--Random Smart-tech customer
A commenter below noted that the makers of Honest Tea had piped up to defend themselves against being slurred by McCain:
I know there are always people looking for opportunities to throw the "E" word around, but there are few words I find more contrary to what Honest Tea stands for. In fact, I would argue it's elitist to suggest that only rich or highly educated people should have an interest in healthy beverages. From our beginnings ten years ago, we have always strived to offer affordable organic and healthier choices for everyone. In fact, our original $1.19 price point was too low for our own good, especially when most of the competition was out there at $1.69 per bottle for non-organic tea. We lost lots of money in the early years, but we stuck to our lower price because we sold more tea, and we knew we were reaching more people. I know there are stores and restaurants that sell our tea for as much as $6.00 per bottle, but I can assure you that we don't make any more money on those sales than the stores that carry it at $1.49!I'm glad these guys stepped up, but I think they're missing the point. The elitism slur is just that--a slur. The logic of it is, of course, laughable, but that's not what's at work here. Indeed the charge is deployed to go right past our logic centers, into our darkest reaches, and appeal to our sense of envy. There really isn't much more to it. I'm not slamming these guys--they've got a right to defend their product. That said, I think a lot of us spend too much time attempting to grapple logically with the slur--"McCain's a millionaire how dare he charge Obama with elitism!"
How dare he, indeed. What the elitism slur banks on is the idea that people don't resent those who have more than them, they resent those who know more than them. Or at least seem to. I don't think liberals can make an argument against what is, at its roots, just an appeal to the virtues of thuggism and stupidity. Price-point is irrelevant. The salient factor is (this is what the McCain people are banking on) that "Honest" tea sounds foreign and weird. Prejudice isn't logical. The very act of arguing may reinforce the stereotype. This doesn't mean you don't respond--and I don't think I favor responding in kind--but likely some humor is called for here, something Obama's always excelled at.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I agree. It's not about the tea, it's about the specificity of the request. It's the "no brown M&M's" of the celebrity rider.
I'd guarantee that McCain has just as specific requests in his rider, but since Depends dominates the market, his demand doesn't seem so extraordinary.
Low blow Trevor J ... definitely below the belt.
Another take on the past and privilege:
Apologies for Slavery, Should Acknowledge Privilege by Michel Martin
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93252360
One drinks Honest Tea, the other likes that there Lemonade Metamucil. What's the problem?
I agree. If someone calls you a little bitch, pointing out that you are of roughly average size, male, and not a dog is really missing the point.
I'm pretty sure the makers of Honest Tea were just trying to capitalize on the use of their name. They got an opportunity to tell us how much it costs, where it's sold, and most importantly, who drinks it. They're not concerned with responding to McCain's illogical slur.
This was free advertising.
Right Leo. This is why the Rove crew constructs these subtle(?) ads/talking points filled with code words to get his message across.
If you come back at him, attacking his intent, they charge you with playing the race card or getting all paranoid about honest criticism.
If you take on the ad/talking point in a logical way, all it does is keep the message out there for more to hear/see. They especially love to say that the charge must be true otherwise the slurred wouldn't respond so strongly.
They win either way as long as the referee (MSM) is unwilling to call them out on the tactic. That just makes it so tempting to get down in the gutter and start throwing the feces back at them.
Every formulation of the elitist slur is just a longwinded way of saying "faggot." It was the same with Gore, it was the same with Kerry and it's gonna be the exact same thing with whoever the dems throw out there in 2012.
I'm pretty sure the makers of Honest Tea were just trying to capitalize on the use of their name. They got an opportunity to tell us how much it costs, where it's sold, and most importantly, who drinks it. They're not concerned with responding to McCain's illogical slur.
This was free advertising.
While it's certainly a good opportunity to get the word further out (though with Coca-Cola buying a 40% stake in January, they've got plenty of engines behind that, now) it's also (as they note elsewhere in talking about this) an issue of not wanting to be positioned as a "liberal" drink. Whatever one's personal politics, as a business owner one wants as many people as possible to purchase your product. Defending a brand against arbitrary marginalization in the political discourse just makes good business sense.
Every formulation of the elitist slur is just a longwinded way of saying "faggot." It was the same with Gore, it was the same with Kerry and it's gonna be the exact same thing with whoever the dems throw out there in 2012.
This is why the right wing is in such a panic about homosexuality being brought within social norms - it robs the wingers of their most potent slur and form of bias, and seriously weakens the force and effect of their misogyny, too.
Actually, the post on Honest Tea's site was posted on May 30th, so this was before McCain campaign manager Rick Davis made this $1.49 product available in Sam's Clubs and Safeway grocery stories (in McCain's home state of Arizona, no less) into some sort of Beluga Caviar elitist la-di-da unobtainium tea.
Well, one of the guys that founded Honest Tea has a Ph.D in economics, so they get to slam sugarphobic tea drinkers and pointed headed intellectuals in one slur.
Hmm. Even if I find myself disagreeing with what Coates writes, I have to say that I appreciate the coherence of what he says. Kudos for that (and for the very readable article on Cosby).
There is a well worn perceptions of liberals, progressives, and other leftists -- the farther left, the more applicable -- as "elite," if not in fact, then in their own minds. Another part of this perception is that of arrogance.
Liberals are over-represented in fields that deal with pure ideas -- journalism, arts and entertainment, the halls of the academic "humanities." Dealing with these abstract ideas leads those liberals in these fields to make a number of untested, frequently untestable, hypotheses about the world of things you can drop on your foot or stub your toe against. One of these untestable hypotheses about the real world is the claim about anthropogenic global warming that the "science is settled," scientific consensus has been reached. Such hypotheses are actually dogma in disguise.
These elites show no tolerance for countervailing arguments and prefer to stay within their insular echo chambers, where everyone can testify to the truth of the dogma. Critics are simply dismissed as unwashed rubes of low intelligence.
The opposite perception is of conservatives and "neoliberals" (classic liberals / libertarians). These are lumped into the dumb bracket because they do not share, but instead question, the dogma of the elites. It has been a consistent theme in the press to talk about any Republican president, for instance, by claiming he has a low IQ. Both Bushes have been accused of this, as were Reagan (another cowboy, move over Dubya), Ford (Captain Klutz), Nixon (to the extent that his Veep Agnew loved counter-bashing leftist "nattering nabobs") and even Eisenhower, whose "Hidden Hand" presidency of the low key was explained as a sign of his ignorant indifference of the world's problems.
The claims of arrogant elitism stick in a generalized way. Learn to live with them unless you can overcome your intellectual superiority complexes to engage the other side.
I don't think that "Honest" Tea is supposed to sound foreign and weird (who thinks "honest" sounds foreign and weird?). I think it is supposed to reinforce the whole Captain Arugula meme, that Obama not only drinks some fancy-schmancy organic tea, but that it's called Honest Tea.
Ta-Nehisi,
It's not just envy of being one-uped in the knowledge department, it's fear that said holder of higher knowledge secretly regards you with benign contempt.
That right-wing meme, apparent from the first Weekly Standard cover story christening Hyde Park the midwestern Berkely to David Brook's latest column today, is to out Obama as not only smarter than you (innucuous enough), but well aware of it and able to see through your pretenses without so much as offering a nod or a curtsey. Now that is an affront!
I am sorry but I will probably break one of Ta-Nehisi's points on his first full day at the Atlantic.
MarkG, what the hell are you talking about?
First, using global warming as an example of "liberal elitism?" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations"[1] via an enhanced greenhouse effect. President Bush, in 2001, commissioned the National Academy of Sciences to assess climate change. It's report stated, “The IPCC’s conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been
due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue.” Global warming, and the causes of climate change, is an issue that a vast majority of scientists agree on. This is not some liberal dogma.
Second, you claim, "Liberals are over-represented in fields that deal with pure ideas -- journalism, arts and entertainment, the halls of the academic 'humanities.'" You don't like it? Well, then get your Ph.D., go to journalism school, write a screenplay, or whatever. Just stop whining about it.
Third, your post is representative of everything you claim about us liberals. You claim that we are arrogant, elite in our own minds, and dogmatic. And yet your post paints us all with a broad brush and smacks of arrogance. Additionally, I grew up around conservatives. I know them. I am related to several. A lot of them think they are smarter than liberals, more morally superior than liberals, you name it.
Finally, sure most of us think W. is an idiot. He spent the past 8 years proving this. But few people thought his father was, and, although he may have been other things, almost nobody thought Nixon was an idiot. The only reference to Ford being a klutz was a Saturday Night Live sketch.
Liberals are over-represented in fields that deal with pure ideas -- journalism, arts and entertainment, the halls of the academic "humanities." .....One of these untestable hypotheses about the real world is the claim about anthropogenic global warming that the "science is settled," scientific consensus has been reached. Such hypotheses are actually dogma in disguise.
You don't seem to understand the difference between hard science and a liberal arts program, but it's our fault you feel offended because you are a retard? Do we have this straight?
Liberals are over-represented in fields that deal with pure ideas -- journalism, arts and entertainment, the halls of the academic "humanities." .....One of these untestable hypotheses about the real world is the claim about anthropogenic global warming that the "science is settled," scientific consensus has been reached. Such hypotheses are actually dogma in disguise.
You don't seem to understand the difference between hard science and a liberal arts program, but it's our fault you feel offended because you are a retard? Do we have this straight?
I'm not responsible for how you think, for your choice of anti-PC epithets, or for much else on this wonderful planet. But let's not throw Karl Popper out with the bath water. Science must be falsifiable. Declaring global warming as "settled" is the same as declaring science "over."
I'm also old enough to recall hyped-up science reporting that claimed that eggs were evil and the main source of cholesterol. The concentrated attention made it almost impolite to consume eggs at all. Science reported in the media has often produced such scares, and will continue to do so in the future.
But science progresses by the simple, humble admission that we don't know everything. So before political choices are made that may have untold expenses and unintended consequences, it might be wiser to appreciate the sheer complexity of the world as it has evolved until our arrival. Hasty action may turn out to be counterproductive in the real world as it actually exists.
What the elitism slur banks on is the idea that people don't resent those who have more than them, they resent those who know more than them. Or at least seem to.
That sums it up nicely, and illustrates why all the posts in the world about McCain's expensive shoes and 8 homes won't dent him on the "elitist" front. The one thing he (and W) don't seem is a lot smarter than their voters, or assured that they're a lot smarter than their voters.
Someone at TNR had a point regarding the proposed town halls, that went roughly: "Yeah, Obama will look smart and well-informed and McCain will look like he can't handle follow-up questions; why are you so sure that's great for Obama?" It's a fine line between "whoa, McCain doesn't understand something even I get" and "ya know, McCain is a common sense guy, like me, and it's not fair for Obama to embarrass him this way."
I do think the electorate has shifted over the past few years and there's an eagerness to be treated as grown-ups, to have the candidate talk to us as though we could understand a point that takes two minutes to lay out.
As to race, anyone the Dems ran was going to be attacked as "so -and-so just isn't like you and me." With a black candidate, there is more for the GOP to work with, but at the same time when people ask the logical question, "you mean black, and with a non-anglo name?" they are forced to respond with something better. Which brings us to tea drinking.
MarkG wrote:
"Science must be falsifiable. Declaring global warming as "settled" is the same as declaring science "over."
The obvious flaw in your reasoning is the declaration that the science of global warming is settled is not a scientific claim in the Popperian sense. Its simply a positive claim that is inferred from a mountain of existing evidence.
What one has to understand is that use of the word "elite" or "elitist" in our current political vernacular means basically: education and intellect, and to a lesser extent good looks. (Remember Karl Rove's comment on the guy at the country club with the hot girlfriend, you know Chevy Chase's character from Caddyshack...)
Good ole' fashion anti-intellectualism, it always works. It brought us 8 years of Reagan, 8 Years of Bush, and arguably 8 years of Clinton. People want a President who is like them, not some strange "other" who is "aloof" (see D.Brooks, although, strangely this phenomenon doesn't extend to the choice of doctor or airline pilot.)
Its how people like Bush and McCain, who were both born into the ruling class of American society, can get away with calling others "elitist." Obama was clearly paying attention during class at Harvard, and is thus "arrogant" and "presumptuous" to your average American voter.
There are two kinds of "elites" in America, the kind you see on TV, the beautiful people in Hollywood and NY, the "cultural elite" if you will with their cosmopolitan outlook, who seem to enjoy the fruits of their education and wealth, and as such are roundly resented. Then there is the actual "elite", the kind you never see on TV, the people who own and run everything, these folks have a Calvinist/puritan work ethic and outlook on life and are mostly overweight and/or balding, goobers who for all their Croesus like wealth, don't seem to enjoy much of anything other than an occasional round of golf and the WSJ editorial page. So they don't seem "elitist" in the common sense, despite being the living breathing definition of the word.
My favorite line in 40-Year-Old Virgin, by far.
And, again, McCain's camp is seriously on the verge of not being taken seriously. That's not an argument that a man running for the White House makes.
When did it become cool to not strive to be elite?
It does seem that McCain is still railing against the hippies at Berkeley, just now the "hippies" drink low-sugar iced tea instead of smoking tons of weed and are faithful husbands instead of guys who marry their heiress mistresses. The weird thing is he's using this against the guy who is too young to have been a real hippy and lived in the South Side of Chicago.
Ironically, Paris Hilton's mom donated to the McCain campaign and is mad over using her daughter's likeness in his campaign ads.