Interesting and complicated. Arguably, the Bloomsbury set tried to reform the idea of elite to be based on a much lower bar to entry, notably taste instead of s

Interesting and complicated. Arguably, the Bloomsbury set tried to reform the idea of elite to be based on a much lower bar to entry, notably taste instead of skill and responsibility. Criticisms of aristocracy use a bit misdirection and equivocation about what they want to replace, and then stack on the rest of the justifications that support the idea that a legitimate elite is liquid and interchangeable - because they have reframed the legitimacy to be as arbitrary and accessible as taste and position. The paper's use of the word "highbrow," frames pursuits in terms of taste instead of their bar to entry, where someone playing golf can be considered as having an equivalently highbrow interest as someone who sails or rides horses, which is like comparing playing video games to programming or electrical engineering. Their interpretation of tastes in music conflates affect with effect, where pop music and "highbrow" music are placed on the same continuum of experience to create a grouping that seems more inclusive of lower-bar positional elites who have taste for pop music, and along side of the higher-bar company of actual musicians and patrons who support the pursuit of ideals and excellence in performance. The underlying misdirection is that the legitimacy of an elite does not require skill, responsibility, continuity, or succession - which of course a usurper would say, and so say these usurpers. I'd argue the legitimacy and even the station of an aristocracy is a function of its actual nobility, which is the perfection of its ideals and the cost of their investment in aligning to and achieving them. The reason is that we have more in common with people who have pursued and achieved similar levels of excellence than with people who just like the same things. An olympic athlete has more in common with a CEO than someone who goes to the gym, and a concert pianist has more in common with an olympian than they do with someone who plays in a band. Interesting paper, but unless a writer is demonstrating noble ideals and the means to achieve them, I think they are misleading people.