Although Sowell and his good friend Dr. Walter Williams are conservative and apart of Academia, neither has ever fitted in with uppity left or right intelligentsia, nor have they ever cared to for that matter. Dr. Sowell identifies with Gov. Palin’s realness and refusal to back off her life’s principles.
He’s seen too many “conservative” POLITICIANS suddenly “grow” and “progress” as they seek higher office. And he sees her genuiness as something to defend.
I once told a friend that I thought Sowell should be in someone’s administration. He remarked he didn’t think that would ever happen...Sowell cherishes his independence of thought. But I’m wondering......if Sarah asked him to come aboard as a policy advisor....humn.......
Palin never actually boasted of ignorance or explicitly scorned learning or ideas. Rather, the implicit charge was that Palin’s failure to speak the language and to share the common points of reference of the educated upper tier of American society essentially rendered her unfit for high office.
This form of intellectual elitism is actually fairly new in America, though it has been a dominant feature of European society since World War II. It is not as exclusive or as anti-democratic as cultural elitism is in other countries, because entry to the American intellectual elite is, in principle, open to all who pursue it. And pursuing it is not as difficult as it once was, at least for the middle class. Indeed, most of this elite’s prominent members hail from middle-class origins and not from traditional bastions of American privilege and wealth. They can speak of growing up in Scranton, even as they raise their noses at dirty coal and hunting season.
Nor is membership in the intellectual upper class determined by diplomas hanging on the wall. Palin could have gained entrance easily, despite the fact that she holds a mere degree in journalism from the University of Idaho. Although the intellectual elite is deeply shaped by our leading institutions of higher learning, belonging to it is more the result of shared assumptions and attitudes. It is more cultural than academic, more NPR than PhD. In Washington, many politicians who have not risen through the best of universities work hard for years to master the language and the suppositions of this upper tier, and to live carefully within the bounds prescribed by its view of the world.