Thread by @DouthatNYT

I enjoyed this @mattyglesias take but he does not, in fact, bite the bullet implied by his analysis:
slowboring.com/p/meritocracy-…

If the problem with meritocracy is really that it has led to a decline in "public virtue" and "a belief that some things just aren’t worth it" among the elite, then really, truly biting the bullet would involve saying that maybe we need ... a more hereditary elite.

The argument being that you need some people inside your elite who are secure enough in their place within it that they aren't in competition with each other all the time and have the leisure to set some rules about morality and good form.
americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/redisc…

And the problem w/meritocracy is that it still follows hereditary patterns (rich kids of rich parents go to Harvard in large numbers!) without accruing any of the possible social benefits of having a *secure* elite shaping norms that talented people must adopt as they ascend.

This is a theme of the greatest movie about meritocracy, The Social Network, in which the old money and the new money and the upper-middle class striver are all conformed to the same pattern of frantic competition.

Anyway there are also immense problems with an overtly hereditary elite, which is why the last one we had failed to survive the challenge from meritocracy. But I'm just saying that's the real unbitten bullet for the case against meritocracy.