I HAVE NO IDEA WHETHER elitism leads to tyranny, but one thing is for sure, it can lead to a silly prat throwing himself into the Thames, only to prove to the world that he is a hypocrite by so doing.
Trenton Oldfield 35, was raised in Australia and attended one of Sidney’s exclusive private schools; he now lives in London, where he attended the London School of Economics (LSE) studying contemporary urbanism . He is also a fellow Royal Society of Arts (RSA).
In 2007, Mr Oldfield created an organisation called This is Not Gateway , which he describes as a not for profit organisation which has set out to; 'inject a criticality into discussions about cities via creating a platform for existing, though overlooked multi-disciplinary critical actors and provocateurs'. Although not being run for profit, his organisation is being funded by the Arts Council if today’s Sunday Times is to be believed. In other words, funded from the public tit; and as we all know the Arts Council, is not elitist in any way.
Mr Oldfield describes himself as an ‘urbanist’ ‘guerrilla architect’: ‘Open-minded, multi-disciplinary, efficient, focused, intelligent, honest, unique,’[1]who seeks to, 'inject a criticality into discussions about cities via creating a platform for existing, though overlooked multi-disciplinary critical actors and provocateurs'.
This 35-year-old teenager has[2] worked for more than a decade in nongovernmental organisations specialising in urban renewal, cultural and environmental programmes. Working for a nongovernmental organisation, however, does not mean (as the name implies) that you are not being funded by the tax payer. Unless such bodies (and there 44,000 in the UK) are funded from the private sector or have been given charity status; in any event, as they are not profit making bodies, the public one way or another keeps them in existence.
Mr Oldfield takes (or so it seems) exceptional delight in the fact that his own organisation, as well as the ones he has spent a decade working for, are non-profit making. Is there a better example of an elitist attitude than this? He sniffily turns his back on the greedy profit motive of capitalism; and demonstrates this by immersing himself in the public sector, which no doubt he feels is above the deviant and avaricious accumulation of capital – i.e., profit.
WHEN HE DECIDED to take his stand against elitism did our Trenton (now there is a name that suggest the very thing he opposes) realise that the message he sought to deliver would be ignored by the stunt itself? As one commentator suggested; his actions will have made the Oxbridge boat race once more become as popular as it once was.
Judging by the extracts from what Trenton has written, and collected by the Sunday press, I would suggest that his website would provide Private Eye magazine with enough copy to fill Pseud’s Corner for a decade.
If ever the charge of elitism could be targeted, then such a target is Trenton Oldfield. He represents the arty –farty elite that has sat atop every summit of the humanities in this country for decades, and has sought to help set the zeitgeist of contemporary culture for the last five decades .
Trenton Oldfield exemplifies the naivety and idealism of a contemporary teenager who, because he cannot get his own way, stamps his feet in continuous rebellion with cries of ‘I hate you!’ He hate’s elitism. If he were from the working class who felt embittered by the hand he was dealt, then, coming from where he started in society, I would at least understood him if he were the one diving into the Thames yesterday.
But honestly Trenton, do you really think you did your cause any good? Even if I supported what the hell it is you are trying to do – I would have suggested to you that yesterdays shenanigans could backfire, given the media’s understandable enthusiasm for learning the detailed background and nature of such an irascible individual.
Trenton should have understood that he would be the news, and not his message. A mistake all such callow idealists make when they journey into such self-promotion as we witnessed on the Thames yesterday.
I BELIEVE IN ELITISM. Not one based upon class, but on ability. There are great minds in all classes of society, and they should be nurtured and not despised by anybody because of class. They should be encouraged for the sake of our economy, our knowledge, and our culture. The best and only the best should be elevated within society.
We have practiced for far too long the egalitarian spirit in education; which has meant the dumbing down of exam results, in order to allow as many young people to enter university as possible: and in order to meet this requirement the old polytechnics were croowned universities.
We have seen how Trenton Oldfield’s mind works regarding his animosity toward elitism over the past 30 years expressed on the Thames. If he disavows elitism, then in order to elect all comers, standards must fall irretrievably to the point where this nation becomes, intellectually speaking, a Neanderthal enclave within a world where elitism is the gold standard for learning and achievement.
Oxbridge and Durham are the elite academies of excellence. The nation’s best pass through them and leave with academic qualifications honoured as the very best throughout the world. It has nothing to do with class but an excellent mind, on top of exceptional qualifications. The true merit is excellence – not egalitarianism of the kind that Trenton Oldfield suggests should be the norm by his anti-elitist comments.
This young man of 35, will spend the next 35 years as he has spent the previous 35 – living, in one way or another, off the public tit. He may even merit a honour at the end, which in his dotage, he will, like all of his previous anti-establishment figures, accept.
I am sorry to say that Trenton Oldfield, if he is remembered at all, will be done so by a small fraternity of sport historians, who rightly care very little for the message he sought to deliver, but only for the way the boat race was disrupted by him.
Whatever Trenton Oldfield sought to achieve for his perplexing and seemingly infantile cause by taking a dip in the Thames; I know not that this poor creature will not have advanced his cause one iota among the general public; and so it should not.
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