Thursday, 3 August 2017

The Satirical Origins of the Meritocracy

quote [ In 1958, Michael Young published a book called The Rise of the Meritocracy as a satirical criticism of the concept of meritocracy. ]

People missing satire and adopting a term that was meant to ridicule them? Color me surprised.
[SFW] [literature] [+5 Sad]
[by raphael_the_turtle@4:53pmGMT]

Comments

HoZay said @ 6:07pm GMT on 3rd Aug
I guess I've only heard the term applied from the outside. Are there really people who refer to themselves as members of a meritocracy?
steele said @ 6:27pm GMT on 3rd Aug [Score:1 Insightful]
Shit, we've had people here on SE propose that a meritocracy would be ideal.
HoZay said @ 6:34pm GMT on 3rd Aug
Guess I missed it. But I acknowledge that my own lack of merit got me where I am today.
arrowhen said @ 6:58pm GMT on 3rd Aug [Score:1 Funsightful]
I've heard it quite a bit from the sort of people who refer to themselves as "knowledge workers".
raphael_the_turtle said @ 7:19pm GMT on 3rd Aug
Now I'm picturing someone on the side of a road with a sign: Will edit Wikipedia for money.
HoZay said @ 10:46pm GMT on 3rd Aug
Drives his camper from one website to the next.
steele said @ 10:58pm GMT on 3rd Aug
Living the dream.
lilmookieesquire said @ 8:43pm GMT on 5th Aug
I think it's the view of a lot of Silicon Valley "libertarians".
arrowhen said @ 9:11pm GMT on 5th Aug [Score:1 Underrated]
Yeah, especially the ones whose greatest merit was choosing advantageous circumstances to be born into.
lilmookieesquire said @ 7:52pm GMT on 3rd Aug
"Perhaps the tide seems to be turning slightly of late, but the meritocracy is thrown around pretty regularly in Silicon Valley as a justification for all sorts of things. Maybe the problem is the Valley doesn’t understand satire…after all, they invented a food product called Soylent."

Ouch.
Hugh E. said @ 10:05pm GMT on 3rd Aug
I admit the phrase threw me off the first I heard it (sans context).
Same thing happened with 'Don't Ask / Don't Tell'. Makes sense on the surface: Why ask or tell anything that has nothing to do with militarying. Then about a minute later, it occurred to me that's not how things work.
Similarly, a government of people who 'merit' their positions sounds great, makes sense on the surface. Then who defines merit, who gets the opportunity to merit, how is merit ... blah blah blah.

Words are greater than the sum of their parts
mechavolt said @ 10:32pm GMT on 3rd Aug [Score:1 Underrated]
Pretty much this. On top of which, the only people I've heard espouse a meritocracy seem to believe that they'd be included in the elite.

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