Sam Harris can go a bit overboard in his anti-religious crusade, but a recent piece for Newsweek about Sarah Palin hits the bullseye. My fave paragraph:
Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics?
There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and
rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our
planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite
athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote
the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And
yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater
responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards
of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and
actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want
someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone
down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't
seem too intelligent or well educated.
Read the rest here.
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