I’m Not Elitist – I Just Know Better Than You All What’s Good for You

By Roger Cohen, New York Times Columnist

Credit: Joe Mabel via Wikimedia Commons

London, April 10 – My various columns over the years in which I showcase my upper-middle-class, translatlantic, more-educated-than-thou, and secular-but-culturally-Jewish-as-long-as-it-fits-my-politics-and-lifestyle outlook may have conveyed the wrong idea to many readers as to my guiding assumptions. Therefore let me state with no pretense: please view me not as one who looks down on most others and dismisses their ideas as mistaken, if not outright dangerous; instead please view me as someone who, by dint of his superior education, variety of experience, and clear thinking, simply knows more than your pathetic underclass brains could ever grasp, and my opinions must therefore hold more sway in the world than yours.

Nowhere does this important message carry more validity than in my pontificating about Israel. Safe in my office in England, or from my first-class seat on the way to hobnob with like-minded liberals in New York or Washington, I counsel hoi polloi in Israel to make the wise choice, i.e. the same choice as I would make. Not that I have much at stake in their upcoming election, as my lifestyle would change not a whit no matter the outcome, whereas they face the real, everyday consequences of such decisions. No matter. I know what they should choose, because I, educated in Britain’s finest institutions, have freed myself of such unimportant considerations as bus bombings – no one of my status would lower himself to the level of taking public transportation! How unbecoming. I have passed the stage in my life when it was necessary to face danger. Those who continue to face it only confirm their inferior station.

One might also find it odd that I choose to devote a remarkable number of columns to discussing the Jewish state, when I have worked so hard these several decades to sever myself from the future of the Jewish people, attempting to become as universal as possible. That propensity, however, stems from the same objective: to weaken the Jewish State in whatever way possible – while appearing to adhere only to a line of reason, compassion, and sober reflection – so it cannot play any role in the heritage I do whatever I can to minimize in my own life.

A weak, vulnerable Israel is an Israel that cannot claim relevance to me, and, if they had the education and mental capacity to appreciate it, so would Israel’s Jews. I would predict they will one day thank me for my superior insight, but I suspect that also lies beyond their capacity.

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