In modern times, a religious elite still exists in the Pope and the Vatican Assembly. The Pope is elected by the College of Cardinals, while the cardinals themselves are appointed by prior papal decrees. Once elected, the Pope is in "office" for the remainder of his life (unless he resigns).
Even when the elite nominally speak the same language as the majority, their dialect and accent may have a higher status. Their usage may be reflected in "prescriptive" dictionaries; common usage is reflected in "descriptive" dictionaries. For example, in the 1950s, the British elite spoke what linguists of the time called U English or Received Standard English (RSE).
Elites may also establish cultural canons, which are more widely agreed-upon within the elite and more generally ignored or resented among the non-elite.
It can be argued that English is becoming the global elitist language of today, since understanding it opens the door to many lucrative jobs in business and communicaitons. However, others claim that the use of English is an uncontroversial issue and that the linguistic elitists are actually more concerned with shutting out local variations (such as Indian English, or Afro-American English) than with the language itself.
Societies educate elites to govern. While conventional education often aims to produce knowledgeable and skilled citizens, the elitist approach to education is geared towards producing leaders of some sort. It can be idealized as an education geared to producing an individual capable of thinking at a sophisticated intellectual level more advanced than the general population, consisting of diverse philosophical ideals and theories in order to rationalize the status quo.
In some systems, such as that of the scholar-bureaucrats who administered China for 1300 years, elite education selects and skims off the most able students regardless of class or financial background. To pass Imperial examinations, students had to be versed in the Confucian classics and neo-Confucian commentaries, in literature and fine calligraphy - creating a cohesive and socially homogeneous scholar-gentry. This system co-opted into its service those who would have potentially been the most dangerous to the state; it left would-be malcontents either leaderless or uneducated. As an avenue to political power, the examination system became increasingly corrupted, with political connections and loyalty to the regime becoming as important as outright ability. The cultural legacy of this policy survives in the selection for the elite Chinese universities. Elite universities, through a process of indoctrination of a common heritage, ethos and promise of preferred advancement, create a loyal administrative/ruling elite for the service of the state. Such a system of selection for elite education can operate in the Western tradition as well, for example in France's Grandes écoles.
===Military elite===
A military elite is a unit of soldiers or recruits picked for their competence and put in a special elite unit. Elite units enjoy some benefits as compared to other units, at least in the form of higher status, but often also higher pay and better equipment. Examples of military elites includes Napoleon's Imperial Guard, Nazi Germany's SS as well the various special forces of today.
Category:Social groups Category:French loanwords Category:Oligarchy
ar:نخبة az:Elita be:Эліта ca:Elit cs:Elita da:Elite de:Elite et:Eliit es:Elite eo:Elito fr:Élite gl:Elite ko:엘리트 hr:Elita it:Élite (sociologia) he:אליטה kk:Элита lt:Elitas ja:エリート pl:Elita pt:Elite (sociologia) ru:Элита sk:Elita ckb:بژاردە sr:Elita sh:Elita fi:Eliitti sv:Elit uk:ЕлітаThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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