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Resurrection of Meritocracy
Much ink has been spilled regarding the benefits and drawbacks of meritocracy. I’ll provide some perspective on the history of the failings that have been credited to meritocracy, but I’m mainly here to say that if we want people to want to work and to stay employed, we must restore a meritocracy that gives them more than a paycheck, encourages them to be part of the workforce, and sustains them there, in spite of the forces that will encourage them to submit to Marxism and socialism.
Rather than focus on the arguments against providing a meritocracy, I’d like to address those who have given power to destroying it. Behind all their justifications are the mantras of the left: diversity, inclusion, and equity.
In a society where DIE is paramount, you simply can’t allow for a meritocracy. It emerged as a movement to counteract elitism as pointed out on the Powerline blog:
The main reason why the United States easily outstripped Europe and Asia in economic growth and cultural influence in the 19th and 20th centuries is that we were a meritocracy. Talent and hard work prevailed over privilege of birth and adherence to established ideologies. Sadly, we have lost that advantage. As we have documented many times on this site, the Left’s war on standards has resulted in a dumbing down of our educational system and our culture. None of our competitors has been this stupid, and China, in particular–despite ostensibly being a Communist country!–is a ruthless meritocracy where it counts.
To critics, supporting the assignment of merit discounts the importance of diversity: People are only valuable if they complete an artificial mandate for diverse numbers. Inclusion is also excluded from meritocracy: If making everyone feel included is a key metric, then demonstrating merit is worthless. And equity — making sure that rewards are evenly distributed can’t survive in a meritocratic environment.
So, how did we get to this point? Its roots lie in our childhood experiences. It was nurtured in the university. And now our woke workplaces are engaged in this process, destroying their own opportunities for success. Instead of valuing people’s hard work, the opportunities for them to meet their full potential, to learn and grow, and lauding their ability to be a part of something bigger, we just ask them to “show up” — and do even less. An early submission to the left’s agenda was awarding participation trophies.
Participation Trophies
Remember the outcry over “participation trophies”? The people who wanted to provide participation trophies, including parents, were seriously misguided. They wanted to build the self-esteem of a child by giving him or her a trophy, rather than having children learn that self-esteem comes through the things we do, what we accomplish. These people wanted everyone to feel rewarded by giving them this piece of plastic or metal, instead of celebrating that their rewards would come from the experience of being part of a team. They wanted to protect them from the trauma of failure, instead of teaching them that failure or mistakes are part of life, and as painful as they might be, we can all learn and grow from them. That being a team member means you have a group that will count on you, who will know that you will show up and be reliable.
These are the kinds of life experiences that will help these children learn how to navigate life and rise above difficulties. They won’t get that from a trophy just for showing up.
School Testing and Grades
The next problematic area came from the schools, testing and grades in particular. Part of the problem with criticizing grades is making generalizations about what they measure and what they tell us about students. When classes are difficult, we struggle; we feel bad and even inadequate. But every class can also help us grow — an important part of moving into adulthood. Rather than debate specific testing or grading regimens, I’d simply like to point out what students lose when tests and grades don’t matter. Entering a college without tests provides no input — for the student or university — about the students’ abilities to survive or fail. Too often, ignoring GPAs is a setup for failure if the student hasn’t done well previously. So, we use their college application to decide if they are nice people; if they put in community hours, they are seen in a positive light. We might not even know if the person can write after reviewing a college essay, since we have no way of knowing who even wrote it.
For the benefit of the students, we need to review substantive information before we even admit them. Otherwise, they are likely to be ill-prepared to survive the college environment.
Due to living in an entitlement society, people attending university think that jobs will magically show up; that hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt will disappear; that if they find a job, they won’t need to start at the bottom like every other newbie. These are not adults who graduate from college; they are overgrown teenagers who have no clue about living a satisfying, responsible, and productive life.
Changing the Educational Priorities and Culture
For many reasons, we must change society’s perspective on the value of education after high school. Some young people may be better suited for the many jobs that will need to be filled that don’t require a college education. We must change the mindset that a graduate must go to a university. We must spread the word that an education that prepares an individual to thrive into adulthood is the most important step to take. In spite of the conversations about trade schools, which are beginning to thrive, we are still fighting the perception that a trade school is less prestigious than a university. How about making the development of adult skills prestigious? How about making earning a living prestigious? How about finding a job prestigious? How about making entrepreneurship prestigious? How about celebrating jobs that allow us to start out debt free in life? How about making self-reliance prestigious?
Employment
One of the most lamentable changes that will have a direct impact on our country’s future is the decision of corporations to join the woke culture. The leaders of these companies are self-immolating in the hope of earning prestige and power. Instead, they will continue to have difficulty finding employees who genuinely appreciate the bounties of work.
Surprisingly, people in our country still appreciate a meritocracy:
Despite the attacks from elites, most people still prefer a system based on merit. A Pew poll from 2019 found that 73% of Americans, including 62% of blacks, opposed the use of racial preferences in college admissions. Gallup surveys show that among the 15% of the world’s adults who want to emigrate from where they live, the most popular destination countries are the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Australia and the U.K.—generally the most meritocratic.
Resurrection of Meritocracy
Early on, even in childhood, we must remind our citizens what it means to live in a meritocracy, how rewarding, exciting, and beneficial it is to be a person who works hard, knows the value of hard work, and sees the rewards of participating in an organization that professes the same beliefs. How do we do that?
- No more participation trophies! We teach children that recognition and praise are earned and are very satisfying.
- Being part of a team is a learning experience and rewarding, whether you do well or not.
- We teach them how to deal with loss and also how to be a “good winner.”
- Receiving team hats and uniforms are rewards.
- We celebrate each person’s contributions, even if they are small ones.
- We counsel students long before they graduate high school about the pros and cons of the university, the benefits and opportunities at trade schools, and even the options of going to work straight out of school.
- We help them identify the kinds of activities and environments they enjoy.
- We encourage them not to be afraid to ask for help along the way.
- We tell them to change course if they are clear that the path is not working for them.
- We tell them not to give up!
We need to promote the values of a meritocracy as much as possible to replace the insidiousness of entitlement. We must begin early and point out at every opportunity what learning, hard work, and independence can mean to them. We must convince them that a salary helps an employee to feel rewarded but being fully engaged with their work will help them to feel whole. Businesses must encourage and reward good performance, both through recognition and financially.
The benefits of living within a meritocracy are immeasurable.
It’s time to make the change!
Published in Culture
But aren’t they still clamoring for movies to be made by inexperienced or even proven-bad female directors, etc? And clamoring for various “minorities” to fill roles they aren’t suited for, such as a black lesbian paraplegic James Bond?
Even 7 years ago, Entrepreneur magazine had articles with multiple suggestions n how to get the most out of the Millennials you have hired, so they will put some effort into working for you in return.
Be prepared to offer constant encouragement. Ensure the work environment is friendly and enjoyable. Any employer willing to put 100% of their energy into keeping the employees happy, will somehow be rewarded. Not through productivity, obviously, but through satisfaction that once the employees are treated like toddlers, they won’t experience any stress.
I saw such a thing in action, years ago. Circa 1976-1977. It was a restaurant called “Good Karma.” It specialized in vegetarian fare and the concept of the workers honoring the customers and each other. “Every meal is served with love.”
I confess I liked going there, as I often had a toddler in tow. I also had ample free time on days I went there. I didn’t mind the staff taking 15 minutes to serve the bowl of soup and croissant, as they did fuss over the kid.
But friends who worked for a living got tired of this scenario:
Customer places an order. Person working near the cash register takes the order and calls out, cheerfully “I have a new order.”
The head cook and assistant come out of the kitchen. Now all three employees hug and discuss the wonders of getting an order.
Twenty minutes later, the meal is served. There have not been many customers, but between the hugs and friendly chit chat between the workers, things do take a bit longer.
Meanwhile the working stiff, who only has 30 minutes for lunch, is wondering if they will be late getting back to work.
It was a prophetic look at how things would be 40 years down the road.
And so is every legislator.
I’m suggesting that this attitude will probably change. Business owners simply can’t be so arrogant or they will have to close down.
That’s nuts! There has to be a balance between treating employees like garbage and treating them like needy toddlers. If they don’t figure out the difference, we’re lost.
I am triggered by the racism here. Who is to say that creative insights derived from intersectional theater arts are less valuable than mathy and sciencey stuff when designing a machine or building a water treatment system? How many millions of marginalized people have been excluded from STEM careers on the basis of “merit”?
Schools are organized by the teachers unions and even private schools are shaped by that culture. If parents could select their own schools paying their educational dollars out of pocket instead of through taxes it would be fixed overnight as New Zealand did. So how do we get there? First parents have to at least understand the problem which they don’t. The private sector works and the more private the better.
Excellent point. Presumably, the producers can justify their actions to their investor by claiming that they will be able to attract members of additional demographics to their audience, even though this assumption has generally not worked out very well.
Members of aristocracies will generally be hostile toward meritocracy, because meritocracy opens up additional competitors for their positions.
We don’t have an aristocracy in this country, but we do have a group of people who would like to see themselves as such; this group is largely defined by educational credentials (especially ‘elite-school’ credentials) and political connections.
Why then you get iconic looking bridges that fail, beautiful buildings that crumble, aesthetically pleasing water treatment systems that make people sick, etc. But your “personal truth voyage” should never be compromised by math or physics. We will have to accept casualties in order to properly value and integrate your contribution.
@dougkimball and @oldbathos, you two are going to have to go before a firing squad! How dare you be so irreverent about our cultural elites!!
We learned an important lesson when the fact-checkers and filter bots were unable to detect satire on the Babylon Bee. This means that as long as we communicate via satire and sarcasm, they will be unable to notice our actual meanings and intent. This has the makings of a sci-fi novel/movie in which our new robot overlords cannot detect irony and that is how we ultimately beat them…
Cool!
A new version of the Turing Test….can the machine detect unapproved thoughts when expressed in humorous/indirect/metaphorical language?
A human who can detect sarcasm is barred from employment at Facebook or Twitter.
Even “minorities” generally prefer to see good movies rather than bad movies.
Thanks to a century of progressive ideas, communist China will produce smarter students than most of our schools.
But it’s the exceptional students – and people – who drive most real progress, and when China gets those they put them in prison or execute them.
People have been complaining about the schools forever. I remember when I was in the 7th grade a book came out titled “What Ivan Knows that Johnny doesn’t.”
Somehow they seem to be progressing despite this.
Mostly by stealing from us. We don’t have to permit it as much as we do.
Even way back in 1975, 1976, in Madison WI, for any individual to suggest that the worker’s overall needs to compensate for an unhappy childhood were not appropriate matters to be solved inside the workplace would consign said insensitive individual to lectures on the evils of capitalism.