Talk:Elite/Archive 1

From Wetman's Talk page
Wetman:Can you explain your reason for deleting Elite Model Management from the Elite (disambiguation) page? I didn't put it there, but I figured it belonged. It is usually just referred to as "Elite". Thanks. SDC 01:22, 30 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Normal: for the same reason Elite Meat Market isn't there either. Elite (disambiguation) disambiguates "Elite". It doesn't even disambiguate Elitism: perhaps it should. It's not a list of all Wikipedia pages that include the word "elite", after all, though perhaps the typeface point size Elite should be mentioned, don't you think? . "L33t" shouldn't really be there either, perhaps. --Wetman 02:55, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Military elite
Shouldn't it be somehow included?

In my opinion, it certainly should. Unless I am misinformed the word was originally military in nature and later borrowed for other purposes. Furthermore it is used in a somewhat misleading way when used out of military context. A military elite is a group of picked men (it is almost always men) for their competence. A societal elite is generally not picked or chosen by anyone but themselves.

Later: Glad to see someone else contributing well to the military elite part of this article. I am somewhat skeptical of the list of elite units though. The Swiss guard was largely politically motivated. The pope needed a mercenary force loyal only to him. Likewise, SA was indeed a highly political force, but it can hardly be considered an elite force in any military sense. In my opinion, the same is true for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. I suggest these are either listed as "politically motivated military forces non-elite" or simply removed.

Sensemaker

They may not be elite in the military sense of the word, but this article is about elites in general, such forces are part of the political elite. I'll add a couple of lines saying as such.KTo288 09:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)KTo288 09:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Help with picture
There's a great picture of here as Colonel-in-chief of the Parachute regiment. It would be a great illustration of a societal elite assocciating itself with an military elite. However I can't seem to size the picture to fit in the page without putting the whole page out of kilter,can anyone help.Thanks.KTo288 08:04, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Name of article
Someone has moved this from the normal English Elite to the French &Eacute;lite which is a pretentious affectation in the English-language Wikipedia. &Eacute;lite indeed. Wetman 13:43, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Appropriate indeed. Chameleon 18:16, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm moving it back to "elite" which is the much more common, and the standard English, term.  &mdash;Lowellian (talk)   19:01, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Lowellian. English-language keyboards don't have an &Eacute; keying, making access difficult. "Elite" in Wikipedia is a description, not a reproach: the word "elite" is worn so threadbare by approximate usage that it now sounds like the resentful bleat of mediocrity... Wetman 00:22, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I think we should move it back to Élite so we have fewer disambiguations.Cameron Nedland 03:18, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

unnecessary redirect
Note: I removed the unnecessary redirect from this talk page to Talk:Elite (disambiguation). The disambig talk page content is copied here in full and remains on the disambig page as well. This is an article of high importance to sociology. I believe the talk page and the Wikiproject Sociology evaluation of the article needs to be directly associated with the article. --Reswik 01:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

No mention of military elite?
I was a member of a elite F-14 squadron, (VF-211,'79 to '83), and we used to kick the Airforce's backside so hard and so often that I had lost all respect for them until the Gulf War. 80% of our pilots were Topgun grads, which was unusual at the time. We would "kill" state-side Airforce birds during wargames on average at a ratio of 7 to 1 to as bad as 12 to 1. Even the Airforce elite outfits flying out of Japan only got as good as 4 to 1. (A Tomcat flown by a skilled and agressive pilot is a truely formidable opponent.)


 * Cool story 58.168.229.121 07:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

nazis were a business elite?
huh? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.179.99.227 (talk) 01:45, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Straw Hat?
Allow me to be seinfield here, and say "What's the deal with the straw hat?"

The straw hat has been returned to its rightful place by popular demand of millions of straw hat owners on wikipedia who wish to understand the appropriate time to wear a straw hat! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.209.241.193 (talk) 15:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree the straw hat is irrelevant, will remove. Rds865 (talk) 03:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

elites
The Business elites, and Financial elites, are pretty much the same thing. I propose, we merge the two together. Dwilso 23:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Manhattan
My edit removing the content mentioning Manhattan being a example of the financial elite was reverted with the argument "Manhattan is very elite". Granted, some people living in Manhattan can be considered among the financial elite, but not all. You can see plenty of middle class and plenty of beggars in Manhattan. Further, there is no way of proving that they are the "most powerful group of elitist" (which doesn't even make sense grammatically). Without the addition of reference proving that this is not Original Research (which I don't believe exists), or giving an extremely good justification, I continue to believe the content does not belong. Please discuss before reverting again. -Verdatum (talk) 07:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


 * My information about Upper East Manhattan, is correctly sourced and documented thank you!  Dwilso  07:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Granted, I wrote this comment before seeing the changes after the revert. Still, the claim in the article was about Manhattan, not the Upper East side.  And the claim was that it was "often applied to residents of Manhattan" The source you give is an example of an application of the term "elite" to the education system of that area, it does not properly support the claim that "financial elite" is a term often applied to residents of manhattan.  Such a source sould be something like a sociology paper that said something like, "Based on my research, I conclude that people often apply the term 'financial elite' to residents of manhattan".  The clause derails the thought anyway, the example of Manhattan does not belong in the lead sentence of the section, as it makes it seem as though Manhattan residents are the most powerful group of elitist, when the entent of the sentence is (I believe) to say that the financial elite in general are the most powerful group of elites. -Verdatum (talk) 08:14, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Political Elite
The political elite section was not deleted "for no reason", the reasons were given in the edit comment. It is pure, biased, unreferenced, dubious original research that presents a regional view on the subject. If someone could explain why the section deserves to exist in it's current form, I'd like to see it. If not, I'll blank it again in a few days. If someone would like to rewrite it in a NPOV form with properly cited references, I'd like to see that too. -Verdatum (talk) 13:21, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed, Verdatum. In the current form it is not only unsuitable for an encyclopedia but downright silly. -Sensemaker

"Social Elite" section; delete?
The subjective statement there is not only unreferenced, but moreover it is, frankly, both sociologically and anthropologically incorrect. the "upper class" as an elite has nothing to do with the exclusivity of voting. The inclusiveness of the electorate may, indeed, be based upon land ownership, degree of educational attainment or suchlike, but the statement "the truly elite often think many of-age voters should not vote" (or whatever he said) is spurious at best. Certainly, in Britain at least, the expansion of the electorate was instigated from within the establishment. Therefore, I nominate this section for deletion. 129.67.17.233 (talk) 22:02, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree it seems a little too informal (after all, this page used to be about video games and some of those editors are probably still here). Should be changed to "those considered to be truly elite often think many of-age voters should not vote"173.183.69.134 (talk) 21:54, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Elites in market societies
" In market societies, elites often have superior access to all of these resources, because they are so easily exchanged." This hasn't been thought through: in non-market economies elites still have access, but because of their kinship status. Elites have access because of lotsa different things. A paragraph on the basis for elites in different societies might be a useful addition. Wetman 20:00, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC) i find that a lot of computeer games dont even help you with what your looking for. so i am working on one game for when i am 78 [i am 13] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.7.161.189 (talk) 22:38, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

"Educational Elite" section
It is patent nonsense that all societies educate their population for the express purpose of government. This statement should be updated to either 'some' societies (and provide a reference) or deleted altogether. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blandsberger (talk • contribs) 18:21, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Definition of 'Elite'
"In general, elite means the more capable group of the peoples. The selected part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities"

This sounds a like a eugenics argument. For example, 57% of UK prime ministers went to Eton or Harrow School. They did not gain entry to these schools by possessing greater individual capability than the rest of the national cohort, nor are they especially endowed with any superior qualities or abilities. Simply, they were born into wealthy families. An historical example would be the status of praetorians in the society which etonians forever ape. Praetorians are born praetorians, one can not rise to such a social status through personal capability, ability or quality. In theory one could purchase the status of legatus, though in reality you would buy it for your son. The only identified trait of superior capability is that of extreme financial advantage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.148.163 (talk) 10:14, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

this article seems really america centric — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.156.1.108 (talk) 05:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Deletion by redirection of global elite
I noticed that you redirected global elite into this article, but there doesn't appear to be any community consensus for this decision. Why was it necessary to remove the contents of this article? Jarble (talk) 05:39, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Vilfredo Pareto is missing
Seriously. Just read Vilfredo Pareto and you will know why he is missing in this article!--Hienafant (talk) 19:34, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Muliple meanings, fields
The current article, despite it's length, seems totally focused on one person's definition of one elite - in one country. I propose an introduction that suggests that there are, and have been, several different types of "elite" in different contexts. Each would then have its own small section. Snori (talk) 05:11, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Where are Pareto, Mosca, Michels...
Ibn Khaldoun, Parsons... and "millions" of other important writers about élites? The title of the entry is "élite", not "power élite". Even so, it is extremely flawed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:120B:2C07:EEC0:11FA:A645:C259:E4DA (talk) 06:01, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Sources!
Sources! Where are the sources of the information for this article, other than the author's personal opinions? Also, what are the qualifications of the authors whom the author of this article cites? This article needs work. Kemet 26 Dec 2005.

Agreed. This reads like an individual effort. What's with all those sci-fi 'elites' (eg. the 4518th Lift Infantry Regiment) seemingly taken from a very narrow sample of global literature? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.79.94.32 (talk) 12:21, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore the quality of the citations are weak. Almost all of the sources that are drawn from books and not studies have missing date and cities of publication, as well as the publishers. In addition sources 19 & 20 have no link to the source and are cited very poorly not providing any information further than author and date of publication. The title of the studies are noticeably absent as is the institution, if any, where the studies were done. The sources on this article need a run through for certain. MrBean48 (talk) 18:27, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Mitchell Eslick

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Power elite and sub-elites
This article is focused on "power elite", but does not explicitly say so. I'm not disputing this focus, because having a narrow focus helps Wikipedia articles stay on-track. However, there is no mention of the term "elite" as usually understood. Granted that "as usually understood" is vague because "elite" refers to a spectrum which is constantly shifting (in the nineteenth century, it sometimes included everybody with a high school education). At the very least, the article needs to give an alternative term/nomenclature for "elite" as understood in everyday conversation. In particular, is there a sociological/political term that is used to refer to people who, while not members of the power elite, are in the next tier right below, and who can potentially rise to the power elite? If C. Wright Mills and other authorities whose views are cited here did not have such a concept, isn't that clueless? In sports, the term "sub-elite" is often used. Maybe sportscasters have better analytical skills than C. Wright Mills. Vagabond nanoda (talk) 19:32, 9 August 2021 (UTC)