Is “Meritocracy” Bunk?
Stimulated by two colleagues arguing over whether a fight to uphold academic standards is worth the candle, I had a thought. One was worried about upholding standards and the other was saying all this talk about “merit” is just cover for the powerful to remain entrenched. This issue has particular importance now because of all the agitation on campuses to open elite academic institutions to greater diversity. Here, for your amusement, and in the form of a letter I wrote these friends whose disputation I’d overheard, is my take:
Dear Barbara/Victoria — Can’t both be true? Can’t at one and the same time there be some sensible way to discriminate based on quality, and there also be power moves being made when incumbents seek to protect their turf and justify their existences by falsely claiming themselves to be “more qualified?”
Doesn’t Pierre Bourdieu address this kind of conundrum in his “Distinction” — in terms of the social relativity of judgments about “taste” — which judgments often serve as markers of class distinction. And, yet, this observation could hardly mean there are no distinctions to be drawn between crassness and refinement (in art, films, novels, etc…)?
Surely, nobody advocates appointing a faculty by flipping a coin. Doing so surrenders to anarchy. Surely, that course of action would be ruinous to the very thing that we all hold dear — rigorous and disciplined inquiry about the world we inhabit, and about ourselves. We know, don’t we, that all opinions about matters that concern us as scholars are not “equal?” Refinement, expertise, depth of reasoning and of knowledge, acquaintance with our respective canons — these are real things, not figments of our imaginations. And yet, we’ve all seen — haven’t we — how the drawbridge gets raised when outsiders — Jews in decades past, e.g. — storm the gates. Incumbent elites will always find reasons why these newcomers are not fit to replace them, etc.
Here’s my concern in the present context, though. The newcomers of today — I speak of blacks in America, though not only of them — having been restrained and scarred by history, are often not really storming the gates at all. They’re being patronized. (I.e., everybody knows the standards are reasonable and not being met, but we decide to look the other way, in the interest of “fairness.”) And yet, relaxing standards in the face of their challenge doesn’t address the real effects of their historic exclusion. So, on this argument — my argument — this time is precisely NOT the right time to abandon critical judgment of quality and excellence. (Though, of course, there are many questions that can be raised, which I do not mean to preclude, about the extent to which any particular criterion — SAT test scores, or whatever — effectively serves the discriminating purpose for which it has been deployed.) My argument would be that, yes, many traditional ways of judging quality need to be questioned. But, particularly for the sake of the dignity of today’s newcomers, we must not patronize them by turning a blind eye to their deficiencies. Rather, we must devote ourselves to redressing the legacy of our racist past…
Reprinted from Glenn Loury’s Facebook postings.
Glenn Loury’s homepage and videoblog.
Glenn C. Loury, Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences, Brown University
Trending Now on Affluent Christian Investor
Sorry. No data so far.
The Affluent Mix
Biden Oblivious To Illegal Immigration Issues... August 2, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Rob Arnott On Bubbles, Inflation, And Once-In-A-Generation Investment Opportunit... August 2, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

The Federal Reserve’s Massive Theft Of Stability... August 2, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

What To Do About This Difficult Market? August 2, 2021 | David Bahnsen

Letter On The Politicization Of Corporations... July 26, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Peak Of The Fake Bull Market July 26, 2021 | Michael Pento

Woodrow Wilson’s Administrative State vs. Gold... July 26, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

Dividends, Energy, And Crypto July 26, 2021 | David Bahnsen

Whose Side Are You On? July 26, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Media, Left Ignore These Dangers July 19, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Mark Skousen On FreedomFest And How To Measure The Whole Economy... July 19, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Quantifying The Quantitative, Or Making Easy The Easing... July 19, 2021 | David Bahnsen

The Gold Standard Means A Rising Standard Of Living... July 19, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

Book Review: Brian Domitrovic Reveals The Monetary Genius Of Arthur Laffer... July 19, 2021 | John Tamny

Steve Forbes: Time To Worry About Inflation, Not Hyperinflation... July 12, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

UFOs Rescue Biden July 12, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Read This Classical Economist’s 200 Year Old Warning About Paper Money... July 12, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

How Central Banks Murdered The Markets July 12, 2021 | Michael Pento

Everything There Is To Know About The Stock Market... July 12, 2021 | David Bahnsen

AT&T CEO: We’re Ill Equipped For Politics, And We’re Spending A Lot Of ... July 6, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Internet Bias Distorts National Conversation... July 6, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

The Halfway Point Of 2021 July 6, 2021 | David Bahnsen

Join the conversation!
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.