EricC - Thanks for your thought out, coherent summary/analysis. I think you cover the issues (as I see them) well, conflating credentials with competence or capability (while there is a correlation, sometimes it is negative, and in fact it is just a tiny subdomain within a higher dimensional space).
My own collapse/summary of the topic is that there is a complex tension between the instincts of the individual as organism and the individual as a member of a family/community/tribe/species/nation/culture/planet... I have been trying to let Glen's offering of Anarcho-Syndicalism settle in my heart/brain/soul a little more before I "respond-from-the-hip". While I don't expect this particular convolution of the above issues to be "an answer", it does sound like a useful "stalking horse" to think from (closest idiom to what I previously used "strawman" to achieve). - SteveS On 9/18/20 6:20 AM, Eric Charles wrote: > So.... delayed response to the original... based on the longer reviews > I've seen, this is partially a criticism of meritocracy itself, but > also a very strong criticism of the neo-liberal bastardization of > meritocracy. As it says in the opening line of the review in the > original post: The thing being criticized are "pernicious assumptions" > about merit. From what I can tell, his TED talk summarizes the book > well: https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sandel_the_tyranny_of_merit > > He starts out with some discussion of moral luck, but in my opinion > not a great discussion of it. Then he moves on to criticize a world > where pieces of paper are confused for ability. In such a world, those > without the right pieces of paper are deemed to lack merit and are > told they can't have dignity. That part is criticizing a world in > which our leaders continuously message that everyone should go to > college, encouraging a false belief that a getting a degree somehow > magically makes you successful, and encouraging the implicit (or > sometimes explicit) judgement that not getting a degree somehow a > personal failure and that getting a degree and then not succeeding is > an incoherent position to be in. The failure of that program of > thought has been huge. It is hard to explain how many of the students > I taught at Penn State Altoona had their lives made worse by getting a > degree. They are working the same jobs they could have worked out of > high school, but with 4 years less experience, added shame and > frustration, crippling debt, and a worse relationship with parents who > can't understand why having a degree hasn't made their kids > successful. And you can't try to defend this by hand-waving at > education being virtuous in its own right, but it won't work, because > by any reasonable measure they aren't very educated either. > > Even with as right as some parts of that critique are, it is all > somehow seething with the suspect rhetoric of the protestant work > ethic. There is nothing inherently virtuous in being exploited for > your labor (in the Marxist sense of providing profit to a capitalist), > and he is somehow lumping all "work" together in a way that obscures > that. > > When all is said and done, it is an interesting argument, but my > Libertarian Goat is doing fine, thank you :- ) > > > > > On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 1:28 PM <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > This should do it! > > > > > https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-j-sandel/the-tyranny-of-merit/ > > > > The thesis is that “meritocracy” is the cause of the fact that the > us is now the least socially mobile country among the western > democracies. > > > > Nick > > > > Nicholas Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology > > Clark University > > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ > > > > > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > <http://bit.ly/virtualfriam> > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
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