Since you don’t seem to understand how your argument is rooted in eugenics, you are both advocating for the present hierarchy in society (those with means are more deserving) and arguing that the means themselves qualify as merit (your upbringing in a wealthy family means you are more suited to have better positions by default). That means your argument is advocating for those of better breeding deserve to have advantages other don’t.
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True that. But it sure as hell has the concept of Lèse-majesté. Just try badmouthing Capitalism during a job interview, see how far you get.
"[W]e live in a society where if you don’t have a job, you are left to die. And that is, at its core, our problem.”
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I interpret meritocracy in the same way as communism. It is great in theory, and if it could be instituted as it is actually imagined, it could work. But as soon as you substitute real people for the “perfect spheres” of the theory, it falls to pieces. “Meritocracy” implies rule by those of merit, but we don’t know what that means, so substitute “money” for “merit.”
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If that’s not what @green_machine meant, as @chgoliz, they should clarify that instead of attacking the rest of us.
And again, the outcomes matter here, too. Will the rule of the ones who have merit lead us to a better distribution of goods and services? Because at the heart of it, that’s what these debates are all about. It’s clear that the 20th century Stalinist Soviet Union did a shitty job distributing goods, while other communist countries did a slightly better job (with slightly more freedom) when not under the Soviet thumb (Yugoslavia, Cuba). But capitalism has not always worked as it was theoretically proposed (under modernization theory) either. In the modern age, there have always been people who get left out of the distribution of goods needed to live a decent life.
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Yeah. The cognitive hurdle with recognizing what advantages help a person perform better in a position of power in this world (like manager of a plant) is that we may find that in the twisted world we live in the people who make the most effective leaders under the current system are in many cases the sorts of people who currently hold them. They don’t deserve to be effective leaders; they had a lot of unfair help along the way to get their qualifications. Even when they’re the best option available, they’re commonly flawed by the route they took to success. And the very existence of the kinds of leadership positions they hold is itself an artifact of the hierarchical, capitalist world system. It’s hard to imagine a comprehensive way out without just blowing the whole thing up. Only rats win rat races. Even when we level the playing field so that everyone has a fair shot at power, power corrupts. When you go deep enough, the entire discussion feels like a side-show. And this is why pushing the idea of meritocracy amounts to advocating for status quo and paralysis.
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I skimmed through a lot of this thread, so maybe I missed it if this point was made by anyone in particular.
Wealth does not equate to better health or eligibility or really anything except one thing and one thing alone: wealth allows one to game the system to their advantage or even not play the game at all.
Diseases (genetic, mental, environmental) do not give two hoots about how much money is in your bank account or what college you went to.
Intelligence does not only find itself vested in the minds of the wealthy or elite.
As far as I can tell there is never a good situation for “meritocracy” to be the foundation of selection because by the definition of being human we all have bias and can never truly be objective…and real pure objectivity is the foundation of any meritocracy.
I seem to recall a film that pretty much put this entire thing to bed…Gattacca.
Also…I feel like this song/sermon belongs here when it comes to discussing “meritocracy”.
Words to the sermon: http://www.mdcbowen.org/p1/cobb/premature_autopsies.htm
Audio of the sermon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1wxH5r2_gY
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This is actually helpful, thank you. I still wish you’d have responded to @chgoliz when she asked for your clarification. But thank you for clarifying here. It’s helpful for me to be able to respond to you.
The question becomes is the current system, which is often touted as a meritocracy by many (generally speaking the people who benefit from it the most), really the most effective way to distribute goods and services to all of us? I think you’re arguing that it’s not and I’d agree.
Zizek notes that this explains our modern obsession with apocalyptic culture - that we can’t imagine transformation, so we imagine destruction of the current system instead (and probably get off on imaging that we’ll be one of the few who manage to survive and thrive, which is really just another form of capitalism at it’s most naked - a real system of survival of the fittest).
I don’t think that’s ever really happened, though.
Okay. I agree there too. From the outset, it was not clear to me (and others) that this was your point at all, so thanks for clarifying your meaning.
I think a major problem is that we’re still hung up on the question of distribution of what we need in society, or rather, we ignore it as a society, in favor of who deserves to get the goods.
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This is not the opinion I entered the thread with, but it’s the opinion I’m leaving with.
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I’m confused -I thought that was your point all along, and I missed it? Is that not the case?
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This is an experience I have had on quite a few threads here. One of the reasons I keep coming back!
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“Privileged people have better medical care, therefore they are more qualified to fill executive positions which provide better medical care.”
That’s some pretty circular logic, no?
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I think his question isn’t “what do we fight against” it’s “What do we fight for?” What’s should we put in place?
I’ve noticed 3 way meritocracy is being used in this thread: Ruling class, career advancement, and human value.
On solution or 3 solutions, it would be nice to hear more about how to build something better than just hearing we need to tear things down.
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I think that @the_borderer suggested some ideas. I’d suggest that we need to reframe the set of questions away from who deserves what to how do we better distribute what we need to live.
And some of us did not find that clear from their comments, and we repeatedly ask for comments when they told us that we weren’t interpreting them correctly. They finally did, which I’m glad to see.
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Luck is vastly overrated.
The key words are ‘less hierarchy’. Communism nevery meets this standard anywhere near as often in practice as it does in theory.
Mindysan might be suggesting a social system where ‘leaders’, as a category, simply don’t arise, and the citizens all manage their own interactions. Hierarchies arise on a purely temporary basis in response to specific circumstances; a teacher-student hierarchy appears during class but only then and only until the student graduates, and so on.
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I know where I find myself in this (not very new) discussion.
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Equality of opportunity. I am a big supporter of the idea that everyone should get a fair chance at life, and we need to put various weights on the scales to make sure that happens as much as possible. Properly funding education, early childhood care, addiction services (for parents, duh), health care, broad access to post secondary etc. etc.
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Equality of outcome I am less concerned about - I think it isn’t necessary (the definition of a good life is too varied). However, we can easily set a basic minimum standard for quality of life, and it is much higher than anyone currently sees it to be.
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Trump was born on third base, ran the wrong way off another batter’s single, punched the shortstop in the face out of spite along the way, then claimed the double he hit was the best baseball play anybody ever made, and that if you have a “rulebook” and “statistics” that say otherwise, then you’re part of a vast consipiracy to minimize his accomplishments.
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One of the points the article makes, though, is that high-status people who have internalized “meritocratic” values immediately use them to destroy the meritocracy they’re supposedly shepherding.
It could be that the most meritocratic possible human society would not call itself that, would not portray itself that way.
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Its a shame that a decent word like “merit” must be tainted by association with this idea which is clearly not about merit, but about the delusion of merit, or false-merit.
Its like the word green was appropriated to describe the color red as “greenish”.
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