In defense of elitism (dumbing of America)

In defense of elitism William A.Henry III
Product Details

Paperback: 212 pages
Publisher: Anchor (August 1, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385479433
ISBN-13: 978-0385479431
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic for Time magazine comes the tremendously controversial, yet highly persuasive, argument that our devotion to the largely unexamined myth of egalitarianism lies at the heart of the ongoing "dumbing of America."

Americans have always stubbornly clung to the myth of egalitarianism, of the supremacy of the individual average man. But here, at long last, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic William A. Henry III takes on, and debunks, some basic, fundamentally ingrained ideas: that everyone is pretty much alike (and should be); that self-fulfillment is more imortant thant objective achievement; that everyone has something significant to contribute; that all cultures offer something equally worthwhile; that a truly just society would automatically produce equal success results across lines of race, class, and gender; and that the common man is almost always right. Henry makes clear, in a book full of vivid examples and unflinching opinions, that while these notions are seductively democratic they are also hopelessly wrong.
From Library Journal

The late Henry (he recently died of a heart attack) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic for Time and a self-described white, Yale-educated, suburban, registered Democrat. One guesses he spent his youth being a liberal but, judging from this book, became another neoconservative in middle age because of the excesses of affirmative action, feminism, multiculturalism, etc. What the United States needs now, argues Henry, is elitism, which he never defines but which seems to mean a social system that rewards only competence, not skin color, gender, disability, etc. Henry never seems to appreciate fully how much talent was going unrewarded before affirmative action, feminism, etc., or that any human activity, no matter how worthy, is liable to silly or dangerous excesses. Unfortunately, this book may attract the attention of reactionaries like Henry, so academic and public libraries should consider it for purchase.
--Jeffrey R. Herold, Bucyrus P.L., Ohio