After the election, a headline above a political commentary column in The New York Times caught my attention.
Not for politics, but for one word.
That headline said, “Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now?”
The word that interests me is “elites,” the plural of “elite” as a noun when applied to a class of people. So, let’s take a closer look because something a little odd seems to be happening.
As an adjective, “elite” refers to the best of something, and that comes, not surprisingly from its source in French. Not surprising because so much of English does track back to the French who conquered England in 1066 and ruled that country for an extended period during which that language mixed with our original Germanic roots.
OK. So, the word is a French derivative, meaning to select something, or more clearly to select the best of something. The meaning persists in the word as an adjective describing somebody, someplace, or something. An elite football quarterback is one considered to be the best at that position. And so forth.
In this regard, the word’s connotative value is clearly positive. Whatever is being called “elite” is being singled out as among the best of other similar things. But as in the headline that prompted this column, the clarity of the word as a noun becomes less clear.
Let’s begin with the denotive level of meaning at which a word points to a group. This is perhaps the most basic level of communication. When English speakers hear the word “table,” they can picture an object with a flat top, supported by legs or some sort of column, that serves the purpose of being a place onto which things can be put. That’s a lot of words for a simple concept, I know, but it is central to what I’m talking about.
If we can all agree what the denotative meaning of “table’ is, it seems to me we cannot say the same thing about the denotative value of “elites” in the headline. What we can surmise from the rest of the headline is that the word “elites” references the losers of the election. As a matter of political science, one can argue that to explain the results of an election involving millions of voters spread over our huge country is at the very least, a tad over simplistic. Or even to lay the blame for defeat on a group, or subgroup of the electorate is a serious stretch.
Moving to the connotative level of meaning, that which describes the positive, neutral, or negative attitude toward what is being denoted, things get interesting in another way. Simply put, “elite” as an adjective describing a noun, or as a noun itself, has a strongly positive connotative value. I will pause to admit that when we add an “ism’ to the word to create “elitism,” we are talking about something different because that word suggests snobbishness and is negative connotatively.
We’re closing toward my point, which is to notice how a word that carries a strongly positive connotative value is turned on its head when it is applied to voters. It seems that the negative vibe of “elitism’ has shifted onto the figurative backs of the losers in the election. They lost not because they are elite in some other way in their lives but because as a class of voters they exhibit elitist disdain for the non-elite.
And that is what the headline with which I began indicates. The losers did not have the wrong policy prescriptions, but because they are seen as thinking that as elites their views should prevail.
And thus were rejected.