Ilkism

The first time Uncle Ken said something about my ilk, I replied "I have an ilk?  I've always considered myself to be one of a kind."  People have been telling me that all my life, and they didn't always mean it as a compliment.  I remember when Roger, a colleague of mine at the paper mill, once introduced me to one of his friends as "The most oddball person I know".  I rejoined that Roger wasn't exactly Mr. Conformity himself.  Roger explained, "You are an oddball, I am unique." I suppose, because man is a social animal, it seems to be human nature to assign people to groups, even when no organized group structure exists.  Those whose ilk cannot easily be identified are called loners, oddballs or, if they are rich and famous, eccentrics.

When we last discussed populism, I was meaning to ask if the opposite of populism is elitism, but I don't think I got around to it at the time.  I was watching PBS news the other night because some kind of sports game had pre-empted both of my usual news programs.  They were interviewing a guy who had written a book about a big debate between a White guy and a Black guy that had occurred in 1965.  The White guy was William F. Buckley and the Black guy was James Baldwin.  At one point, a member of the audience broke in and suggested that they should allow Blacks to vote in Alabama.  (The PBS interviewer explained to us that, in those days, it was difficult for Blacks to vote in Alabama, even though they were legally entitled to do so.)   Buckley responded,  "The problem isn't that too few Negros vote in Alabama, the problem is that too many Whites vote in Alabama."  There was laughter from the audience, and the book author said most of them thought that Buckley had meant it as a joke, but that he was really serious about that.  It seems that Buckley believed that universal suffrage was a bad idea, and he would prefer that only "certain elites" had the right to vote.
We've come a long way from 1965.  Or have we?