There are a lot of digs out there today about “cultural elites,” aimed at the American left.

In many cases, justified. I’ve met too many people on the left as arrogant, self-righteous, shrill, and as smack-worthy as human beings can be. And such people deserve a kick at the end of a pointy shoe, applied with vim and vigor.

After all, who likes a snob? I don’t.

What’s more, judging by what I’ve read, those Americans fond of hurling the phrase seem to share the underlying belief that, if a fault, such as insufferable arrogance, is true of some members of a class, it must be true of all members of the class.

Funny thing about that.

I detect the same sort of arrogance, though expressed in different words, in claims some on the right make about themselves. For instance, in this comment I read not long ago about a story on a news site: “It’s going to be a great 4 years for real Americans.” Obviously, a reference to the upcoming term of President-elect Donald Trump.

Think about that for a moment. The writer is saying: “We, and only we, are the real Americans. Those of you who don’t share our opinions are not real Americans.”

Come again? Isn’t that also cultural elitism?

It stuns me how often we are guilty of doing the very thing we complain about and despise in others when they do it, but excuse it in ourselves. Projection, blame-shifting and blithe ignorance of our own faults are rampant fixtures of human nature.

See, I don’t believe that every progressive is “a communist,” as I have often heard, any more than I believe every person on the right is “a fascist.” Those judgements do not reflect the many people I’ve met, or the world in which we all, in St. Paul’s memorable phrase, “live, and move, and have our being.”

Lumping others with whom we disagree into one handy, despicable mass without distinctions may make life easier for those who do it, but it’s puddin’-headed. The inconvenient truth here is human beings, even of a particular class or religion, surprise, may not all believe in exactly the same thing. To insist they do is “thinking without ambition.” It is lazy. In my house, we can’t even agree on the best type of bread, or the ideal temperature of a room.

So, let’s be honest here: we are talking about human shortcomings, having nothing to do with political leanings, and you will find embodiments on all sides of the political divide.

Who has not read about the Sneetches, those yellow, bird-like creatures imagined by Dr. Seuss, some of whom were born with a green star on their bellies? At the beginning of his 1955 book, “The Sneetches,” the Sneetches with “stars upon thars” discriminate against, and shun, those without. Then, a con artist named Sylvester McMonkey McBean — he calls himself “the fix-it-up-chappie” — shows up, offering the starless Sneetches the chance, for a $3 pittance, to get a star upon thars with his Star-On machine.

The treatment is instantly popular, just not with the original Star-Bellied Sneetches, who are in danger of losing their special status. McBean then informs them he also has a Star-Off machine, and they can use it for a mere $10. So the Sneetches who originally had stars happily fork over the money to have them removed. They want to remain special.

Ultimately, this situation devolves into chaos, with Sneetches running from one machine to the next and back again until:

“…neither the Plain nor the Star-Bellies knew

whether this one was that one… or that one was this one…

or which one was what one… or what one was who.”

At the end of the book, every Sneetch is penniless, and McBean walks away rich, amused by their silliness. Despite his assertion that “you can’t teach a Sneetch,” however, the Sneetches have learned that neither Plain-Bellied nor Star-Bellied Sneetches are superior, and they are able to get along, even become friends.

“The Sneetches” is a satire of discrimination between races and cultures, inspired by Seuss’s opposition to antisemitism.

Even a nano-smidgen of self-awareness of our own dark tendencies makes us better people, more pleasant people and companions, easier to get along with.

Let’s all try it in the new year.

Robert Whale can be reached at robert.whale@auburn-reporter.com.