Elitism and Trade-offs

It makes me a little uncomfortable when someone calls another person or group "stupid". Part of this is probably a reaction to my being called, or thought to be, "slow" or stupid, in the past. But, rationally, I think it bugs me because it just doesn't seem to add up. Do some people just have an abundance of gifts or abilities, while others don't? I think a few authors would disagree with that. (1,2,3) I tend to think of intelligence as an accumulation of experience. If you've spent time in one type of experience, you've not spent that time getting another type of experience. It's a trade-off. You can, for example, be "smart" in math, language, etc., but "stupid" in emotional intelligence, behavior prediction, etc. Such experience might be grouped under the heading 'interactions with our external environment'. But the human body is part of the environment "we" (our conscious selves) live in. It's composition is mostly determined my our genome. So it's reasonable to think some people are "just built to be smarter". -just as some people are physically stronger, faster, etc. But there are trade-offs here, too. A person who is more muscular, is less efficient. There is a lot of extra muscle mass there, ready to move larger mass objects. But just sitting still, a muscular person will burn more calories, than a less muscular one. Of course, in the U.S., getting more than enough calories is not a big problem. But I've got to believe there is some trade-off with "natural" intelligence, too. If you are good at, or frequently focused on, one kind of thinking, are you ignorant of others? -and the brain requires a lot of energy. Are you grabbing extra nutrients to to feed that selfish brain, while others in the world are starving to death? (I'm being a little facetious, there) I do think certain body (including the brain) configurations and behaviors can be optimal in given environments at given times. -and I may still use the word "stupid", when I observe the same person, with their left turn signal on at a traffic signal's left turn lane (when it's obvious what you're about to do), not use their signal before abruptly stopping to turn left onto a small side road. But I don't think some people are absolutely superior to others.
So how is this related to elitism? I think elitism is allowed to exist because of our beliefs that some people can be so much superior to others. If we think that certain other people "are just idiots", doesn't that open the possibility that we can be considered "idiots" by dictators, kings, obnoxiously wealthy people, etc.? We must, on some level, think it possible that actors, athletes, etc. are better than us. We spend time and money paying attention to (worshiping) them, rather than believing (to the extent that we instead put those resources into ourselves) we could possibly be that great. I think many of us give up, and accept that we are not as good or powerful. I think of movies like "Frozen". It does depart from the tradition that a woman needs to be saved by a man (prince, or other). -Princess Anna is saved by 'sisterly love'. But it still holds the idea that the common people need to be saved by a special (royal) person, with special powers. I think, similarly, we wait for the government, or a new president/king/military leader, to rescue our world. -rather than believe we can rescue ourselves.
Even if some people are genetically or experiencially better positioned to cope with present conditions, I think we tend to exaggerate their worth. CEO's can make 380 times the salary of their average worker. We've allowed 1% of Americans to hold 40% of the wealth (4). I recently watched the movie "Money Ball". I think this could be an example of this phenomenon. The salaries of certain baseball players reflected that they were thought to be much more valuable than others. The Oakland A's had a fraction of the budget of a team like the New York Yankees. But when they focused their attention on the statistic of on-base-percentage (a necessary prerequisite for scoring), they found they could combine less costly players, to get better results. I assume I can deduce, here, that a player who costs, say, 5 times as much, is not going to get on base 5 times more. His value to the team is inflated. This A's team ended up shattering the record for most consecutive wins. When the Boston Red Sox, a team with a much higher budget, adopted this philosophy, they won the World Series for the first time, since 1918. Because of the resource trade-offs within a human, and between humans, the level of elitism many of us support is just not warranted. It unnecessarily makes us feel inferior, and become victims.