From the lede:
Through most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Protestant Establishment sat atop the American power structure. A relatively small network of white Protestant men dominated the universities, the world of finance, the local country clubs and even high government service.And here is the closing paragraph:
Over the past half–century, a more diverse and meritocratic elite has replaced the Protestant Establishment. People are more likely to rise on the basis of grades, test scores, effort and performance.
Yet, as this meritocratic elite has taken over institutions, trust in them has plummeted. It’s not even clear that the brainy elite is doing a better job of running them than the old boys’ network. Would we say that Wall Street is working better now than it did 60 years ago? Or government? The system is more just, but the outcomes are mixed. The meritocracy has not fulfilled its promise.
The difference between the Hayes view and mine is a bit like the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution. He wants to upend the social order. I want to keep the current social order, but I want to give it a different ethos and institutions that are more consistent with its existing ideals.Not everyone accepts the views of Mr Brooks or Mr Hayes. For example I have seen some discussion of "credentialed" vs qualified (or educated or trained). Some are beginning to question our obsession with credentials.
Here is the view of a Candian university professor:
Personally, I have some problems with the current culture of the meritocracy, so I would tend to agree that that definitely needs to be changed. To my mind, it's not so much a view of being part of a (supposed) "counter-culture" so much as it is a lack of requirement for the members of the meritocracy to have a persona stake in the state, which is what the older style of elites had. To quote my old headmaster, "we train the boys to rule", so I would tend to agree with Brooks' comments about stewardship and virtue.Here is a counterpunch from Writer James Joyner, in the blog Outside the Beltway.
That said, what he doesn't seem to talk about is the "why" of the meritocracy. There's the "how" (tactics) and the "morality" (operations), but where is the "Why" (strategy)? Elites, regardless of their system of selection, need a "why" to focus their actions and ethical codes. Without that focus, then they will inevitably default to a personal and familial focus which will, inevitably, destroy the state in which they operate. This, BTW, was why there was such a strong "gentlemanly" code, and members of the elite families who went against it tended to be socially annihilated.
Here is a thought (from a younger female military officer) on the contrast between the military and civilian worlds.
Perhaps military elites draw less ire than their civilian counterparts because the military is one of few institutions without lateral transfer at the highest echelons. Because every general was once a lieutenant, the system looks more fair than many others. The promotion system may still privilege certain groups, but it requires every officer to travel a roughly similar path without merit based pay.I will note that if you are a physician or lawyer you get to come in with a jump in grade, but you are not part of the "core" of the military.
I noticed that many of my college classmates were really surprised by this. Many assumed that an Ivy League degree meant that I'd be entering the military with a higher rank, or doing some "special job," like being a general's aid or working an ambiguously defined strategic position at the Pentagon. It seems like many young, well educated and ambitious people are used to systems that allow for jumping ahead based on a set of demonstrated skills, be they high SAT scores or certain degrees. This attitude draws criticism from anti-elites who see this kind of path dependency as unfair.
Regards — Cliff
♠ The title reminds me of the title of the Earnest K Gann novel, Twilight for the Gods.
6 comments:
Here's a question I have for Cliff but also for anyone and everyone reading this:
1. Think of all your siblings. Rattle off their names, and whether in your head or on a piece of paper, jot down what they're generally up to and what you would estimate their net worth to be.
2. They were all the EXACT same, right?
Of course they weren't. Right off the bat, little experiments like this should start poking some holes in the arguments used by people who say that we have some imaginary meritocracy and everyone's eventual social standing, or place among some imagined, all-controlling 'elite' is determined at birth. Without even knowing anything about YOUR family (I'm applying that YOUR, again, to any reader, not necessarily to Cliff) I would venture to say there are some fairly extreme fluctuations in the degree to which people have 'made it' materially.
Barnum Statements are named after my good man P.T. Barnum, who discovered things you could fool people with -- statements that people believe apply uniquely to them but actually apply broadly. A great example is something like, "You have amazing creative potential, but your boss doesn't fully realize what you can accomplish."
Anyway, one of the biggest Barnum statements in America goes something like this: "You have advanced as far as you have based on the sweat of your brow. While others who have gone further had everything handed to them because they are members of an elite cabal, and others have advanced less far because they are lazier and dumber than you, you have truly done everything possible with the [limited] tools with which you began, and you are an inspiration to all."
Here's another example: Let's say you went to Acton-Boxborough High School and now, after stops in Ann Arbor and New Haven, you are a professor of Economics at NYU and someone on the short list to be named one of the Undersecretaries of the Treasury in a second Obama term..you are a full-fledged member of this 'elite' that was spoken of in the discussion. Surely, someone with an enormous chip on his shoulder will tear you down by saying, "Well, of course...you grew up in privilege...you are one of those dolts who attended an Ivy League college, so of course this whole path was laid out for you, etc."
Maybe that helps someone somehow compensate for his or her own shortcomings or the sting of an old and faded rejection letter, but it ignores what should be a fairly obvious point: Most of the kids who go to A-B don't wind up in that position. In my "composite" semi-non-fictional example, the protagonist's siblings are nowhere near as *elite* in the type of sense the people quoted above describe.
American society is more fluid than a lot of people give it credit for. The right last name can still get you a Congressional seat in Massachusetts (you can even move into the 4th CD on the day you declare!) but for the most part the people who in the traditionally *elite* positions at places like elite corporate law firms, McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Google, Goldman, etc. are highly intelligent and driven people. Ditto for surgeons, generals, op-ed writers, TV hosts, and whoever else makes up this *elite.*
The odds are much longer for a kid from Lawrence than for a kid from Lexington, I will concede, but I also believe "the elites" are used by many as a rhetorical bogeyman used to separate and divide.
Actually, I think, at least up until the last ten years, by two Brothers and I have been fairly even. But, then, we all went into the same basic area. I lured them into the Procurement Dodge. The big difference is my Middle Brother has only one child, whereas the youngest and I have three each. More money invested in the next generation. The Middle Brother did make SES, but then got out when they threatened to move him out of California. The youngest made GS-15. We are all pretty much at the same level. Not EXACTLY, but close enough that the man on the Clapham omnibus might not notice the difference.
Of course, my prejudice is that certain segments of the nation are prejudiced against those who are graduates of "Land Grant" colleges and the like—say Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
As to that discrimination, I have no solid research to back me up, but my understanding is that currently the Federal Government, in hiring lawyers, are hiring mostly out of the traditional Northeast Law Schools. On the other hand, of you graduated from Law School in say, San Diego, why would you go back to DC, except maybe for love? A lot of love.
Regards — Cliff
Fair points about the biases. However, you can go to San Diego Law School and then on to GM'ing the Red Sox to their "Reverse the Curse" World Series win before packing up your earthly belongings and heading to Chicago.
No surprise that the government lawyer positions are being choosy as heck, and are *choosing* the Big Name schools. The private industry law profession is in a major state of upheaval, and the secret is out that the old tradeoff about government jobs (great stability, bad pay) isn't so much the case anymore. Fair or unfair, people are using the grades and LSATs requisite for admission to the Bigs as proxies when hiring.
That reminds me, I'll concede a point that's germane to the discussion here and to the post I wrote tonight on my site: complaints about 'reverse discrimination' based on education only carry so much water. For every idiot who makes some comment about trust funds or whether the buildings at MIT are named after some relative, there are firms that will hire.
I wouldn't get the idiotic remarks thrown at me for going to an equally expensive but smaller-named school, but then again I wouldn't have as many corporate recruiter doors opening up either.
I'll happily make the tradeoff.
It still impresses me that the three sons of a upper lower class, or lower middle class parents could achieve what they did. However they are the results of Government intervention in the sense that their K-12 education benefited from the royalties of off shore drilling and public education was the highlight of CA. Followed by higher education from the USG for the eldest and brightest and from a higher education system that was the pride of Gov Brown (the first Gov Brown) and a state that was "golden" at the time and knew no limitations under a Democratic regime. Things of course have changed, but the eldest child of the next generation will hopefully value the education at UCLA, as some lawyers valued their education at USD. The point is that the eldest of these two generations know no real bounds, however you will measure success, for all three sons of "humble" beginnings in a society that believed in merit. I always thought if one day I could afford a $16,000 house with 1,800 sq ft I would have "made it." Now I have brothers who have achieved in their lives and are "recognized" and my father ate in an executive dining room as a mere adjunct professor with no college education.
As a classmate (couldn't pick him out of a lineup) of the former Red Sox GM, I have mixed views on this topic. To be sure, the GM would not have gotten the job if there were not something in his background to suggest that he had at least some skills in this area. After all, managing an extremely valuable franchise is not something you are going to let just any ameture do. On the other hand perhaps there are lots of people out there with that skill, but we just don't know it, because you have to have certain credentials to get in the clubhouse door. Your father owning a part of the team, albeit a very small part, acts as a bit of a credential that opens some doors. I would bet, however, that the door it first opened was just one step above bat boy. From there, he still had to lear his craft, and even when he got his big break, he had a support staff. The real test is how does the GM do on his second team.
As for attorney hiring, here is the problem: If you have one slot to fill, a lot of paying work to do, and a stack of resumes to review, how are YOU going to sort the wheat from the chaff? Some people use school as a proxy for intelligence. The reasoning goes that you had to do well in undergrad and on the LSAT to get into an ivy league school, therefore you must be pretty smart, and are worth interviewing. Others use grades and law review experience, reasoning that most law schools require written exams, so if you got good grades and/or got onto law review, you must be a good writer and worthy of an interview. Still others use experience: You would not have survived 5 years at that 100 person firm if you didn't have the right stuff, so maybe you are ready for the big leagues.
Of course, we can all see how this might leave some very skilled people out in the cold. It likewise might result in some unworthy people getting jobs. For example, my criminal law professor, who was very worthy as a professor, would be a disaster in the courtroom. When asked any of the practical application of what he taught, he regularly replied that "You would have to ask my wife, the public defender."
So, while I don't agree with using certain criteria as proxies for getting to know people in interviews, I know why it happens.
Oh crap my sibling passed away 20 years ago!*
And today I make no income, and haven't in six years!
We both have the same net worth!
*BTW my brother's IQ was much higher then mine. He excelled in his SATs, and almost perfected the math section.
As with cousins though, as long as we didn't end up with a substance abuse problem we all fairly did OK.
Sadly I know too many people who piss away their earnings on alcohol, cigarrettes, and scratch tickets.
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