Concept in Definition ABC

Human societies have been organized since their oldest beginnings to a greater or lesser extent around the idea of ​​powerful sectors and unprotected sectors.

Is dichotomy between those who have the most power and luxuries and those who have nothing but their own force labor has existed forever, although in recent times it has been nuanced by the appearance of middle classes or sectors that can access certain benefits without reaching, in any case, to enjoy a quality of life higher.

The elite in a society: the most powerful and influential social group

In the historical and traditional division of social groups, the elite has always been the set of most powerful and influential people, trendsetters, decision makers, governors and they manage the resources, etc. The elite also tends to concentrate the means of culture understood as intellectual, ranging from knowledge academics, science and the arts and that differ from popular knowledge by the simple fact of considering them officers.

The knowledge of the elites usually goes through institutions such as museums, academies, universities, galleries while popular knowledge is more easily found on the street. The elites are, finally, those who own the means of production, the wealth and choose what to do with the resources that are understood as belonging to the whole of society.

Elitism is the most direct consequence of the existence of elites

To understand the term "elitism" we must understand that it has to do with and is directly linked to everything generated by the elite. Thus, we can speak of attitudes, knowledge, wealth, elitist powers that by definition belong to a very select and reduced group of the world. population and they leave out the vast majority of society that is understood as a people.

Elitism is, in other words, a way of marking differences and discriminating both positively and negatively against the members of a community between the powerful and the unprotected. A good example of a attitude elitist or elitist is to request that those attending an evening comply with certain class and dress rules or they will not be allowed to enter it.

Elitism and social conflict

Usually, when elitism is noticed and visualized in the behaviors of the social group considered as an elite, social conflict is easily exacerbated. This is so because, as mentioned, elitism is a form of discrimination, distinction and differentiation between those who genuinely belong to such a group of people and those who do not or who wish to do so.

Social conflict and dislike between both parts of society is often mutual, the lower or popular classes themselves despising everything that is considered elitist or exclusive. Elitism does not allow breaking the social gap and neither does it favor the existence of increasingly egalitarian societies.

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