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posted by
n1
on Saturday June 18 2016, @06:20AM
from the in-my-day-we-called-it-social-darwinism dept.
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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When the Term Meritocracy was Coined in 1958, it was in a Dystopian Satire
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I'm wearing PAMPERS!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Saturday June 18 2016, @01:25PM
Being intelligent is not equivalent to meriting everything, and no one has ever seriously proposed that a meritocracy is a society that just gives intelligent people all the wealth and power. A Meritocracy is a society that rewards the better essay with the better grade, that makes the most talented football players professional football players. This is best understood next to the system it replaces, the class based system. A system where you get to be (or are forced to be) a professional hockey player because you are the son of Wayne Gretzky, or get the best mark in class because you are the son of the mayor/chief/clan leader.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2016, @03:17AM
Although Gretzky's daughter did make the cover of Golf Digest [golfdigest.com], even though I doubt she could break 90 on a tournament course...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2016, @12:37PM
Clearly, you failed to RTFA, or at least to understand the quoted part that talks about what the inventor of the term meant. You make the mistake of imagining the word "meritocracy" means what it sounds like. As the article points out, at least when coined, it meant rule flourish or languish by birthright.