduled for adoption, she pointed out, informed children that the United States had settled its conflict in Korea by “using the bomb.” This apparent reference to nonexistent nuclear warfare was just one of 231 factual errors cited by conservative critics whose”
― William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism

“My kind of elitist hates tenure, seniority, and the whole union ethos that contends that workers are interchangeable and their performances essentially equivalent.”
― William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism

“The kind of elitists I admire are those who ruthlessly seek out and encourage intelligence and who believe that competition—and, inevitably, some measure of failure—will do more for character than coddling ever can. My kind of elitist does not grade on a curve and is willing to flunk the whole class.”
― William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism

“Belief in rule by an elite is no better than bigotry when ability is not the sole basis for admission to the circle of the elect.”
― William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism

“affirmative action programs that were intended to broaden the leadership population have been so misunderstood and misused (by cynical white male managers far more than by minority applicants, it must be said) that their chief effect has been, perversely, to de-credential those minority achievers who rise entirely through diligence, industry, and learning.”
― William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism