The dark side of Meritocracy

luke wilson

The Living Force
Hi Guys,

So if you live in a western country and primarily the US/UK, you've probably heard that society is a meritocracy i.e. your efforts equate to the rewards you receive. It's very different from how it was back in the day, as far as I am aware. Things used to be more along the lines of, if you were a peasant, you'd always be a peasant and if you were high born, your place in society was assured i.e. your social economic status was pretty much set by birth.

Naturally, modern society isn't purely meritocratic but nonetheless this is the mantra and for intent and purpose the thing that has replaced the old feudal system.

Moving on....

So despite feeling a sort of weight brought upon by the idea of merit I could never accurately point out where it came from. You know, that thing you feel when you fail. That feeling that makes failure not an unfortunate thing but some sort of divine judgement as to the value of your soul, of your Being. That thing that makes you wary of and emotionally reactive to criticism as it crosses the threshold of feedback from another person into some sort of divine judgement of your worth.

The sorts of failures I'm talking about are whatever it is that drives you (people are naturally driven by different things) and whatever it is that makes you feel/think people judge your value upon (usually subconsciously) in social discourse (again different for different people).

Those sorts of failures somehow weigh that little bit more on ones self-esteem, sense of worth and all that sort of stuff really goes down the toilet.

I literally got educated into realising that the weight of this feeling is for a huge part determined by the idea of merit and that with each passing generation we get brought up to peg these values (self esteem, sense of worth etc) to merit in an increasing way...

This brings me to this lovely video I saw...


https://youtu.be/bTDGdKaMDhQ

I think it's self explanatory but I don't know how one can reconcile such a wonderful idea as merit with the darker side mentioned. It's a good thing that the most talented, most driven, most gifted should get rewarded but somehow it follows that the opposite suffer their pre-ordained fate (for being useless eaters). The ideas of accident/luck etc get relegated as people take more personal credit for their own fortunes (whether accident/luck was involved or not). More than anything, I think the really nefarious part of personal credit is the psychological element, the force it carries. I once read somewhere (and it could be false), that in ancient Greece, really creatively talented people thought they'd been gifted with a Muse that helped them and that this Muse was given to them by the grace of their gods (who could take it away at any time) as compared to today where a really creative person might think they are awesome just because, well, they are themself. There seems to be 'something' outside ourself that is getting lost with each generation. Again, the psychological effects of this, not only on the actual person but on those around them are cataclysmic really... OSIT.

The idea of merit also in a way leads to the below (which can be extended beyond what you simply do for a living into other things that may be used to judge and come up with your innate value as a human being)


https://youtu.be/Iipn6yM43sM

Lastly, in the race to succeed, achieve etc we unwittingly forget that 'losers' i.e. people who fail/don't achieve make up the vast majority of the population. As we worship those at the top, we forget that the largest mass of humanity lies at the bottom.


https://youtu.be/ip97YDkvbtY

I was thinking about this because it dawned on me recently that one thing changed massively without me really taking big note of it when I crossed the threshold from childhood into adulthood. When you are a child, you just sort of live but I guess when you become an adult, things change subtly in that it becomes a matter of achievement/or working towards achievement, one after the other. In a strange way, the success or failure of adulthood is measured by what you achieve or don't achieve. It's very easy to find yourself dismissed as having no merit due to lack of achievement when you are an adult as compared to when you are in your youth.

In a way, a pure STS society would have the rungs of society divided up into such a system the more I think about it. Your place in society would represent your merit and your merit would play a huge role in your experience of society.
 
Luke said:
So despite feeling a sort of weight brought upon by the idea of merit I could never accurately point out where it came from. You know, that thing you feel when you fail. That feeling that makes failure not an unfortunate thing but some sort of divine judgement as to the value of your soul, of your Being. That thing that makes you wary of and emotionally reactive to criticism as it crosses the threshold of feedback from another person into some sort of divine judgement of your worth.

The sorts of failures I'm talking about are whatever it is that drives you (people are naturally driven by different things) and whatever it is that makes you feel/think people judge your value upon (usually subconsciously) in social discourse (again different for different people).

Those sorts of failures somehow weigh that little bit more on ones self-esteem, sense of worth and all that sort of stuff really goes down the toilet.

I literally got educated into realising that the weight of this feeling is for a huge part determined by the idea of merit and that with each passing generation we get brought up to peg these values (self esteem, sense of worth etc) to merit in an increasing way...

I think one problem is that we don't know how to address failure. More and more often there is attention given to boosting up self esteem and making people feel good about themselves when that doesn't do anything to help see where or how we are causing conflict and pain to ourselves and others. And so such things continue and usually get worse. A system that works should be able to dig deep into failures. I don't think it is failure in itself that is alone in creating issues, but our lack of ability to see it, our responsibility in it, and how we might learn from it. Telling someone else that they've failed is usually an unwanted criticism and we deflect all over the place to describe the many ways this isn't true. It's really just too much for the false part of us to accept that we create problems and this is usually a driving tendency. So, we don't know how to talk to people about failure and we don't know how to address it in ourselves. That's a problem that spirals out of control because we fail when it comes to failure!

I think this Meritocracy business can go in all sorts of directions. Some of it can apply, some of it clearly doesn't. But the core issue you bring up seems to be in dealing with failure vs. success. We know this is pretty warped in Western society. But we do have many tools here to sort these things out.
 
I agree that meritocracy is yet another delusional fairy tale with devastating consequences in society. Other common fairy tales are "democracy", "equality of chances" etc.. There is nothing as such in real life, and this becomes even more obvious when the system is understood through the lens of ponerology.

The meritocracy myth is illustrated in hollywood movies. It's all about being the number one. Parents tell children that if they want to, and work for it, they can become the number one. However, on the level of society, if one child becomes the number one of something (usually superficial and ), it means that hundreds or thousands of other kids will not be number one. What should they do? Did they not work enough? Did their parents pass down the wrong genes? Whose fault? It's all boils down to a very narrow understanding of reality. Life is a multifactorial complex system that doesn't depend upon one single parameter.

As to failure's psychological impact, it is safe to assume IMHO that it is mainly due to misplaced identification. Most people identify with what they do, instead of trying to identify what they are. When you ask someone to introduce themself, the first thing they offer is a system-sanctioned label like "I am a commercial engineer" (whatever that means) or something like that. But that is not what we are, that's what we do to pay the bills, it's a persona, a role we play in society. On the other hand, what we do can be a reflection of who we are if that which we do has a moral value (positive or negative, it depends on each individual and on each situation). So, there is a subtle difference that is not taught by our idiotic schools and other top-down institutional constructs.

When we fail in achieving something, is it a failure of the external person or a "failure" of the internal person? Most importantly, what are the contributing factors that lead to that apparent failure? Is it psychological? Is it economical? Is it cultural? Is it even of this world? Many emotional bottlenecks and self-perpetuating thought-loops can be alleviated by asking the same question about ourselves that we would ask about another person.

The last point is perhaps the uncomfortable part. I think we indulge in self-pity because somehow, we imagine that we are better than other people. We easily accept that other people may fail (again, in superficial do-things) because of many circumstances (childhood, hunger, wrong family, wrong birth place, various accidents along the way, etc.) but we think of ourselves as invincible or supernatural. That's what the meritocracy mythos programs into us individually IMHO, a form of narcissism. when the ego confronts the real world, the unavoidable consequence is hurt.

However, there is some way to minimize that situation. First of all, knowing the self, and having a clear awareness of who we are versus what we do under different circumstances. And that connects to the stoic notion that we are totally responsible for what we control, we are partly responsible for what we partially control, and we are not responsible for what we do not control. It is obvious but when we don't know which is which, we run into lots of disappointments. OSIT
 
luke wilson said:
Hi Guys,

So if you live in a western country and primarily the US/UK, you've probably heard that society is a meritocracy i.e. your efforts equate to the rewards you receive. It's very different from how it was back in the day, as far as I am aware. Things used to be more along the lines of, if you were a peasant, you'd always be a peasant and if you were high born, your place in society was assured i.e. your social economic status was pretty much set by birth.

Naturally, modern society isn't purely meritocratic but nonetheless this is the mantra and for intent and purpose the thing that has replaced the old feudal system.

Moving on....

So despite feeling a sort of weight brought upon by the idea of merit I could never accurately point out where it came from. You know, that thing you feel when you fail. That feeling that makes failure not an unfortunate thing but some sort of divine judgement as to the value of your soul, of your Being. That thing that makes you wary of and emotionally reactive to criticism as it crosses the threshold of feedback from another person into some sort of divine judgement of your worth.

The sorts of failures I'm talking about are whatever it is that drives you (people are naturally driven by different things) and whatever it is that makes you feel/think people judge your value upon (usually subconsciously) in social discourse (again different for different people).

Those sorts of failures somehow weigh that little bit more on ones self-esteem, sense of worth and all that sort of stuff really goes down the toilet.

I literally got educated into realising that the weight of this feeling is for a huge part determined by the idea of merit and that with each passing generation we get brought up to peg these values (self esteem, sense of worth etc) to merit in an increasing way...

I've heard about this concept. Even been told that that's the way things are supposed to work. Thing is, it doesn't seem to work that well in practice or real society. Too much subjectivity, conflict of interest and agendas. The best person doesn't always get the job. The honest or kind person isn't rewarded, neither are they free from harassment or prosecution. Its probably psychopath involvement and individual predators minds. General Law in action? Something none of us seem to escape from.

Imagine all the things a person of merit (in whatever field) would have achieved if this control system wasn't skewing things. It makes me wonder.
 
Maybe the problem of success vs failure are the consequences.

Success in most part equates to positive emotional rewards & failure the opposite. It can also feedback to quality of social interactions, as in, acceptance vs non acceptance. In addition it can equate to the type of life you live.

For example at school they say work hard to get the good grades because these grades will open doors. Doors to other better schools or even better higher education institutions. In turn academic performance plus the pieces of paper you get at the end play a huge role in determining career prospects. This in turn determines to a huge part where you find yourself in society. This formula can be applied across multiple fields... Academia, sports, art etc. Its the recognition of the merit you have, that is determined by performance e.g. Good grades, athletic prowess, ability to entertain/mesmerise for an artist etc... All these in turn lead to consequences, of success/failure. For me, I guess that's the biggest issue: Consequences.

It may be that we approach failure the wrong way but also, I think for the vast majority, individual failure is inevitable, no matter how hard you try or endure e.g. if you are an artist, you wont make it beyond playing local small gigs, or if an athlete, you won't make it to the olympics etc... These are obviously extreme examples looking at the very pinnacle but in all arenas the same mechanisms seem to be at play.

So I don't know, for me the dark side of all these is when we peg rewards (emotional/material) to merit. Furthermore, I think in pursuit of these, people's worst qualities are brought forth. Again, the system isn't purely meritocratic as things like inheritance etc play a huge role but the direction is obvious for the majority. The general theme is the talented/gifted are more likely to benefit than those who are not.

However, if I was to state my opinion, I would say that every human being deserves the same quality of life regardless of merit.
 
I agree with mkrnhr. I think he summed it up quite well. It's a problem of identification. Also, as G said, we have to play a role in society, while keeping in mind that we are playing a role. Of course only people in the Work can try to do that - all others are pretty much always identified and run around in circles in being identified with revolving situations. Even someone like me, whose been in the Work for years can't be consciously playing a role ALL the time and find myself identified now and then and must snap myself out of it.

But, essentially it's just a rat race. Meritocracy is as real as Santa Clause. And in most things, psychopaths and other deviants have the best chance to get to the top, as they have no ethical considerations and will stop at nothing to get what they're after. Also much of our society is setup and controlled by pathological types, and has been for a very long time, and now it's pretty much a global pathocracy, so it selects for these types. So it's all the more important to play a role consciously and not be identified - and don't internalize the dominant values and aspirations of a sick society.
 
luke wilson said:
So I don't know, for me the dark side of all these is when we peg rewards (emotional/material) to merit. Furthermore, I think in pursuit of these, people's worst qualities are brought forth. Again, the system isn't purely meritocratic as things like inheritance etc play a huge role but the direction is obvious for the majority. The general theme is the talented/gifted are more likely to benefit than those who are not.

However, if I was to state my opinion, I would say that every human being deserves the same quality of life regardless of merit.

Well, I've observed the capitalist system of the US and the more-or-less socialist system of France, and there are problems on both sides. Capitalism too easily becomes pathological dog-eat-dog, while socialism seems to drain the human being of pride in their work and efforts. If you don't achieve something better, there is no reason to BE better at anything. Plus, those who have everything handed to them don't appreciate it.

So, no, I don't agree that every human being deserves the same quality of life regardless of merit. I do agree that every human being deserves a basic standard of life that includes decent shelter, food, and educational opportunities. But those educational opportunities ought to cover a broad range of social needs. We should understand that someone who has only the capacity to be a very good "sanitation engineer" or ditch digger, can be respected for that because it is a necessary contribution to society.

Lobaczewski has a section in "Political Ponerology" about upward and downward social adjustment and how it causes problems in societies. If someone is born who only has the innate capacities to be a trash collector, but is born to a wealthy family, and is pushed through a special school and given a job as a diplomat, that is a problem. By the same token, if a genius is born to a poor family and has no possibility of engaging his genius on behalf of society, that's a problem too.

Having said all that, the way the so-called "meritocracy" works is not really that: it is just a variation on dog-eat-dog capitalism and has nothing whatsoever to do with the innate abilities of individuals, finding what they do best, and helping them to achieve actualization. Instead, it's all set up as a big competition that places no emphasis on DIFFERENCES and that those differences can and should be valued. The "meritocracy" seems to value only one type of achievement and sets everyone - whether they are suited or not - to compete for a limited number of "top positions". That has nothing to do with real merit, that's combat.
 
I didn't see things the way you have painted them. Thanks.

In my mind, I had maybe an idealistic picture. I imagined how a community would have been in the distant past. Lets say there was 100 people in a particular tribe. They would have different vocations based on merit/talent/experience etc e.g. Chief/elders, engineers, cooks, medicine men, artists etc. Within each division you could even have sub divisions and different levels of proficiencies etc...

What would act as motivation in their vocation is their contribution to and the well being of their community plus a sense of pride in performing their job to there best ability to ensure the best possible outcome for all involved. The medicine man would want to heal not because of £££ but because he cares about the health of his fellow person...

Regarding rewards, I didn't see why inequality would even be needed... Why would it have to be there? Motivation? I didn't envision this fictitious community having the chief living in a palace, the ones with the most technically challenging jobs next in line with the next best spoiling's of materialism then finally right on the line of what is considered basic the ditch diggers or equivalents... Rather I saw people with different jobs working in unison and united by the concept of the whole, all sharing similar lifestyles whilst they mingle/interact in their society.

Merit didn't equate to reward/punishment, if anything it only equated to what you did i.e. Ditch digger or scientist... Or something along those lines.

I don't know really, i suppose it's fanciful thinking...

What's true is that society today is as you describe, dog eat dog or motivation usurping...
 
luke wilson said:
When you are a child, you just sort of live but I guess when you become an adult, things change subtly in that it becomes a matter of achievement/or working towards achievement, one after the other. In a strange way, the success or failure of adulthood is measured by what you achieve or don't achieve.

At the level of the individual, there may be no real problem if a person refuses to split themselves into success and failure. Chasing success is done in terms of time. Success will come tomorrow or the next day or next week or sometime in the future, and some people won't know why they feel so bad today. Well, if success is always tomorrow, then failure is that situation today. And today is where we live. If this split self continues day after day, why do we then wonder why we feel so depressed and sad today?

If we could somehow stop allowing programming to keep our thoughts of self split in so many ways, we might stop defining so much of ourselves and our lives in terms of opposites, like success and failure. We might actually realize that, as a whole person, we are now like we were as that child: all we really need is food, shelter, clothes and safety from imminent danger. At the point where those basic needs are met, our attention might then naturally turn towards some activity we are inclined to pursue. If this activity is something that could be helpful to others (and I'm assuming that kind of activity is what we'd be naturally inclined to pursue), then everyone would benefit, no?

In my daily life, I've been watching for ways that my thought splits me or some aspect of my life and relationships into opposites and where I can figure out how, I'll reduce or eliminate the activity or thought process. For me, that's the best way to increase my effectiveness today for the people I serve today. I can feel the pressure. Sometimes it feels like: there is no tomorrow!...what has to be done, has to be done today!
 
luke wilson said:
So I don't know, for me the dark side of all these is when we peg rewards (emotional/material) to merit. Furthermore, I think in pursuit of these, people's worst qualities are brought forth. Again, the system isn't purely meritocratic as things like inheritance etc play a huge role but the direction is obvious for the majority.

If we look at a caricature of success, as in many cases of fame and fortune, I'd agree that it has a lot of potential to warp a personality and bring out lower level traits. But I think a more ordinary kind of success that can take a lifetime to build can develop character. This can probably depend on a persons internal constitution too, and like mkrnhr mentioned, there can always be a number of factors that may go into the creation of success.

The general theme is the talented/gifted are more likely to benefit than those who are not.

Giftedness is pretty rare and fades in many who demonstrate it as children. Talent however takes a lot of continual effort and practice. There may be natural gifts in certain things, but I think there is still the need to cultivate, practice and make use of them. There's the common myth that some people just have a talent for certain things, that talent is innate or a naturally given trait. But more often than not, a talented person has spent a lot of time developing particular skills and abilities. I think lumping these things together might miss out on these things and can hold the self back from developing the talent we admire in others. It can be a belief that sets limitations on who we can be and what we can achieve.
 
Renaissance said:
If we look at a caricature of success, as in many cases of fame and fortune, I'd agree that it has a lot of potential to warp a personality and bring out lower level traits. But I think a more ordinary kind of success that can take a lifetime to build can develop character. This can probably depend on a persons internal constitution too, and like mkrnhr mentioned, there can always be a number of factors that may go into the creation of success.

It just so happens that the school of life did a video on success


https://youtu.be/P8b4mZvrui4


Buddy said:
We might actually realize that, as a whole person, we are now like we were as that child: all we really need is food, shelter, clothes and safety from imminent danger. At the point where those basic needs are met, our attention might then naturally turn towards some activity we are inclined to pursue. If this activity is something that could be helpful to others (and I'm assuming that kind of activity is what we'd be naturally inclined to pursue), then everyone would benefit, no?

It's sad that for the vast majority, just meeting those basic needs is a struggle and for another huge percentage, staying afloat is a full time job.

I guess I'm a bit of a socialist because I dislike inequality and don't see why it should exist when all there is to ensure the well being of everyone is here already. People work hard to prop up the few, having the conception that power lies at the top when in fact it lies at the bottom.
 
luke wilson said:
It's sad that for the vast majority, just meeting those basic needs is a struggle and for another huge percentage, staying afloat is a full time job.

I guess I'm a bit of a socialist because I dislike inequality and don't see why it should exist when all there is to ensure the well being of everyone is here already. People work hard to prop up the few, having the conception that power lies at the top when in fact it lies at the bottom.

It is sad. As far as being a bit of a socialist, I couldn't care less about that. Heck, I'm told that, being in the U.S., I already live in a totalitarian, fascist police state, so I guess I can have nothing but good to say about any other 'ism.'

Regardless of political system, it seems to me the government's first responsibility should be to ensure those basic needs for every citizen. Personally, I don't see any room for merit to enter into the picture until those needs are met. Also for me, there is no "success." It would be an illusion, based on the premise that I can "arrive." There will be no "arrival" for me that I can foresee. I expect to be working up until I'm outta here.
 
Interesting thread. I don't think there is an intrinsic 'success'. Real meaningful success is determined by the individual. And I don't think it necessitates arriving. If I have an aim, any aim, and I remember to pursue it - well, that can define success for me. (and aims can have indeterminate ends or no end at all) You don't have to define success in material terms. Success is just doing what you set out to do. Or being who you set out to be. It is not always about having what you think you deserve to have.

And from a silly point of view, a person can be a great success at being a failure if their life lesson plan is to learn humility from failure or to pay from some past karma or to learn how not to associate self-worth with success or failure as determined by society.

But yeah, meritocracy? I figured out this was not a meritocratic society pretty early in life. Don't forget about the psychopaths - they will short circuit merit every time.
 
There is a large difference between merit, in terms of meaningful and beneficial things actually accomplished and which can be observed and known by people through their effects, and merit in terms of some authority simply assigning you a 'special' status.

In our Western civilization, 'merit' is mostly of the latter kind - people who please authorities (or have family ties or other 'special' ties with them, or who themselves climb to the very top of the societal hierarchies), or who 'achieve' meaningless things that the status quo rewards with money and celebrity status, are the 'meritorious'.

It's more of a "freak show", as George Carlin called our civilization, than a genuine meritocracy. By contrast, what you envisioned in the below would actually deserve the name:
luke wilson said:
I imagined how a community would have been in the distant past. Lets say there was 100 people in a particular tribe. They would have different vocations based on merit/talent/experience etc e.g. Chief/elders, engineers, cooks, medicine men, artists etc. Within each division you could even have sub divisions and different levels of proficiencies etc...

What would act as motivation in their vocation is their contribution to and the well being of their community plus a sense of pride in performing their job to there best ability to ensure the best possible outcome for all involved. The medicine man would want to heal not because of £££ but because he cares about the health of his fellow person...

Apart from a big difference in the meaning of 'merit', the idea of what leadership is also differs a great deal between such a society and our own civilization. In our civilization, leadership is largely a question of those 'above' reducing the people 'below' into labeled roles, and then enforcing their conformity to these roles. You could instead consider each member of a group, and each factor which affects the group, in terms of its relationship with the whole. The important thing is then a common basis for working together, and out of this common basis - or center of it all - people can begin to grow into whichever roles they are most suited to filling, in whichever direction or combination of directions that may turn out to be. To contribute then becomes the same thing as to lead, and a large contributor is a leader in his/her field(s).

There's a much more detailed discussion of leadership in these terms in my thread, "Understanding leadership in relation to this network: organic models".
 
_http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/16/jeremy-corbyn-to-confront-big-business-over-living-wage

Jeremy Corbyn will show he is ready for battle with big business as he proposes barring companies from distributing dividends unless they pay the living wage, and putting in place salary curbs to stop bosses being paid many times more than workers.

The Labour leader will suggest the ideas in a speech at the Fabian Society conference in London on Saturday, arguing that “too much of the proceeds of growth have accumulated to those at the top”.

Addressing Labour members, he will say inequality is bad for growth and a fairer society does better in terms of economic stability and wealth creation.

Jeremy Corbyn: proposed measures to ensure equal pay will bring ‘fairer society’

“One proposal is pay ratios between top and bottom, so that the rewards don’t just accrue to those at the top,” he will say. “Of the G7 nations only the US has greater income inequality than the UK, pay inequality on this scale is neither necessary nor inevitable.

“Another proposal would be to bar or restrict companies from distributing dividends until they pay all their workers the living wage. Only profitable employers will be paying dividends, if they depend on cheap labour for those profits then I think there is a question over whether that is a business model to which we should be turning a blind eye.”

Interesting...
 
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