RE: the empirical definition of an elite!
a comment by observer keen
whenever an intellectually honest human being has the courage to describe the haitian reality in terms of its socio-economic antecedents, the first thing that some critics would do, in a desperately dishonest attempt at discrediting the author, is to accuse him or her of anti-bourgeois or of anti-elitist sentiments.
first of all, it is very important that we realize that upperclass is not necessarily synonymous with elite; and the difference is easily discernable in the socio-structure of pax mogolica.
the latter refers to the time when most of the middle east and part of eatern europe including the entire russian region, was under the control of the khans.
the khans were aristocratic warriors who were more or less illiterate and represented the dominant upperclass in the pax mogolica cosmology; but they would hardly represent an elite any rational person's mind for the affairs of the empire were almost entirely handeled by the arabo-persian segment of its multi-ethinic population.
as this example shows, upperclass is not synonymous with elite.
then what is an elite?
a true elite is the best product of the human potential and can be achieved only by a meritocratic process.
a very practical example of the formation of an elite is to be found in the us army elite units.
in these formations, one's family connections are irrelevant, one's dad may get one into west point, but he is not going to get one into the navy seals.
why?
because, as an elite unit, the navy seals are interested in singling out la creme-de-la-creme, and to ensure that, they would create an atmosphere of transparency and equal opportunity where the rules are unambiguously defined, and entry is almost universally open to all interested applicants.
in such a game, only one's merit will determine one's success.
in other words, mobility in and out of the elite unit called the "navy seals" is essentially meritocratic, which seems to suggest only a metocratic process will succeed in creating an elite of any sort since individuals of great merit and exceptional aptitudes are bound to be born in many different circumstances from extreme poverty to extreme wealth.
thus if a society focuses on its riches and ignores its poor, it will likely not exploit the genius of some of its poor and simultaneously allow itself to be misled by the stupidity of some of its rich.
in fact, the history of europe has more than one instance of a crazy or moronic king whose irrationality had led to the very near destruction of his society because of ill-conceived invasions or extravagant expeditions or pyrrhic wars_ two cases in point are the roman emperor caligula and the spanish king who had foolishly amassed most of his troops in a desastrous invasion of the british islands just to satisfy his religious faith.
as the empirical definition of Elite suggests, elites are substantial rather than pretentious, metitocratic rather than aristocratic, productive rather than stagnant, and progressive rather than reactionary.
As such defined, our post-colonial dominant socio-economic group can harly be refered to as an elite of any sort.
for instance, a member of an economic elite would find an ingenious way to operate a profitable and expansive business and would do so in a competitive market without mass-sublimation of misleading advertisements; a member of the intellectual elite would come up with original ideas implementable in the context of his or her society and would do so without having to memorize every famous saying of french philosophers; and a member of the scientific elite would do research to find new discoveries rather than sitting in the comfort of any NGO office supposedly directing a latent agricultural program in Damien.
in conclusion, while haiti has certainly produced remarkable individuals and individual geniuses in almost every human endeavor from toussaint to dumas,it has unfortunately failed to produce elites of any sort with the exception of the military Elite who gave us our independence; for it had been merit and courage on the battlefield that determined one's mobility through the ranks of the revolutionary army(i.e, petion as an exceptional cannon-field commander and toussaint as a genial military strategist).
It is worth noting that my analysis is not in way suggesting that we are incapable of creating elites but rather that we have not yet created the local conditions that are necessary for the eventual emergence of true and substantial elites.
in the light of that, france may be an advanced society but it does not meet the necessary conditions to produce true elites for france is far from being a meritocratic society despite the fact that it has been governed by quite capable oligarchs.
an excellent example of country with true elites is finland for in this society merit more than anything else would determine one's socio-economic promotion or demotion, not traditional ties to a particular family.
