4 ms·
In one portion of the article ("Smart people do bad things"), it seems like the argument isn't really against Meritocracy, it's against using intelligence as th
by tines 5y ago
In one portion of the article ("Smart people do bad things"), it seems like the argument isn't really against Meritocracy, it's against using intelligence as the only metric powering your meritocracy. If your meritocracy rewards a combination of ethical and intelligent behavior, you still have a pure merit-based system, you've just picked a particular merit function that you like more.
I felt that that part of the article was a little weak and ended up doing what the author criticized others for doing, namely criticizing the implementation of meritocracy rather than the concept itself.
- zzbzq 5y agoI was thinking the exact same thing. The article falls into what may be the most immediate danger befalling discussion around meritocracy: an artificially narrow definition of "merit." The essay bemoans private equity firms increasing death rates in retirement homes to increase profit, because of how "smart" and therefore allegedly "merited" they are. But any proper definition of "merit" would include them behaving ethically.