Spare a thought for the urban elite

I have been on furlough during which I have been thinking about the plight of a much-maligned group who are currently under the cosh.

It has become fashionable to blame them, the “liberal metropolitan elite,” as they are called, for some dodgy political decisions voters have been making recently. (Of course, the people are always right. How could one possibly think that they might be otherwise?). 

Anyway, the analysis goes something like this: the ordinary man or woman is fed up with being told what to do or think. Therefore, they are now rebelling and asserting their independence of thought, word and deed.

The charge is of course bogus and, ordinarily, in a world where there is common sense it should be summarily thrown out. But the world is one queer place these days. Now, anything goes, as long as it can be said in soundbites or delivered in 140 characters or thereabouts. Either way, such pronouncements can contain an enormous amount of misinformation, frequently laced with venom and other noxious substances. We’re not even talking about insults here. For those, four-letter expletives remain sufficient and for which certain world leaders are notable.

Demolishing untruths and misrepresentations packed into only 140 characters fashioned during the wee hours, for example, can, surprisingly, be quite tough, not to say irritating, requiring considerable skill and deftness in word craft. Re-formatting a bad sector, as old computer lingo used to have it, in a corrupted mind, can be incredibly difficult. Minds like that are just not amenable to the devices of common sense. You don’t have to look hard for examples. They are everywhere in the political landscape of today.

But who are these “liberal metropolitan elite” anyway? According to the label on the tin, you can infer that they live in the city or in a big town. Though not necessarily. What probably defines them most is that they fashion their wicked ways within a thoughtful network of innovative individuals. They nourish each other. Their currency is ideas. Ideas about what makes the world work. And indeed, how, in fact, the very thing itself revolves around the sun rather than the other way round, for example.  It is also not flat. It is a globe. Remember, these were the kinds of ideas that people got their eyes gouged out for or had some other unpleasant things done to them.

Most of these so-called elites would have spent years learning stuff. Although not necessarily.  They are just able to think clearly and sift wheat from chaff as well as show readiness to jettison ideas that obviously don’t make sense. Beyond that, they tend to take the long view too, both forward and back and pick out lessons from history.  Also, they try to warn us not to repeat the mistakes of previous generations. Most importantly, they welcome new ideas and show willingness to change position when facts warrant.

It is through this receptivity that the world has become a better place. Readiness to receive new ideas and, create new ones in turn, has guided human progress and contributes bigly, to coin a phrase, to the making of today’s world, where food is generally plentiful and people live longer, healthier lives. Life expectancy is increasing progressively, even in countries that are relatively poor. 

So what’s not to like about the urban elite? Nothing. Except, of course, when you have no alternative to offer. Especially, if your agenda is merely to seek public office for office's sake. In those circumstances, facts can be rubbished and substituted with “alternative” facts in a strange universe where the laws of physics and maths don’t apply, a place where 2 plus 2 does not add up to 4. There are many practitioners of these strange arts, some in seriously important positions from which they make a lot of noise, and with the power to mess our world about. Think of the vaccine rejectionists, the climate change deniers, the evolution deniers, to mention just a few of the really pesky ones. And there are many others as well of various dimensions. Together, they are a formidable force that makes the job of defining policy truly hard.

This is why it is important for scientists and technologists to resist and call out these destructive elements in society that aim to take us back to their “golden age” when they called the shots and held all the cards that kept the vast majority of us in our place.

But I might be too pessimistic. The urban elite are alive and well and will remain fighting fit to beat back the forces against progress. Starting in France. And the UK.

Tell Fren Tru