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Converting elitism into something useful?

  
 
All Acting Regiment
13:47 / 17.03.06
Now, "Elitism" is unfortunately a wide area, and it's also an ambiguous one, so feel free to bring your own examples.

What I'm trying to work out is how, if at all, an elitist model can be recycled or appropriated into something productive and, well, non-elitist.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
14:29 / 17.03.06

I think you have to define what you mean by elitism. I don't really get it as a concept. For instance, this forum could easily be considered "elitist" by some parties because of its insistence on a high quality of debate based on experience and/or academic research and its lack of tolerance for fnording. But is that a bad thing? I don't think that it is.

But the problem is, most self-professed elitists probably don't think there attitudes are a bad thing either. Where exactly does elitism in magic begin and a rigorous approach to magic end? In some regards "elitism" is a pejorative term, in the sense that we use it to mean someone who thinks they are the bees knees but are in actual fact quite deluded and delusional.
 
 
Woodsurfer
14:41 / 19.03.06
I don't think I'd call myself an "elitist" but neither do I spurn the concept of holding some things in higher regard than others. I think the tendency to put elitism down is an outgrowth of the creeping democratization of freakin' everything. It is not a good thing to aspire to the lowest common denominator and that, unfortunately, is the message that comes through to us loud and clear in nearly every field of endeavor (at least, here in the U.S.). The result of this over time is that the "lowest" sinks lower and lower still.

With regard to magickal practice: I belong to a relatively long-established Wiccan organization whose practices are based on standards set by our originators and written into our charter. We believe that effective magick doesn't "just happen" -- you have to know what you're doing and carry it out with committment and intent. As a result, others refer to us (some sneeringly) as "Episco-pagans". Most of us have a good laugh over this. We don't take ourselves as seriously as all that but we do take our work very seriously. Our fondest hope is that the community-at-large will regard what we do as a good thing and establish more groups based on high standards of ethics and spiritual practice.
 
  
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