Well you're in good company, davidf.
GB Shaw said, before he became a Fabian, around the 1890's:
"Capitalist mankind in the lump is detestable, …Both rich and poor are really detestable in themselves. For my part I hate the poor and look forward eagerly to their extermination. I pity the rich a little, but am equally bent on their extermination. The working classes, the business classes, the professional classes, the propertied classes, the ruling classes, are each more odious than the other: they have no right to live: I should despair if I did not know that they will all die presently, … And yet I am not in the least a misanthrope".

This was mere hyperbole of course since he had no Holocaust to lament. Later, in the 1930's, for the Fabians he said that democracy, or "government by the people through votes for everybody, has never been a complete reality; and to the very limited extent to which it has been a reality it has not been a success. The extravagant hopes which have been attached to every extension of it have been disapointed. ... If there were any disenfranchised class left for our democrats to pin their repeatedly disappointed hopes on, no doubt they would still clamour for a fresh set of votes to jump the last ditch into their Utopia; and the vogue of democracy might last a while yet. Possibly there may be here and there lunatics looking forward to votes for children, or for animals, to complete the democratic structure. But the majority shows signs of having had enough of it".
Now Shaw was a great and wise man, and an oligarchist..

As Orwell said, all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others.
I believe in the utopia of an inclusive democracy, but that's not possible under the current dispensation.

Dear csteele,

You wrote: "I get the sense that for you Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Marxism etc would all have expressions somewhere in the world, or at some time in history, that you could applaud."

I would modify the statement somewhat. "Christians, Jews, Muslims, Marxists etc all behave somewhere in the world, or at some time in history in ways that I applaud. I would include in the etc. Nazis and fascists also. I think humans can have an innate decency that shines through all the religious and ideological crap they are subjected to.

I think all religions are based on delusions, and I have no preference between Marxism and fascism. However, I would place no restrictions on expression of ideas.

You also wrote: "Add these ideas to insular societies without the corrective influences of a broader community or allow an organisation like the Catholic Church to take ownership of Christianity, or the Bolsheviks to do the same with communism and we can expect nothing less than a distortion of the idea, often unrecognisable to the original proponents."

I don't think ideas get distorted. Ideas are shaped by the reality of human interaction. The original proponents may have wanted something else, but the reality is how it is put into practice and that to a great extent is shaped by the world in which it is to be put into practice. Bolsheviks didn't distort communism. They made it a reality. Marxism and Christianity become meaningful entities and change as their proponents practice them. Marx and the inventors of Christianity could not possibly predict the future world in which their ideas would be played out.

Technological developments, the use of resources and human interaction are predictable to a very limited degree.

Dear Squeers,

I don't think an inclusive democracy is possible under any dispensation.

David f.,

It seems to me that an elitist stance automatically invokes a we/they dynamic.
Where is the notion of "common humanity" brought into play in elevating the status of a minority based on a definition of superiority?
I'm interested as to whether you have any thoughts as to which qualities would define superiority, who would define them and what kind of mechanism would be required to select those who made the grade.

Dear davidf,

I do recall in the past it took me a little while to tune into your sense of humour and as I'm not sure how much your post on elitism was a joke I will let it slide.

I will admit to a rather romantic notion that both Monotheism/Christianity and Marxism/socialism/communism are social experiments done to the rest of us by Jewish intellectuals. I don't mind as I see them drawing from a heightened sense of justice which can be a millstone around even the strongest of necks.

Would we like them to stop? My vote would be no as I feel even in their failures our understanding of ourselves is advanced immeasurably, and life is certainly richer, though the body count is hard to ignore.

Is a sense of elitism desirable for the experimenters? I would say it is probably indispensable. However there is a deeper sense of a search for happiness and peace that is made difficult to acquire purely because of whom they are. They know what it is but it remains out of reach because to achieve it they must become one of us.

The price is considered too high.

Dear Poirot,

Elitism is a we/they idea. However, I see no way to ensure that superior people govern. As a practical matter since we can't assure that superior people will govern we must resort to other means to select our governments. Democracy might be good, but in much of what is thought of as the democratic world it means rule by money.

Dear csteele,

I disagree with your statement that socialism/communism and Christianity is the world of Jewish intellectuals.

Marx had Jewish ancestry but was not a Jew. He had a Lutheran education and was a Jew hater. You can find "On the Jewish Question" on the net. Go to your local university library and and get "Jewish Self-Hatred" by Sander Gilman. It deals in part with Marx. Whether or not a Jew is religious to be a Jew he should identify with the Jewish people and they should accept him as one of them. Marx was almost completely ignorant of Jewish history, tradition and culture. His knowledge of things Jewish was almost completely derived from his antisemitic German background.

The founders of the movement were in general non-Jewish. Many were anti-Jewish. Blanqui, Bakhunin, Proudhon, Fourier, Saint-Simon and most of the founders of the movement were not Jewish. Of the foregoing the only one who was not a Jew hater was Saint-Simon.
Some Bolsheviks including my uncle were Jewish, but the CPSU became less Jewish as time went on. My uncle left the USSR in 1921 cured of Bolshevism.

Jesus (if he existed) was Jewish, but Christianity was founded after his death. Paul was Jewish, but the failure of the Jewish revolt in 70 CE wiped out most of the early Christians who were Jews. None of the early church fathers were Jews. The Apostolic Fathers were Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna. The Greek Fathers were Irenaus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyril of Alexandria, John Chrysostom and the Cappadocian Fathers. The Latin fathers were Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage, Ambrose of Milan, Jerome of Stridonium, Augustine of Hippo and Gregory the Great

With all your talk of oligarchy and "superior" people, you sound like a rabid fascist, davidf. No wonder you hate Marx (without the faintest grasp of his ideas). I btw haven't mentioned Marx on this thread till now. The way you dictate on matters about which you know just enough to validate your own obsessive ideology, and propagate your authoritarian ignorance, makes one glad you don't wield power yourself. If you did I'm sure you'd know how to deal with miscreants like myself!
I think this thread was a textual Freudian slip, for it reveals precisely the binary non-thinking to which you are prey!

It amazes me that so many people still think they are "governed" (whatever the form), that we have any say, or even a clear idea, on how we develop, nationally, as a race, or as individuals. Governance has long since been ceded to economic determinism and the planet consigned to the foundry. No wonder people are driven to God!
This from Ernest Mandel's "Late Capitalism" (no doubt you're an expert on him too, davidf):

"The captive individual, whose entire life is subbordinated to the laws of the market--not only (as in the 19th century) in the sphere of production, but also in the sphere of consumption, recreation, culture, art, education and personal relations, it appears impossible to break out of the social prison".

And this was written in the '70s, things have grown mind-bogglingly worse since!