Elitism — From Animality to Humanity

Sister Teresa, Sister Emmanuelle, Abbé Pierre — or the CEO?

What does humanity truly value? According to Universal Mechanics, the answer is clear: goodness, justice, generosity, compassion — not wealth, power or celebrity. Yet the system in place today exalts precisely these latter values, turning the CEO into a hero and forgetting the servant of the poor.

Discriminating elitism — the belief that some human beings are fundamentally superior to others — is a pathology. It is the survival of a primate reflex that humanity must transcend. In nature, the dominant imposes its law on the dominated. In a truly human society, power is placed at the service of the people.

This chapter explores the various faces of elitism — discrimination, contempt, eugenics, the false hierarchy of top and bottom — and proposes a philosophy of mutual interdependence between elite and people as the condition for genuine human progress.

The pages of this chapter

• Animality — from animals to humans
• The Love of Others — elitism and discrimination
• Discrimination — segregation and racism
• Freedom and Equality — freedom without equality is regression
• Eugenics — the fruit of liberal elitism
• Top and Bottom in Democracy — elitism as a hidden blessing?
• Interdependence — elite and people totally interdependent
• Contempt — narcissism and elitist media
• Pathology — the superiority complex