Let's establish the meaning of the word..(Wikipedia )

Elitism is the belief or attitude that some individuals who form an elite—a select group of people with a certain ancestry, intrinsic quality or worth, high intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes—are those whose influence or authority is greater than that of others; whose views on a matter are to be taken more seriously or carry more weight; whose views or actions are more likely to be constructive to society as a whole; or whose extraordinary skills, abilities, or wisdom render them especially fit to govern.[1]

In answer to your obvious joy at the contrived advancement of aboriginal education, congratulations on your achievement...however, picking a select group from the broader society, and legging them up, is an elitist activity in itself.

And the results of that are evident in the arrogance of Adam Goodes ... the resulting discord is obvious!

Hi Dan,

"Mass tertiary education", rather than elite tertiary education, is variously defined as anything from 15 % to 35 % of an age-group enrolling at university. I've been fascinated with the possibility of MTE for twenty five years, and it certainly seems to have occurred in the case of Indigenous people. Urban, Indigenous people, and predominantly female, urban, Indigenous people. What the welfare-oriented want to do with their lives is up to them.

As for Adam Goodes, no, he is not a university graduate BUT one of the blokes up in the Flinders featured on Goodes' WDYTYA last Tuesday night is a qualified teacher. As it happens, Goodes' gr-gr-gr-grandmother, Elizabeth Angie, was a sister of my wife's gr-gr-grandmother, Reba, so he should have called her auntie. The Angie father was Chinese, presumably Ang Hi. There were quite a few Chinese, African, West Indian, African-American, Mauritian and Afghan fathers of Aboriginal children, often forming stable family units.

On that SBS program, much was made of a rumour that one early ancestor was the child of Sir Walter Hughes, founder of the Moonta Mines and benefactor of the Adelaide University and the Point Pearce Mission. An amazing proportion of Aboriginal people believe they are descended from royalty, perhaps from Queen Victoria herself (and so are the rightful heirs to the British Crown). So it may be worthwhile to point out that Tommy Sansbury, Goodes' gr-gr-gr-gr-grandfather, may have been the shepherd who first found copper on Hughes' land, and was thereafter provide for quite generously, as was his son. It didn't mean that Hughes was the father of any Aboriginal children, however. But it's amazing how quick people are to jump to that conclusion. Goodes' comment, that for Hughes, it was good enough to sleep with Aboriginal women but not to acknowledge their children, was not only incredibly ungrateful but also really quite ignorant.

Another thing: Goodes' maternal grandmother, Daphne Varcoe, was the grandchild of a woman from the West Coast, Jenny (?) and a man from Point McLeay, Benjamin Varcoe. So he had a much richer ancestry than he realised.

Joe

A government funded university is not "autonomous" or "free of external constraint" you fool.

The fact that you are an academic, and have made such a fundamental and obvious mistake that JUST HAPPENS to favour government power over intellectuals, just goes to prove that government funding of universities should be abolished, not defended.

Everything the author says is back the front. If people won't voluntarily pay for the products of a university, there's no reason why it should exist at all. What kind of priviligentsia do you think you are? Other people are not just footstools for you to climb up on!

If the State funds it, far from being some kind of hierarchy-free zone of free and free and critical thought, it will produce intellectually docile drones like the author - statists to the marrow, brainwashed into believing the State is some kind of benevolent institution, viscerally opposed to individual freedom and private property, and completlely unable to bring any critical thinking to bear on the subject.

The State, being based in a legal monopoly of violence, has a permanent ongoing need for legitimation; unlike corporations whose reveneu is from *voluntary* sources. That is why it has always formed a close alliance with the intellectual class, who sell services the market value of which is generally low, precisely because no-one voluntarily pays for them.

This provides an opportunity for the intellectual class to enrich themselves at the expense of society, by getting jobs preaching that the State can do no wrong, that the State is a moral and economic superbeing that represents society better than society represents itself - just as the author has done!

There is no basis in fact or reason for the author's assumption that market forces represent an "attack" on anyone. He has precisely reversed the true position, which is that all state action other than defending individual liberty and private property is based on the State's legal monopoly of aggressive violence and fraud, and is an attack on the public.

Mark, you have completely failed to give any reason why any individual or group should have the legal privilege of having the propagation of their political ideology paid for under compulsion at public expense.

All you are doing is arguing that your snout should be deeper in the trough. Ideological hegemony indeed. You are a member of the class who live by compulsion and the propagation of ideological nonsense, at the expense of the class who actually work for a living, doing things that people voluntarily pay for. In short, you are a hegemon of the ruling parasite class, and here you are preaching for more open-ended government handouts and privileges for pet political favourites.

In any event, you perform a self-contradiction by writing the article, since according to you, all the issues should be solved by government force and threats, and will admit no standard of reason that could ever falsify your argument.

So it's you who are advocating that the State should physically attack people who disagree and who refuse to submit and obey and pay for your privileges.

Aren't you? You're opposed to universities being funded voluntarily, that's the whole point of your argument, you support the use of violence to shore up the ruling class. Admit it, or renounce your entire thesis.

Daffy Duck

"Although it is very much about the situation in the USA it does have relevance to the situation that is developing here in the land of Oz and in the UK too."

If you don't distinguish, in a discussion of political economy, between the public and private control of the means of production, you will operate only at the level of a gibbering idiot.

How can you criticise authoritarianism, when you and the author stand for NOTHING BUT the funding and control of universities on the basis of political authority? Can't you see the self-contradiction that is staring you in the face?

"But of course the purpose of the "universities" was always to serve the power and privileges of the ruling elites."

The author is arguing that these tendenceis should be INCREASED and ENTRENCHED He is arguing that there should be NO SCOPE for voluntary transactions or individual freedom, but what is based on political authority to serve the power and privileges of the ruling elites, of which he is a prime example.

You are completely confused if you support him. To be consistent with what you (and he) *think* you are supporting, you should be opposing the political control of universities which he hypocritically supports.

The business model of universities, is what the author is criticising here. Aboriginals are a milking cow to that model! So too are foreign fee paying students.
Slash and burn economics attributed to the neoliberal ethic, demoralise workers and undermine conditions.
What the author suggests is revolt. An unlikely event more than ever. Debt stressed students make for compliancy.

The whole of social welfare is run on this model also. So too are hospitals, which are rundown ramshackle institutions of disease, run on an overworked skeleton staff of dedicated professionals.
One surgeon I spoke with recently at 10pm, had been in theatre since 6am. That is a sixteen hour day.

There needs to be a protest to this madness of inefficiency which undermines due process of care on all levels of society. Neoliberalism is a failure, as the author implies!