Meritocracy: the equality that wasn't
After reading about the recent college admissions scandal, I stumbled upon something really interesting on The Atlantic. In detailing how the bribery of athletic coaches incriminated their rich customers, the author also discussed how "meritocracy" itself is not only a flawed idea, but inherently utopic and unreal.
In 1958, British sociologist Michael Young wrote a book called "The Rise of the Meritocracy". The fictional narrator poses this as a doctoral dissertation written in the year 2034, looking back at the creation of a new elite class who have earned their way up by basis of "merit". Through standardized testing, equal education and the like, society in Young's novel begins to respect people not by their family's social background but by their intellectual accomplishments.
Young's tone begins scholarly and supportive, and in the first part of the book he mostly mocks the old social order, where birthright was most determinate. However, as the decades go on, his narrator begins to see flaws in the attitude that the meritocracy creates. Though poorer children receive far less resources, they are shamed because everyone believes that they've been given an equal chance at success. Then the rich pat themselves on the back for what they have, since they now find their privilege rightly earned. By book's end, it's clear that Young's purpose is satirical: he is mocking educational policies that claim to eradicate economic injustice.
Sometime between 1958 and now, the word "meritocracy" has lost its sarcasm. In fact, it was used by an American politician almost immediately after its coinage, though at the time there was still legal racial segregation. It's become a buzzword that is supposed to symbolize democracy, equality, and the American Dream. Simultaneously, it's used by people to justify continued racial disparities and the cycle of poverty. Therefore, it's rather telling that, in the eyes of its creator, true "meritocracy" doesn't even exist.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/25/world/michael-young-86-scholar-coined-mocked-meritocracy.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/03/college-admissions-scandal-what-meritocracy-really/584875/
I find this article extremely interesting. I really like how you bring up Michael Young and talk about his work. It is so interesting that the word "meritocracy" was used so soon after it was invented. I would expect it to not be used quite so soon, especially considering there would need to be time to get used to the new word, and how it was to be used. I don't really understand how this word symbolizes democracy, equality, and the American Dream because the word "meritocracy" has the word 'merit' directly in it. I think that this implies from the start that merit is the most important thing about being American, and that the amount of money someone makes is the deciding factor for what they get to do.
ReplyDeleteThis post is so interesting- I had not known the origin of the word "meritocracy." We certainly do not have a meritocracy, and hopefully that is becoming clear to more people with the current college admissions scandal. Standardized testing was created to make money for the companies behind it (College Board and ACT) and has always favored people with the resources to afford test-prep (in addition to the ability to take the test once or twice or more) and the access to better education. There is no meritocracy; the factors that many have believed create that "meritocracy" have primarily connected students to college opportunities who would have been the ones to have already had those opportunities.
ReplyDeleteFurther, in researching the origins of standardized testing, I discovered the alarming history behind the SAT. Dr. Joseph Soares, author and Wake Forest sociology professor, details the racist, anti-Semitic origin of the SAT in the linked report (I would definitiely recommend reading the "Checkered History of Admissions Tests" section). The SAT was originally intended to enforce white supremacy and exclude certain groups who were believed to be ethnically inferior- not to include more people or expand opportunity or diversity (as the College Board tries to argue now). The SAT was literally created to enforce white superiority, exclude groups of people viewed as inferior, and attempt to provide evidence for a "racial science" that we now know is clearly false.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1062726.pdf
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/timeline.html