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posted by n1 on Saturday June 18 2016, @06:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the in-my-day-we-called-it-social-darwinism dept.

When Michael Young, a British sociologist, coined the term meritocracy in 1958, it was in a dystopian satire. At the time, the world he imagined, in which intelligence fully determined who thrived and who languished, was understood to be predatory, pathological, far-fetched.

Today, however, we’ve almost finished installing such a system, and we have embraced the idea of a meritocracy with few reservations, even treating it as virtuous. That can’t be right. Smart people should feel entitled to make the most of their gift. But they should not reshape society so as to instate giftedness as a universal yardstick of human worth.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @07:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @07:31AM (#362035)

    I thought Monopoly was an educational game to teach greed. I never played it. I assume that's why I simply don't care about money.

  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday June 18 2016, @11:57AM

    by Nuke (3162) on Saturday June 18 2016, @11:57AM (#362070)

    No, the GP was right. However the "lesson" goes over most people's heads and it is more likely to teach them greed as you say. As in gambling, before the event most people assume they will be a winner even if they actually lose in the board game simulation.