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08 July 2009 9:30 AM
The Problems with Meritocracy
Ross is critical of the idea of meritocracy as the prime organizing principle of society. So am I. I'm interested, though, in how Sarah Palin represented a meaningful response to that idea. Meritocracy, in practice, means the selection of the "best and the brightest" for positions of power and authority, primarily by means of testing and scholastic hoop-jumping. The elite chosen in this manner are Nicholas Lemann's "Mandarins." And there are alternative roads to power and authority in this country. For example, you can work your way up slowly through an organization - Lemann's "Lifers." And there's always nepotism - an important social force in any society, and unfortunately something you can't talk about objectively in America because we're supposed to be against privilege of birth (all the while we strive mightily to ensure just that privilege for our children). And then there are Lemann's "Talents" - people who distinguished themselves by achievement in an entrepreneurial fashion - the Arnold Schwarzeneggers and Michael Bloombergs.
Sarah Palin would, presumably, be one of this last group. But what, exactly, is her achievement, beyond her one election to the Alaska governorship? The big problems I have with meritocracy include: that it tells the chosen they are better than other people (in some objective sense), which is an anti-democratic ethos; that it very consciously separates our elite from the people, which isn't healthy for democracy either; that it separates the elite from "real life" in a way that ill-prepares them for the reality that will inevitably smack them in the head one way or other; and that it selects for particular personality types that, while useful in an elite, need to be balanced with other personality types. It is not one of the problems of meritocracy that it tries to select people an elite as such, or tries to select one that will be good at its job. You have to have an elite; you can't have a functioning society without one. That being the case, what exactly is the great counter-meritocratic message that Palin purportedly embodies, and that Ross wants to salvage (presumably for some future candidate) from the wreckage of her brief career on the political stage?
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