“The best is the new worst,” writes Susan Jacoby in an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times. She cites the decline in —-prestige?—-of the notion of being “best” and “elite” in American public life over the past 40 years and, most recently, in the US presidential campaign:
Senator Hillary Clinton’s use of the phrase “elite opinion” to dismiss the near unanimous opposition of economists to her proposal for a gas tax holiday was a landmark in the use of elite to attack expertise supposedly beyond the comprehension of average Americans. One might as well say that there is no point in …read more