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> "good thing" words to describe values are kind of bad. This makes no sense to me. Values are principles or standards of behavior. If I try to keep good valu

> "good thing" words to describe values are kind of bad. This makes no sense to me. Values are principles or standards of behavior. If I try to keep good values, this makes me evil somehow? Why would common standards of behavior for a group with a common goal be bad? Wouldn't it help the group continue in the same direction?

deleted 8y ago
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danharaj 8y ago
You have to separate the word from the underlying concept(s). They're not the same thing. If they were the same thing, I could conjure of invisible pink unicorns with an utterance and make all the world utopia by having everyone recite "I am a good person and I won't do anything bad". Words can fail and everyone acknowledges that at least tacitly. Hypocrisy is the purest form of words failing. Let's put it that way: Even if you call yourself a meritocracy you can still be a hypocrite. On the other hand being a meritocracy without calling yourself one is no problem. If you call your organization of 300 people a meritocracy, there will be 300 notions of merit. What benefit is there to calling yourself one if the word itself has no concrete, actionable content and doesn't unify people's vision? This sort of trickery is easier to see when you are part of the management of an organization. The bulk of my relevant personal experience is as a software consultant where I have been embedded in many organizations, all of which considered themselves "good thing"ocracies, but usually fell far short of the mark. We are all hypocrites like that. Words are tricky devils. If you don't treat them with a healthy suspicion you can get in trouble. You have to make them servants of your goal, not arbiters of what your goal is.
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago
  If your argument against the use of "meritocracy" is true, it would apply just as much to "diversity" or "equality", meaning that you are arguing those generically good words should not be used as well. Am I missing something?
  - danharaj 8y ago
    Those words are also empty if they are not provided along with a rubric of what they mean. Equality is perhaps more troublesome than meritocracy while diversity is somewhat better. It is not obvious that diversity is a good thing, so it has more bits of information if you make it a value. Not much, though, if you do it like most corporations in a shallow and vague way.

deleted 8y ago

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danharaj 8y ago

You have to separate the word from the underlying concept(s). They're not the same thing. If they were the same thing, I could conjure of invisible pink unicorns with an utterance and make all the world utopia by having everyone recite "I am a good person and I won't do anything bad". Words can fail and everyone acknowledges that at least tacitly. Hypocrisy is the purest form of words failing. Let's put it that way: Even if you call yourself a meritocracy you can still be a hypocrite. On the other hand being a meritocracy without calling yourself one is no problem. If you call your organization of 300 people a meritocracy, there will be 300 notions of merit. What benefit is there to calling yourself one if the word itself has no concrete, actionable content and doesn't unify people's vision? This sort of trickery is easier to see when you are part of the management of an organization. The bulk of my relevant personal experience is as a software consultant where I have been embedded in many organizations, all of which considered themselves "good thing"ocracies, but usually fell far short of the mark. We are all hypocrites like that. Words are tricky devils. If you don't treat them with a healthy suspicion you can get in trouble. You have to make them servants of your goal, not arbiters of what your goal is.

ThrowawayR2 8y ago
If your argument against the use of "meritocracy" is true, it would apply just as much to "diversity" or "equality", meaning that you are arguing those generically good words should not be used as well. Am I missing something?
- danharaj 8y ago
  Those words are also empty if they are not provided along with a rubric of what they mean. Equality is perhaps more troublesome than meritocracy while diversity is somewhat better. It is not obvious that diversity is a good thing, so it has more bits of information if you make it a value. Not much, though, if you do it like most corporations in a shallow and vague way.