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Conservatism, Meritocracy, and the New Elite
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…
I would argue that this self-evident truth is actually only half true. Certainly, all men are entitled to equal human dignity and equal standing before the law, but it is also self-evidently untrue that all men are created equal in ability.
Two of the major features of modern American conservatism are an affinity for meritocracy and an antipathy toward the elite. Throughout most of human history these have been complementary attitudes, as elite status has been due more to hereditary privilege than to personal achievement or ability. American conservatism has a long history of positioning itself as the champion of the self-made man and of wealth based on industriousness and productivity. This ideal is often contrasted against the indolent manor-born elite whose social and economic status and right to rule are due not to ability or industry, but to the accident of birth. But what if this dichotomy ceased to hold true? How should conservatives feel about an entrenched elite which achieves its status based on merit?
Much is been made about Charles Murray’s book, Coming Apart. Attention has tended to center on Murray’s identification of a new entrenched elite, increasingly hereditary, insular, and disconnected with the mainstream of American society. The fact of this increase in social stratification is important and certainly deserves the attention it has received. At the same time, an equally important issue raised by Murray’s work has been comparatively neglected: the fact that the rise of the new elite is the result of unprecedented levels of meritocracy in American society.
Very briefly, Murray’s explanation of the rise of the new elite is as follows:
In modern developed economies the economic value of human capital has risen to levels unprecedented in human civilization. Intelligence and education are the two greatest contributing factors to the development of human capital. Ever-increasing numbers of Americans are attending institutions of higher education and the American university system is highly effective in sorting for intelligence. Unlike a century ago, when social standing and/or affluence were the major predictive factors of admission to an elite university, admission to elite American educational institutions for the past two generations has been overwhelmingly a factor of intelligence and ability.
Intelligence is largely a factor of heredity. The child of two parents of above average intelligence is almost certain to be of above average intelligence himself, while the child of two imbeciles is overwhelmingly likely to continue the family tradition of imbecility. Throughout most of human history it was quite common for people of high intelligence to procreate with people of low intelligence, as people tend to pick their mate from among those with whom they interact and society was generally not segregated according to intelligence. The combined effect of mass participation in higher education and our system of higher education’s effectiveness at sorting for intelligence has profoundly altered the patterns of human interaction. Today, much more so than any time in the past, highly intelligent people of both sexes are attending elite universities and dominating the professions (finance, medicine, law, and academia) which both constitute the new elite and place a high value on intellectual ability. These people tend to find their mates among their highly intelligent new elite peers. Their offspring are overwhelmingly of high intelligence and, consequently, likely to join the ranks of the new elite themselves.
Thus, over the past several decades the American elite has become increasingly an elite not just in terms of social and economic standing but of intelligence and ability. This is not to say that there are no longer affluent dunces and impoverished geniuses (there certainly are), but it is an indisputable fact that economic status is unprecedentedly correlated with intellectual ability in postwar America. Nor is it to say that elite status is significantly less a factor of heredity than it has been in previous eras, but it is increasingly as much (if not more) a factor of inherited intellect as of inherited wealth.
So what is a conservative who has both an affinity for meritocracy and an antipathy toward elitism to make the new elite? It is common to hear conservatives extol the virtues of merit and ability and at the same time decry the fact that our society is governed by an Ivy League educated, insular elite. Rarely is it acknowledged that that elite obtained its status in large part due to its own merit.
It’s true that intelligence is not necessarily indicative of wisdom (Barack Obama is a good illustration of someone possessing the former trait, but not the latter), but increasingly it seems that a significant segment of the conservative base considers a degree from an elite university to be more a mark of Cain than a feather in one’s cap. I’m a huge fan of Scott Walker and I hope he runs for president, but that the fact that he’s a college dropout is considered by many conservatives to be one of his positive attributes seems to me to be a bit misguided.
I’d like to be clear that I’m not writing in defense of elitist snobbery. I’m not. I think the most pernicious aspect of the rise of the new meritocratic elite is that it has adopted the insularity and disdain for the common man which characterized aristocracies of the past. That said, I think the current strain of anti-elitism popular among the conservative base has gone a bit too far. Skepticism toward elite claims to a monopoly of knowledge or of entitlement to rule is a vital to the health of a republic, but that does not mean that we should make a virtue of mediocrity.
I recently had a conversation with a conservative activist who was highly critical of Ted Cruz (yes, Ted Cruz) on the grounds that he is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School and was thus a member of the oppressive elite. In support of his claim that an Ivy League education should be a disqualification for a conservative leader he cited the famous line about preferring to be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. He declined to attribute the quote to its origin: William F. Buckley, Jr. (St. John’s, Beaumont; the Millbrook School; Yale, Class of 1950, and a member of Skull and Bones).
Published in General
I haven’t yet read “coming apart,” which is understandable since it has only been on the market for about a decade… From what I hear, I am inclined to agree in part. I actually wrote a post on this, but didn’t publish because if you miss my point, it sounds like a whole lot of bitching. And I’m finding that I cannot assume that readers will look charitably for an underlying argument rather than pick apart specific examples.
I think most people unwittingly use “merit” to conflate two different ideas. “Merit” can be used to denote any admirable quality, yet at the same time “merit” is typically opposed to “luck” – that is, “merit” is what you “deserve” after luck is factored out of the equation.
That explains why people say, “He got ahead by luck, not merit,” or “I got ahead by merit, not luck.”
To oppose “merit” and “luck” in this way is truly ridiculous, when you start to think about it. Many of our admirable qualities are windfalls we reap by accident of birth or circumstance. Yet opposing “merit” and “luck” in this way also seems to be something humans are innately wired to do.
Given the way most people contrast “merit” with “luck”, I conclude that meritocracy – or rule by merit – involves factoring “luck” out of the equation. This is impossible – and also stupid, since another name for luck (or at least good luck) is opportunity.
Of course, whether Rawls takes it to some ugly place is a problem for Rawls … I’m only responsible for where I take it. And it’s into benign territory, I think.
“Intrinsic” intelligence and extrinsic wealth are different, but why is “location” relevant to the question at hand? They’re the same when it comes to whether or not the quality is earned, and therefore a mark of character.
(Look, timeout here – rich people get advantages, that’s why we work to become rich. I have no problem with that. My beef is with the claims of the higher education industry, i.e., that a student can sell the prestige of the university as if it proves something about him individually. And then they ratchet up the price as a way of supposedly ratcheting up their “prestige.” This is how bureaucrats think, and education bureaucrats are the worst.)
(Said by an aggrieved tuition-bill payer …)
Agreed, here. But I am highly sympathetic to KC’s argument. He is 100% right when he says that college sorts for intelligence among a group that is already pre-sorted, in a way. I once had a conversation w/ a Professor for whom I did research in Law School. I was complaining about my resume having Montana Tech and Regent Law and all of the rejections in spite of the actual work that I am capable of doing. I said that even though my resume didn’t have all the right things, I knew for a fact that I was more qualified than many of the students w/ perfect resumes (as I had worked with them). He said “here’s the problem. If I’m an employer, I can take a gamble on you – you interview really well, you’re very smart, you learn quickly… or I can interview only people with perfect resumes and still find someone who interviews really well, is smart, and learns quickly.”
(cont…)
So, as KC says. The university system does effectively keep unqualified people out. But the one thing it absolutely does not do is find qualified people and bring them in. So while you can count on the Universities selectivity, you’ve already had another selection process, a more invisible one that happens before anyone even applies for university. And that misses a whole lot of very well qualified people.
So would I. I admire people for being good at their jobs. But that doesn’t mean I have to believe in meritocracy: see comment 32.
As you might guess, this topic is pretty ripe for me. I have a huge education bill to pay, and I’ll be damned if I shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for four kids so that bureaucrat elitists can strut around proclaiming how prestigious they are. Right now, if there was a firing squad traveling through my neighborhood, I’d flag them down and make a few contracts …
If conservatism requires the rebellion of the market in response to an unfair innovation, the cost of tuition is an unfair innovation, and I’m joining the rebels.
…along with institutions’ own formulations of racial and ethnic diversity.
Employers are aware of educational institutions biases and to the extent that they disagree with them adjust their conclusions accordingly.
Hence my current advice on whether to go to law school: don’t unless a) you get into a law school prestigious enough to open all the doors (e.g. Harvard or Yale), b) you have a family member/ close friend who can guarantee you a job after graduation, or c) you will have the ability to work for free for 6 months to open doors (e.g. no loans and can live with parents).
It’s all about getting in the door, and outside of the super-prestigious schools, just having a degree doesn’t open doors.
Ok I don’t know what financial planet your speaking from,but 65k is not that much. Many people do self select themselves out of elite institution just because there parents make too much but not nearly enough
haha – yeah… and there is clearly more to it than that. Good luck as a poor kid getting into Yale. Parents with money don’t just pay for school. Not having to work a summer job means more of those extra-curriculars that look good on applications, just for starters. They pay for private tutors, prep-schools, test-prep classes… yes, entry tests do a decent job of measuring your capacity, but if you spend a year being taught specific strategies for getting a better score, you will do better. On the margins, all of that makes a huge difference.
A key to the discussion is social mobility. Traditionally, education was the boulevard of social mobility, on the grounds that you could earn your way to a higher job and therefore higher income. My dad took advantage of the GI Bill after leaving the army, and he proclaimed its virtues, so I’m naturally sympathetic. I also went to Catholic parochial elementary school, diocesan high school, and St. Joe’s … so I naturally picked up a sympathy for the argument that education was the means by which Catholics joined the American mainstream. Beyond all that, I was a Jesuit, instilled with a love for the Ratio Studiorum and a love for education as an important ministry.
But I look at the education system as it is right now … and I can’t buy the argument that it remains the engine of social mobility.
From my perspective, education is killing itself, and is solidifying social stratification instead of breaking it down. It’s reinforcing what it was designed to overcome.
I don’t care what the professors tell us … this Education Emperor really doesn’t have any clothes on. It’s not what it says it is.
I say that sadly.
I’ve thought this issue over many times and fear that if Murray is right we have a new egalitarian can of worms. Raw intelligence (or the lack thereof) are genetic traits. Birth into an affluent and intelligent family is, arguably, an accident of evolution and therefore blind. If all of this is true, then it could be argued that a person has little control over his successes and failures, and, in this sense, you didn’t build that. It could also be argued that acceptance into a high powered school is also driven by blind natural forces arising from the fortunes of birth. This might be an even more persuasive basis for redistribution since even apparent choices are the result of blunt cause and effect. This would then be the cruelest cut of all.
I’m not endorsing this view, just considering the arguments. I haven’t read Murray’s book so I don’t know whether he addresses this question, but we can count on this to come up. Maybe it already has, but I’m too lazy to employ my monumental intellect to the research.
From this Yale Alumni Magazine article:
From a Reuters article on census findings re: number of Americans living in urban areas:
The median household income in the United States is $51,324. More than half of Americans would pay no tuition at Yale. If someone can’t afford to go to Yale for free, they can’t really afford to go to college (at least away from home and full time).
I find it disingenuous to say 65K is enough for a parent to send their child to Yale. Coming from a family with a semi-upper middle class salary, many schools were out of reach because the costs were completely prohibited. If I was an only child maybe, but my parents had the selfish notion to have other children.
I don’t know that I buy this. In my current job, I represent children (12-18 years old). I interact a lot with them and with their parents. I have one case that has really been weighing heavy on me (especially today)… the girl is extremely bright. Was #1 in her 8th grade class this past year. She’ll sit and talk with me and can engage at a very high level. She has reported back to me and absolutely amazed me with her ability to take something I said and apply it in her life and then articulate it back to me.
Her family is, for lack of a better term, as trashy as any I’ve ever seen. A few of her siblings are mentally retarded. Her mom is very slow, as is her grandmother, aunt, dad… it is quite amazing. Genetics should have dictated this girl at the very bottom of the barrel, and she’s not. Our current system does nothing for people in her position – and regardless of your politics, that is heartbreaking.
Just because one won’t pay for tuition doesn’t mean that a college is affordable. I doubt Yale gives free room and board, or free books, or waives the fees than can add up to thousands.
I don’t think anybody claimed that. Kids from families making more than 65k still are eligible for huge amounts of financial aid. Only a minority of students at Yale (or pretty much any selective university, for that matter) pay the full sticker price tuition.
My claim is that for more than half of America, the cost of tuition has absolutely no bearing on whether they can attend Yale. I’m not saying that college does not impose financial hardship, but in the case of Yale over half of America would pay no tuition at all. Now, they may still not be able to afford living away from home and paying for things like food and books, but those costs are pretty fixed and are not a function of Yale’s elite status.
They sure can, but those costs are essentially fixed across all universities (rent does vary by locale). If you’re going to make that argument you need to acknowledge that it applies to all higher education, not just elite institutions.
There are always outliers, but intelligence is strongly hereditary.
Ryan:
I’m constrained by the word limit so phrased the premise this way to summarize the possible argument. It’s the old nature v nurture argument about which I take no specific position. I’m just suggesting that if the forces that drive us are blind, then someone is going to argue that merit is an illusion, and therefore it is unfair/unjust that brighter and better educated people deserve their success. I’m not buying that, just setting out what I think is an inevitable argument given mankind’s penchant for envy.
On the other hand, if we are subject to blind evolutionary forces then the argument does have some moral force. That, however, opens us up to a new debate about the source of moral knowledge–God v adaptive evolution. As I recall from reading their books, Hitchens and Dawkins make this sort of claim. This, of course, calls the entire moral enterprise into question, and if the deterministic view is correct, then morality is an illusion and the strong will prevail, in which case too bad for the less intelligent who, the elite might argue, are fit only to dig ditches or mindlessly operate machinery.
Agreed. But therein lies the problem… or at least part of the problem. Our position must necessarily be that outliers are unimportant, which is a difficult case to make. But additionally, we must also agree that on the margins – again, when intelligence is very close – the primary difference will be money. That is also a very difficult system to defend.
It might even be claimed that the highly intelligent are destined to rule under evolutionary forces, and it is therefore good for society as a sort of social organism to weed out the dumber (in which case I’m doomed).
Food, transportation, parking, and utilities prices vary by local as well, and all the elite schools are in expensive COLA places. One can afford to go to full-time on a non-commuter campus in flyover country and still be unable to pay to live in the northeast, even without paying for tuition.
… as a Christian, and an old-earth Creationist (not to rehash all of that crap, but I do value the distinction between adaption and macro-evolution), I do think there is something to the notion that Darwinism leads to great evil when it comes to valuing humans. If evolution is correct, and God does not exist, I see no legitimate reason not to breed out mental retardation, physical handicap, propensity toward criminality, etc… If this is the case, a command economy is not only reasonable, it is necessary.
yes. And as I just stated, Darwinism logically necessitates eugenics.
Hmm… how did I miss this little factoid when I applied to schools? Not knowing it, I assumed Yale would be too expensive. I should have at least tried. (I was accepted at the only Ivy I applied to – a school that didn’t have free tuition for the under-65K crowd.)
Having now worked with poor kids on their college applications, I can say they are far, far more ignorant about these things than I was, and it turns out I was pretty stupid.
Should a 17-year old know enough about the world to make sense of student loans, tuition, and so forth? Yes, probably. Do they? Mostly not, in my experience. Many will simply do what’s expected of them because the adults they look up to tell them it’s what they should do. I did at that age, too, though I’m not proud of it now.
I, too, am a Christian so share your concerns. But having said that, the logic of purely evolutionary biology (well, one way of interpreting it), suggests that, even without eugenics, the less abled will die out, or be maintained only as worker bees, in the coming era. Again, I’m not of that view, but it seems to fit one particular view of evolution.
The whole business of uploading ourselves into cyborgs or computers also represents a mechanistic view of human nature. Assuming the predicted singularity brings that about, chances are only the rich will be able to afford that, at least for a long while. Since I reject dualism, and believe that shedding our human bodies (and mortality for that matter) would be the ruin of us all, I doubt this will be possible or desirable. But I could easily be wrong.