Michael Sandel: The Tyranny of Merit
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Channel: The Agenda with Steve Paikin
Views: 36,901
Rating: 4.7252207 out of 5
Keywords: The Agenda with Steve Paikin, current affairs, analysis, debate, politics, policy, Michael Sandel, Tyranny of Merit, philosophy
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Length: 25min 55sec (1555 seconds)
Published: Wed Sep 23 2020
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the problem is not merit as a concept, but giving merit where merit is not due
This is a good conversation around the "noble lie" or meritocracy, which is that no matter what, nothing beats getting lucky. Merit cant beat luck in any large scale system. Meritocracy actually dies inside a society which allows for enough personal privacy. All humans attempt to protect the world from their own shameful acts; but we have a hard time stopping them, and sometimes we identify with them. Meritocracy slides into credentialism almost by necessity, the same way democracy slides into tyranny. not with a "bang" but with a "shhh".
The problem we have in today's society is not giving enough merit when it is due. We give too many people trophies for just showing up, so there is no incentive to be the best you can be.
The merit is not the problem. The problem is we dont really value merit as the highest relevance.
We never had real meritocracy, not even in science which should be as pure as meritocratic system as possible - and yet it isnt. The egos, the personalities, the internal "politics" and tribalism take precedence and suppress merit, distort it, suppress it, defund it, and attempt to waylay it in any other way possible.
The truth tends to win eventually overall but its a hard struggle that often takes decades or more.
All of these discussions against meritocracy only really discuss various corrupted and false meritocratic systems.