quote:Despite pushing aside the old WASP establishment -- not a single member of it remains on the Supreme Court -- these modern meritocrats are clearly not admired, or at least not for their upward mobility, by many Americans. On the contrary -- and as Bell might have predicted -- they are resented as "elitist." Which is at some level strange: To study hard, to do well, to improve yourself -- isn't that the American dream? The backlash against graduates of "elite" universities seems particularly odd given that the most elite American universities have in the past two decades made the greatest effort to broaden their student bodies.
Perhaps this is because elite universities don't bestow anything but selection. They select the brightest and most conscientious students who as a consequence of those qualities tend to overwhelmingly succeed after they graduate. It's like the sort of resentment that would be directed at an only beautiful people club.
quote:I suspect the "anti-elite-educationism" that Bell predicted is growing now not despite the rise of meritocracy but because of it. The old Establishment was resented, but only because its wealth and power were perceived as undeserved. Those outside could at least feel they were cleverer and savvier, and they could blame their failures on "the system." Nowadays, successful Americans, however ridiculously lucky they have been, often smugly see themselves as "deserving." Meanwhile, the less successful are more likely to feel it's their own fault -- or to feel that others feel it's their fault -- even if they have simply been unlucky.
Unlucky in being born without the right psychometric qualities that assure success in modern meritocratic America. This makes people feel like losers:
quote:I can see how this is irritating, even painful. But I don't quite see what comes next. When Ginni Thomas tells a cheering crowd of Virginia Tea Partyers that "we are ruled by an elite that thinks it knows better than we know" who, or what, does she want to put in its place? Young imagined a revolution (led, interestingly, by the wives of the high-IQ elites) and a classless society to follow. Unfortunately, this idea has been tried before, and let's just agree that it wasn't an overwhelming success.
I find this to be an interesting theory about tea-partier resentment.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'm amused by the assertion that we live in a "meritocracy," when very clearly nothing of the sort is remotely true -- for any meaningful definition of the word "merit."
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Merit is conscientiousness + intelligence. That's the definition elite schools go by anyway as well as employers.
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For the sake of argument, it doesn't sound like anyone is claiming that we live in an authentic meritocracy, just that we are relatively more meritocratic than in the past. I'd disagree with that assertion as well, but the distinction is useful, I think.
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It is a fairly old observation that a meritocratic society is quite merciless: If selection is by blood or by connections, you can at least say that it's not your fault you don't rise to the top; but if it's by hard work and skill, then not rising to the top is an implicit criticism of your very self.
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That's a crock. The fact of the matter is that many people don't like to work hard. I know a large number of people who went to college at good universities who were not as smart as some of the people I know who didn't. The difference between them had less to do with intelligence and more to do with hard work.
I have an IQ of about 138-142, and I was lazy. I never really tries hard at most subjects for a number of reasons, and my grades reflected that. I knew most of the material, but I was unorganized, and quite frankly I had a sense of entitlement because I knew I was fairly smart.
It bit be in the butt later in life, in a bad way. Real life doesn't care how smart you are, there are a ton of people who are quite intelligent but who make under $40,000 a year simply because they never really applied themselves.
We do not live in a meritocracy. There are too many exceptions to the rule, and big name colleges are filled with the sons of alumni who otherwise would never had gotten in at all. Most of the time success is a blend of who you know, good timing, and hard work. What you know usually matters less than an ability to work well with others, and a basic ability to learn.
But we live in a society that allows people to better themselves if they really want to. Community colleges exist to help people learn material they should already know after high school, and to give people who can't afford other avenues a chance to work hard, get good grades, and transfer to a 4 year college. Some of the best schools in the country are state colleges, and the tuition there is much less than the elite colleges.
quote:It bit be in the butt later in life, in a bad way. Real life doesn't care how smart you are, there are a ton of people who are quite intelligent but who make under $40,000 a year simply because they never really applied themselves.
And, comparing myself versus all my cousins, intelligence is fairly low on the relevance list of reasons for the levels of opportunity I, individually, have. All of us, regardless of aptitude (and there are a few who do not have aptitude for either business or academics) get to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars freely on resume padding education and internship time, and have connections and be networked into business opportunity, as well as sit on the line to inherit much means of production and huge tracts of land and all of that. I know plenty of people who are as bright and talented as me and they have to work infinitely harder just to get a fraction of the privilege I have in terms of what matters to lifetime success and wealth acquisition.
Uh oh! Intergenerational patterns of wealth and status matter! I guess I better convince myself it's a meritocracy to feel like my life privilege is mostly a matter of how much better than other people I am!
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Speaking of which, Sam, if you want to throw any connections or tracts of land my way, just let me know. I promise to help you assuage any guilt you might feel re: your privilege. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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If I pulled other people up by their bootstraps, there would be no incentive to avoid un-elevated bootstrapness. My not showing you or anyone any charity is something I do for you and the rest of the little people. Now, in an interestingly rationalized turn of logic, I shall speak of the merits and wholesomeness of the private charity which my socioeconomic scheme apparently maximizes..
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: That's a crock. The fact of the matter is that many people don't like to work hard. I know a large number of people who went to college at good universities who were not as smart as some of the people I know who didn't. The difference between them had less to do with intelligence and more to do with hard work.
The ability to delay gratification, industriousness, and so on, are probably genetically rooted personality qualities and it therefore isn't surprising that people who qualify for Mensa but don't earn much income exist. They are smart but are limited by other personality factors.
quote: It bit be in the butt later in life, in a bad way. Real life doesn't care how smart you are, there are a ton of people who are quite intelligent but who make under $40,000 a year simply because they never really applied themselves.
We do not live in a meritocracy. There are too many exceptions to the rule, and big name colleges are filled with the sons of alumni who otherwise would never had gotten in at all. Most of the time success is a blend of who you know, good timing, and hard work. What you know usually matters less than an ability to work well with others, and a basic ability to learn.
We certainly don't live in a perfect meritocracy, but this society is fairly meritocratic. Turns out that big name universities allow legacies for a very rational reason:
In short, to provide connection opportunities for the students who are admitted on a purely meritocratic basis. And remember, even the legacy students are at least smart enough to graduate from those schools because they're probably the result of two smart people mating.
quote:But we live in a society that allows people to better themselves if they really want to. Community colleges exist to help people learn material they should already know after high school, and to give people who can't afford other avenues a chance to work hard, get good grades, and transfer to a 4 year college. Some of the best schools in the country are state colleges, and the tuition there is much less than the elite colleges.
I agree. This doesn't change the fact that we have a meritocratic system that funnels the best and brightest (who have demonstrated these qualities) into elite schools.
quote: Education is part of the answer, not the entire answer. And the best colleges do far more than select people who would have already succeeded, as evidences by their drop out rates. Here is an article about Harvard drop out rates as an example.
Huh? Searching online I find the figure of Harvard's graduation rate to be 97%.
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quote:Merit is conscientiousness + intelligence. That's the definition elite schools go by anyway as well as employers.
I would say employers define "merit" as ability to do the job well, which may or may not have much to do with intelligence depending on what field we are talking about. In Major League Baseball, for instance, a meritocracy would be giving roster spots to the best baseball players, not the smartest or most conscientious.
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quote:Originally posted by Sa'eed: Huh? Searching online I find the figure of Harvard's graduation rate to be 97%.
But their undergrad numbers are over 10,000, so 1400 dropouts over the course of 5 years is not inconsistent.
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My first thought on reading Applebaum's column was that she's read this book. In it, Christopher Lasch essentially argues that the popular perception of America as a meritocracy (which, BTW, is not inconsistent with class sclerosis, ability as it's currently measured being strongly impacted by both good genetics and good nurturing) leads successful people to believe that they owe nothing to anyone else. This isn't quite Applebaum's point, but it's related.
It also isn't Samp's view, demonstrated by the sarcastic strawman above. Lasch was not in favor of government-mandated redistributionism (at least, not once he left behind an intellectual flirtation with 60's-era campus socialism). Rather, he was arguing (at least to my reading) for a more engaged civil society in which the wealthy and the successful would recognize their personal responsibility to those less fortunate. More Bill Gates than Karl Marx. And much like Glenn's stance from the "firemen watch a house burn" thread. Some things we ought to do not because they are Wise, but because they are Good.
<edit>P.S.- It's Anne (with an 'e') Applebaum. And did you know she's married to the Polish Foreign minister (and recent Presidential candidate) Radosław Sikorski?</edit>
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