In a cultural moment obsessed with dismantling hierarchies, Henry Oliver makes a startlingly counter-intuitive claim: that "elitism is good," provided it is divorced from snobbery. This is not a defense of gatekeeping for the sake of exclusion, but a rigorous argument that the academic humanities have sabotaged themselves by abandoning the very standards that give literature its power. Oliver suggests that the erosion of the canon has left students adrift, alienating the very readers who should feel most at home in a university setting.
The Cost of Leveling Standards
Oliver begins by diagnosing a self-inflicted wound within the academy. He points out that "in dismantling the canon—in largely doing away with the idea that there is a single set of books that everyone ought to read—English professors have had a hand in their own undoing." The argument here is sharp: without a shared benchmark of quality, the discipline loses its authority. Oliver writes, "Once we evaluate literature on its political, historical, or other merits, without any binding constraints of canonical standards, then we are denying the idea of good or better, and so we are starting to deny the idea of authority."
This framing resonates with the broader crisis of confidence in higher education. When expertise is flattened into mere preference, the public naturally looks for other sources of truth. Oliver notes that if experts promote a "leveling attitude," "you can hardly be surprised when people go looking for ideas of the good elsewhere." The author is essentially arguing that the pursuit of inclusivity has inadvertently created a vacuum that populist or anti-intellectual movements are eager to fill.
Some things are good; some are better; this is, to most people, sheer common sense. So it is with books.
However, Oliver acknowledges a painful irony: insisting on these standards often drives people away. He cites feedback from his own students, who are "exactly the sort of people who should feel most welcome in an English department. But they don't." Many feel that rigorous study has "sucked all of the joy out of it." This is a critical observation. The university, in its attempt to be politically correct or theoretically rigorous, has often become hostile to the simple love of reading.
Reconciling the Canon with Pluralism
The core of Oliver's contribution is his attempt to synthesize two seemingly opposing ideas: the existence of a superior canon and the validity of diverse pleasures. He identifies himself as a pluralist, echoing the philosophical tradition of value pluralism which suggests that human goods are diverse and often incommensurable. He argues that we can believe "some books are better than others without believing that makes readers of those books superior." He illustrates this with a simple distinction: "Anna Karenina is supreme; reading Anna, however, isn't a magical process by which you become supreme."
This distinction is vital. It separates the quality of the object from the moral worth of the subject. Oliver pushes back against the idea that enjoying "lower" pleasures makes one a bad person, while simultaneously refusing to pretend that all pleasures are equal. He writes, "You have to be a stubborn Benthamite to maintain that they are all equal. I doubt that anyone seriously thinks that there are no higher pleasures." Here, he subtly invokes the utilitarian calculus of John Stuart Mill, who famously distinguished between "higher" and "lower" pleasures, arguing that it is "better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."
The goodness of Mozart is not about you, and not defined by you; the apprehension of Mozart's goodness is another matter, and one which we might argue about.
Oliver's defense of elitism is not a call to banish popular fiction. He champions a "catholic taste," citing the legendary editor Robert Gottlieb: "I will read anything from Racine to a nurse romance, if it's a good nurse romance." The goal is not to force everyone to read only Shakespeare, but to ensure that the difference in quality is acknowledged. He argues that the difference between fantasy novels and Shakespeare is a difference of the books, not of their readers. "It is your problem if you take it personally when someone tells you that what you like is trash if it actually isn't very good," he asserts.
Critics might note that this distinction is harder to maintain in practice than in theory. The history of the canon is littered with works that were once considered "trash" before being elevated, and the definition of "good" has often been shaped by the biases of the powerful. Oliver acknowledges this complexity but insists that the alternative—total relativism—is worse.
Truth Over Niceness
Ultimately, Oliver places the pursuit of truth above the comfort of the student. He argues that "niceness is one good. Truth is another." The teaching of literature, he contends, "owes as much to the canon as it does to students." If the goal is to induct students into the "strangeness of the canon," then the professor must be willing to challenge their existing tastes. He quotes the biblical character Horatio to describe the proper reaction to great literature: "this is wondrous strange!" This sense of wonder, he suggests, comes from encountering something that transcends the familiar, not from having one's current preferences validated.
He uses the philosophical "experience machine" thought experiment to drive this point home. Just as we would not choose to live our lives hooked up to a machine that simulates pleasure, we should not settle for literature that offers only easy, unchallenging gratification. Oliver writes, "You will resist being plugged in." He acknowledges that many people do "plug in regularly" to Netflix or video games and find happiness there, but he insists that "the pleasures of friendship and parenthood are better than the pleasures of the electrodes." Similarly, the struggle to understand a difficult text offers a depth of value that a passive, pleasurable read cannot match.
Elitism can't be given up in favour of niceness if that means abandoning canonical standards. As Isaac says, that's ruinous.
Bottom Line
Henry Oliver's argument is a necessary corrective to the self-defeating relativism that has plagued literary criticism in recent decades. His strongest move is decoupling the concept of "better books" from the concept of "better people," allowing for a rigorous standard of quality without the accompanying snobbery. However, the piece's biggest vulnerability lies in its assumption that the "canon" is a stable, objective entity rather than a contested historical construct; the challenge remains in defining which books belong in that canon without replicating past exclusions. Readers should watch for how institutions attempt to implement this "catholic elitism" in practice—whether they can truly teach the strangeness of the canon without alienating the very students they aim to serve.