The Conceptual Dispute between Meritocracy and Equality
“Steeper ladders, narrower gates.”
Chapter IV, The Bell Curve
The evolutionary chains
Despite the word “equal” has definitively become too loose to retain as the world progressing to the risk of no consistent principle, however, ontologically, still remains a high-sound value nested in moral discourse many hold dear onwards. Written prehistorically in the beginning of the American Revolution, “All men are created equal” as to what considered the cosmic ideal of the U.S. Declaration of Independence that further reads, “They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” There, however, with all respects to the drafters of the Founding Fathers, appears to ignore the fact that humans are not very much equal — inherently. As counterintuitive as it may seem, liberty confers upon equal rights at the expense of human condition as if biological aberration is perpetuated underneath. The fact that some men are genetically created unequal by corollary makes the first premise objectionable. Equality represents no sameness for no man is born the same because DNA endows all men (and women) individually distinctive.
Francis Galton, an English polymath, in 19th century coined “eugenics,” a term derived from Greek “well-born.” He posited under the desire of solving the adversarial nature between biological constraints and its environmental consequences.
“A vast number of ‘survivorship of the fittest’ and the unsparing destruction of the unfit, for hundreds of generations, have become as obsolete as the old mail-coach habits and customs, since the establishment of railroads, and there is not the slightest use in attempting to preserve them; they are hindrances, and not gains, to civilizations.”
— Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius (1869)
Despite how jarring that may sound, Galton in his Darwinian spirit, believed that human race can be improved by preemptively eradicating the disfavored genes in exchange for the favored to be more encouraged. He was the earlier proponent of class based on intelligence. All of which many geneticists found to be (in certain percentiles) hereditary, such as traits, mental disorder, polygenic indices (e.g., height, eye color, skin pigmentation), and aptitude are amongst the benchmarks of eugenics. Despite the utopian outlook Galton envisaged, eugenics written off as a gross misstep subsequently given the idea of utopia, more often than not, resembles none other than a mere fantastical imagery. As Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist, wrote in Enlightenment Now, “Human beings are fitted by evolution with a number of destructive motives such as greed, lust, dominance, vengeance, and self-deception.” In conjunction he, too, believed, “But they also fitted with a sense of sympathy, an ability to reflect on their predicament, and faculties to think up and share new ideas” as he emphasized the words of Abraham Lincoln, in another book of his The Better Angels of Our Nature. Utopia conceals problematic propensities for it ignores the inherent trade-offs in human condition. Every action entails the price people will essentially have to pay for. Utopia is unlikely to ever exist, no other than in the Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. No matter how intellectually sophisticated humans may be they are not going to be free from errors their cognition inevitably prompts them with for it is usually the error as to why advancing intellectual capacity is necessary.
“Genetic diversity is mankind’s most precious resource, not a regrettable deviation from an ideal state of monotonous sameness.”
— Theodosius Dobzhansky
We have seen by implication eugenics disillusioning itself especially among totalitarian regimes, although not all practices of totalitarianism express eugenic a priori in high resolution. The core problem is precisely to the contrary, most of them have done so in low resolution. And that, whereabouts the non-radical eugenicists distance themselves, fairly distinguishable. Worthwhile nonetheless, to look back in history an example — Nuremberg Laws, enacted two years after Hitler took control in 1933 wherein he incorporated eugenic tenet — sterilizing those who happen to carry genetic defects be they are intellectually, physiologically, mentally impaired, only with his anti-miscegenation will at the aim of his own — “purifying” the German population by means of “race hygiene”. Any attempt to evade human nature by design cannot be more unthinkably dubious, let alone actualizing it in large scale. Perhaps, too utopian entails the risk of too dystopian. No Eden yards come onto existence but countless cadavers. The perpetrators who paint themselves as what enough perceived evil in history, too invincible to be proven otherwise.
Uninhibited playing field
However putatively considered taboo in either theory or practice nowadays, eugenics crusade has intuitively played incognito in a non-blood-spurred and thus innocuous manner. “Whatever their name, tongue, race, or religion, and whatever their talent, all children were subject to the same ‘education’ in the same high schools. What the socialists did not permit themselves to recognize was the reason for this success. The socialists could not understand the reasons why the tree could not be transplanted.” In a subtle innuendo, Michael Young, a British Sociologist, presciently prefigured about the rise of genetically prodigious individuals while the ordinaries might have their esteem demeaned by virtue of the latter holding the same threshold as and sitting abreast with the former upon this attractive narrative — equality of opportunity. Socialists, which connoted rather derogatorily, Young in his satirical undertone, meant to deride cognitive elites. Those to whom nature gifts, with additional values to their cognitive abilities (e.g., talents, intelligence) and yet by default making them the ultimate beneficiaries of both the genes they luckily inherited from their parents and the treatment they happen to be receiving disproportionately. “Men, after all, are notable not for the equality, but for the inequality, of their endowment.” Young who then coined the term ‘meritocracy’ through his book The Rise of The Meritocracy circa 1958. “Schools and industries were progressively thrown open to merit, so that the clever children of each generation had opportunity for ascent.” Hence, the origin of the term ‘equality of opportunity’ is still, Young explicitly pointed out, obscure.
Although his work was meant to satirize meritocracy on the pretext of concealing his misgiving of its rising, his grim misgiving was endorsed by left-leaning politicians as if it were a blueprint of the British society — thirty eight years later. “New Labour is committed to meritocracy.” Tony Blair in 1996, the year before he became prime minister of Britain, proclaimed. “We believe that people should be able to rise by their talents, not by their birth or the advantages of privilege.” With ‘New Labour, New Life for Britain’ a political manifesto published by the British Labour Party under Blair-Brown, the arc of their political agenda adhered to social justice rather than equality. “I wanted us to reconnect completely at the cultural level. I wanted us to take the good bits of the Labour Party in the 1970s and 1980s — proper progressive attitudes such as equality for women, gays, blacks and Asians — and ally them to normality, bring them into the mainstream.” In his autobiography, A Journey: My Political Life, Blair wrote. Although he did use the term ‘equality,’ it should not overlap with ‘social justice’ albeit friction in between make both seem intrinsically fused.
“The most common attempts to give meaning to the concept of ‘social justice’ resort to egalitarian considerations and argue that every departure from equality of material benefits enjoyed has to be justified by recognizable common interest which these differences serve.”
— Friedrich Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty
In a sense, vis-à-vis his strategic political maneuver he used ‘equality’ specifically aiming at the heart of minority groups on the pretext of concealing his preferential treatment from the sight of majority and thus embracing social cohesion among the British people. His affirmative words by means of emphasizing social justice rather than equality of opportunity however are futile because we have learned that between equal opportunity and social justice intrinsically appeared to be an indissociable blend in every progressive sense of the terms, only the latter acts out as moral posturing in the spirit of political expediency above minorities. By starting off with ‘social justice’ to the meritorious ends is going to constitute a playing field that is competitively disputable. “Equality of opportunity is a shibboleth. It’s a ruse, a dodge. It’s a way for progressive people to give their blessings to inequality.” The writer Freddie deBoer put it trenchantly. People will have to contend with all stripes of abilities irrespective of these abilities stemming from environmentally lucky or genetically exceptional, or neither.
“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”
— George Orwell, Animal Farm
The questions we might want to ask, why the luckier does receive the proportion of treatment as equal as their less lucky counterparts? How is it an equality to the point of ought to be while it is not? For that reason, the more equal the opportunity to win, the less equal the chance to be won. Then again, if ‘all men are created equal,’ what is the point of competition? In 2001, campaigning for a second term, Blair was even resolutely adamant on his meritocratic mission, “There will be no quotas; no lowering of entry standards. It is strictly meritocratic programme.” Two empowering statements in the first premise but counterstated thereafter, whose juxtaposition just obfuscates anyone with common sense. And yet, he added, “Opening up economy and society to merit and talent is the true radical second-term agenda. It cannot be achieved by the Government standing back and allowing a Darwinian survival of the fittest, and pretending that it is meritocracy.” This seems rationally contradictory in both ways. If in the most Darwinian conceptual sense merit and talent are achieved by the survival of the fittest holds true then we cannot pretend that either way is meritocratic because we do not. Nonetheless, hardly is the sort of Blair’s political parlance surprising, especially to the ear of those who happen to be familiar with Orwellian doublethink.
If, however, one were to take partisan agenda out of discourse, the language of merit has itself been permeated in the semantic territory which holds the concept accepted as it is without having before attended to the most critical units of sense. “Those who work and play by the rules should be able to rise as far as their talents will take them.” That, oftentimes, oftener, a mantra meritocratic elites are keenly alive to propagandize by the gratuitous warrant of equal rights embellishing the narrative. It expects society to upward mobility as long as people are distributed with the same proportion of liberty to begin with, while also toning-deaf to the perpetual disillusionment among those whose efforts they undervalue and the oblivious callousness among those whose talents they overvalue — in the finish line. If this is more pronounced, “the tyranny of merit,” as Michael J. Sandel, a Harvard Law School professor, characterized meritocracy — seems to fit the diagnosis of what society binds and blinds.
Egalitarian envy?
Across the pond of Blair’s Third Way, Margaret Thatcher in her unapologetic conservative spirit promoted meritocracy by recognizing the Asian framework’s, “Only the skill, creativity and enterprise of men could make it what it has become.” That meritocratic value preoccupied most of her governmental policies during her Holy Grail period at Downing Street. The Iron Lady, as she regarded herself, was not shy away expressing her distaste on egalitarianism as to vindicate individuals whose prerogative was indeed earned by their ‘own’ merit. “The revolt against centralization and egalitarianism was basically healthy.” Then she continued emphasizing, “As conservatives, we should not frown on people being well rewarded for using sharp wits or strong arms to produce what the customer wanted,” wrote her in the autobiography Statecraft.
“Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either the one or the other, but not both at the same. The equality before the law which freedom requires leads to material inequality.”
— Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
Under free market policies, Margaret adhered truthfully to meritorious outcome rather than equal treatment as the laser focus. Equality of opportunity, as an inviting and wandering value but dispiriting cul-de-sac, a description she rather cynically was inspired by Alexander de Tocqueville. Be that as it may, it is no less obvious that equal treatment to all regardless of individual differences leads to unequal outcome. Hence, social justice, in her critique on capitalism, does not pertain to reality simply because such a term alone means nothing but possesses an implicit capacity to deceive. Therefore, in a liberal-democratic society, the idea that people claimed to be treated unjust thus are drawn to the worshipping spirit of equality is but self-appraisal rooted in envy. More decisively, Thatcher, without any circumlocution, resolves the tension between nature and nurture by ascertaining the fact that life is indeed both unjust and unfair. Such, is a complaint in vain, as she endorsed Voltaire, “Life is hard, yet compared to what?”
“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
— Alexis de Tocqueville
Resources:
- Hereditary Genius (1869) — Francis Galton
- Eugenics: Oxford Introduction — Philippa Levine
- The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality — Kathryn Paige Harden
- Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are — Robert Plomin
- The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life — Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein
- Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress — Steven Pinker
- A Journey: My Political Life — Tony Blair
- The Rise of The Meritocracy — Michael Young
- The Tyranny of Merit — Michael J. Sandel
- Statecraft — Margaret Thatcher
- Law, Legislation, and Liberty — Friedrich Hayek
- The Fatal Conceit : The Errors of Socialism — Friedrich Hayek
- The Constitution of Liberty — Friedrich Hayek
- Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior — Helmut Schoeck
- https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/i-want-a-meritocracy-not-survival-of-the-fittest-5365602.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2001/feb/14/features11.g21
