In Defense of Elitism, Part II

It has occurred to Pretty Lady, pleasant and diverse as this conversation has been, that she is not certain her original point was understood. She is not, and never has been, calling anybody stupid. Her contention was merely that persons who are not familiar with the forms, range, history and conventions of literature are not fit to judge the quality of a single work of literature. That is all.

They may, of course, have an opinion. Pretty Lady may have an opinion as to the elegance and viability of the proof of Fermat's last theorem, as well. That is not to say that Pretty Lady's opinion on this proof amounts to anything more than the opinion of her two feline companions on the screenplay of As Good as it Gets, which Pretty Lady viewed yesterday evening. The felines appeared uninspired by the movie; Pretty Lady herself was pleasantly surprised. It is rare that sappy, predictable love stories are actually accompanied by witty and insightful dialog.

It is all the more astonishing that in this age of Advanced Technology, people seem to forget that in order to assess whether something functions, one first has to test it. Nobody would consider that the design of the latest BMW had set a new standard for perfection in automotive technology if it never left the showroom; why then do people believe that they are competent to judge the effectiveness of a work of literature without having read it, the power of a painting without having viewed it, or the transformative capabilities of a spiritual practice without having practiced it?

Ah. Now we see that Pretty Lady has yet another Deeper Agenda.

For it strikes her that as arrogantly ignorant as people can be regarding the arts, this arrogance is dwarfed by their cavalier views toward the spiritually esoteric. For the mere reading and intellectual analysis of a spiritual text is not at all sufficient to the assessment of the merits of this text. One has to actually try it. Spirituality is not an abstract theory with no bearing on the physical world, except insofar as it is used to justify the ego-will; it is a practice.

Pretty Lady visited, yesterday evening, a regular client of hers. This charming lady has suffered from chronic, unspecific and seemingly acausal physical pain since long before she started working with Pretty Lady. Pretty Lady knows this pain is genuine, because she can feel its consequences.

Yesterday evening, her client seemed much more cheerful than usual. 'I've become a Buddhist,' she declared. 'I've been chanting regularly.' She informed Pretty Lady a bit about the history of her particular branch of Buddhism, the services she attends, and their activities on behalf of World Peace.

But it was when Pretty Lady began work that she sensed the true fruits of this practice. 'Buddhism seems to be good for you. You are more relaxed than I've ever felt,' she exclaimed. Indeed, at the end of the session, the client declared that it had been the least painful session of her life.

Pretty Lady understands, of course, the inadmissibility of the link between correlation and causation. Moreover, she does not prescribe Buddhism as a method of healing pain. However, she finds her client's experience to be a more compelling argument for its practice than twenty volumes of purely theoretical argument against it.