
The Trouble With Meritocracy - robg
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/the-trouble-with-meritocracy/
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mquander
Clearly Mr. Douthat means something very different than I do by "meritocracy."
If "meritocracy" means existing political leaders or (as in his linked
article) "D.C. elites", who appear to come by their positions through some
combination of oligarchy and cronyism, then I suppose I am against it.

On the other hand, please bring me the "meritocracy" comprised of leaders who
have the intellectual capacity and willpower to make rational decisions based
on actual evidence and honest debate. You know, meritorious ones.

~~~
Ardit20
I think the author doesn't really believe in meritocracy. The issue really
doesn't seem to be as to whether the best are getting the places. The author
seems to imply though not state that anyone can be able and meritorious of
being part of the elite. His problem seems to rather be as to people from
which background should we open the door to and which to close to, background,
or colour, or sexual orientation, or add some other divisive label, not
meritocracy. He probably is talking rather about mediocrity :P

~~~
mquander
It's the usual stance of a media that cares about being "objective" but not
being informed: everyone has an important opinion, and we had better consider
them all equally! Nobody dares suggest that some of the opinions are right and
some are wrong, and if you do, then you're "partisan" and you're out of the
club.

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quanticle
My biggest objection to this entire piece is its lack of specificity. Mr.
Douhat simply waves his hands at a lack of "intellectual diversity" within the
"elite", without ever defining what he means by "elite" or "intellectual
diversity".

Even if we confine ourselves to the Washington elite, we find a vast
difference of opinion between places like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato
Institute and places like Center for American Progress and Brookings. If we
move outside of Washington, we find an even greater range of views amongst the
"elite". I mean, a lot of programmers are fairly libertarian in both social
and economic views, and don't have a real home in either major party.

I think Douhat isn't thinking clearly about the topic at hand. If he was, he'd
see that he's being spooked by the shadow of a problem rather than the real
problem, which is the rising inequality of achievement and opportunity all
over the world. You want to increase the diversity of the meritocracy? Allow
more people to demonstrate their merit.

~~~
varjag
Well, in a snipped he quoted, there was mention of different ways of governing
America, and much more specifically, different views on the origins of man.
Those are the likely examples of "intellectual diversity".

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Nwallins
Erm, so the trouble with meritocracy is that higher education is bad? And we
don't want to subject underprivileged demographics to the _intellectually
conformist ... education conveyor belt_?

That we want to keep underprivileged demographics at home so they can critique
the elites from afar?

Clarity is severely lacking. It's hard not to file this one under _Anti-
intellectual tripe_.

------
known
Unlike democracy, meritocracy cannot accommodate diverse cultural and
socioeconomic society.

~~~
openfly
Some would argue even democracy could not accommodate such things.

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OpieCunningham
The article presumes we live in a meritocracy. That appears to be more myth
than objective reality. Akin to the myth of "the American Dream".

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bmr
I see no evidence that the upper crust actually has become homogenous. Whether
defined by education or wealth, the "elite" probably contains more unlikely
members today than ever before.

