Love how "elitist" now just means "has the audacity to know things."

[trimtab@mastodon.social]

@ariaflame @Daojoan
Indeed. A man who talked about groceries as if he had only learned the word for the first time a few minutes before his speech....

[nini@oldbytes.space]

@Daojoan So they're anti-intellectualists but calling folk "intellectuals" has too many syllables so it's just "elitist".

[nicolai@babka.social]

@Daojoan what it really means is „has access to methods of thinking that not all people have but which are seen as mandatory for being heard and being able to speak politically“. And that is a real cause that unfortunately mostly terrible people really for. Other people do not really rally for it because it is an uncomfortable truth that one actually needs that method and that we indeed exclude people who can’t use it and that there is no good answer that could make them feel actually able to participate instead of just technically able to participate but without any chance of being heard.

[nicolai@babka.social]

@Daojoan I wrote small uni papers and essays about this question 15 years ago. Maybe it is time to update it with the current events and tell that story again

[konstruct@woof.tech]

@Daojoan "elitism" is just a fancy name for gatekeeping and bragging about something behind those gates

[yngmar@social.tchncs.de]

@Daojoan Especially young, female people, as it turns out.

[rogzilla71@mastodon.social]

@Daojoan Yep. That's how it works. For those on the right, "elites" are smart people. For those on the left, "elites" are rich people.

[scipoltech@mastodon.online]

@Daojoan The language and psychology at play is utterly bizarre... on the plus side, here in a UK by-election an "elitist" smart female plumber representing the Green party just beat a far right pseudo-academic "man of the people" backed by billionaires.

[arafel@mas.to]

@nini @Daojoan Possibly it's also harder to sell "I'm against intelligence," while "we're against elitists" is easier - and vaguer, you can turn it into anything you want with a bit of creativity.

[aronsilver@indieauthors.social]

@Daojoan nowadays I often feel elitist for having the audicity to grow up as a white man with a functional job and family. If everyone already judges me for it anyway, what am I supposed to do different?

[dp0@mastodon.social]

@mrundkvist @Daojoan
That is actually what I said: People turning away from information is exactly what I meant when speaking of the new means. Everyone has access to information and knowledge, so people need to be instigated to turn away from it. And this done by providing false information and creating doubt regarding the accessible real and factual information.

In the past, poverty and oppression were easy means to keep people uneducated. Today, more proactive ways are required.

[mkj@social.mkj.earth]

@Daojoan Sticks by their choices and morals even when doing so isn't perfectly convenient? *Definitely* elitist.

[mrundkvist@archaeo.social]

@DP0 @Daojoan
Why then didn't you and I turn away? We have the same access.

[larsbrinkhoff@mastodon.sdf.org]

@Halaana @ariaflame Norway has left the chat.

[dp0@mastodon.social]

@mrundkvist @Daojoan What makes you think we couldn't turn away, too? There are many reasons, why we haven't yet: maybe we were not the targeted audience (i.e., too left to be flipped), we were not sufficiently exposed (no Facebook, no Shitter, etc), we were too proficient in the field on which the disinformation was spread, etc.

Disinformation works like a virus: if you don't have the receptors, you're immune. But make no mistake: there may be a virus out there matching your receptors.

[smutmag@mstdn.social]

@Daojoan It's not elitist to go to university. It's elitist to believe the only way you can prove you are smart or educated is to give tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a piece of paper with your name on it. Our entire labor market and social culture is based on that notion. And like, I think the viewing of Trump as a man of the people is dumb, too...but this post is dangerously close to equating poor with dumb. And I think that's probably what people are referring to.

[mrundkvist@archaeo.social]

@DP0 @Daojoan
So you mean that education doesn't help. This suggests to me that it's a pretty bad idea to let me vote.

[markus@mast.uxp.de]

@Daojoan Nigel Farage, man of the people, hero of the working class, was a commodities trader back when he was in the Tory party.

[madengineering@mastodon.cloud]

@Daojoan If knowledge is power, most of us on mastodon must be at least demigods.

[cthw@mstdn.ca]

@Daojoan

Just means thinking for yourself using facts instead of following the herd based on emotion …