4 ms·

> Meritocracies fundamentally excuse bad behavior This may often (?) be true in practice if you remove "fundamentally", but not always and it doesn't have to b

by mcbits 8y ago

> Meritocracies fundamentally excuse bad behavior This may often (?) be true in practice if you remove "fundamentally", but not always and it doesn't have to be. In an environment where people work together to produce an outcome, the ability to interact positively and productively with others is a valuable behavioral merit. It keeps one talented asshole from chasing away all the other talent. You can have a meritocratic organization where "works well with the team" is a requirement. Where this breaks down is when talented people sit back and allow abuse (or worse, start to emulate it) because they're all starry-eyed about an offender's other talents and achievements.

rs23296008n1 8y ago
I'd go further than just remove "fundamentally" from that statement. I'd say the entire statement is false. Getting rid of meritocracy is "Everyone gets an A+". Teams will quickly get in trouble if everyone got A+ for "works well with the team" but some should've gotten a D- or an F. Meritocracies don't have to excuse bad behaviour if they simply penalise it. Perhaps those stuck in bad situations and complaining about meritocracies are really just suffering from the ill-effects of cronyism, favouritism or some other "ism".
- roenxi 8y ago
  Meritocracy means that a political system is organised so that the "meritorious" get power, where merit is based on performance. You are talking about getting rid of ranking, possibly the concept of merit. It isn't possible to have a meritocracy with no concept of merit, but that is much stronger than not being a meritocracy. For example, I could rank a team of 5 from A+ to F, then put cousin Ahmed in charge because he is a relation of mine. That would be a system that is not a meritocracy, because to be in charge a person would have to be related to me, but there is still a concept of merit. I would expect my cousin to then consider merit carefully as he divides up tasks.
  - rs23296008n1 8y ago
    Perhaps I was not clear. A merit system that tolerates cronyism and "other isms" is not actually a system based on useful merit. And I believe that most people who are hating on meritocratic systems are really hating on corruption or dysfunctional systems. What is the point of getting a "A+" based on some merit based score if Ahmed can get in by being your cousin? Corruption would tolerate this happily. So penalise corruption! To use your example, your cousin was put in place due to nepotism. This is very much covered by my "some other ism" as corruption or at least bad behaviour. Cronyism and nepotism both bypass natural "best person for position based on merit" selection criteria. Integrity is well within performance measures under a meritocratic system, eg police who are corrupt can't be seen as acting as the ideal for police officers or authority by any useful measure (merit). If you hired your cousin that nepotism impacts both yours and your cousins integrity and therefore merit. This bypasses the meritocracy and is actually simple corruption. Plenty of other "isms" are also really just corruption in various forms: sexism, racism, tokenism, ageism. I'm sure there are plenty more.

by mcbits 8y ago

rs23296008n1 8y ago

I'd go further than just remove "fundamentally" from that statement. I'd say the entire statement is false. Getting rid of meritocracy is "Everyone gets an A+". Teams will quickly get in trouble if everyone got A+ for "works well with the team" but some should've gotten a D- or an F. Meritocracies don't have to excuse bad behaviour if they simply penalise it. Perhaps those stuck in bad situations and complaining about meritocracies are really just suffering from the ill-effects of cronyism, favouritism or some other "ism".

roenxi 8y ago
Meritocracy means that a political system is organised so that the "meritorious" get power, where merit is based on performance. You are talking about getting rid of ranking, possibly the concept of merit. It isn't possible to have a meritocracy with no concept of merit, but that is much stronger than not being a meritocracy. For example, I could rank a team of 5 from A+ to F, then put cousin Ahmed in charge because he is a relation of mine. That would be a system that is not a meritocracy, because to be in charge a person would have to be related to me, but there is still a concept of merit. I would expect my cousin to then consider merit carefully as he divides up tasks.
- rs23296008n1 8y ago
  Perhaps I was not clear. A merit system that tolerates cronyism and "other isms" is not actually a system based on useful merit. And I believe that most people who are hating on meritocratic systems are really hating on corruption or dysfunctional systems. What is the point of getting a "A+" based on some merit based score if Ahmed can get in by being your cousin? Corruption would tolerate this happily. So penalise corruption! To use your example, your cousin was put in place due to nepotism. This is very much covered by my "some other ism" as corruption or at least bad behaviour. Cronyism and nepotism both bypass natural "best person for position based on merit" selection criteria. Integrity is well within performance measures under a meritocratic system, eg police who are corrupt can't be seen as acting as the ideal for police officers or authority by any useful measure (merit). If you hired your cousin that nepotism impacts both yours and your cousins integrity and therefore merit. This bypasses the meritocracy and is actually simple corruption. Plenty of other "isms" are also really just corruption in various forms: sexism, racism, tokenism, ageism. I'm sure there are plenty more.