To explain further my idea of how the MOOD of elitism could become a wedge, I think that is already happening as public schools adopt the idea that children should run their own education. The child-parents axis has the authority, but the teacher does not. This leads to an overweening arrogance, which is not condusive to learning. Other parents send their children to private schools, which have the characterstic that the authority of the teacher is still maintained.
Let me try to explain some more. If there is an acknowledged gap between an authority and a pupil, learning can stil take place. We do not read books to take in what we think we already know. The student who wants to learn more than he or she knows actually REQUIRES that a gap be maintanied between themselves and the one imparting knowledge. The capacity of a person or a culture to maintain that sense of a gap is what I call a tacit admittance of elitism. Without this gap, nothing is attained — at least nothing more than has already been attained.
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