All the good stuff you're talking about was a result of the Enlightenment, which didn't happen in a meritocratic society, it happened in semi-aristocratic socie

All the good stuff you're talking about was a result of the Enlightenment, which didn't happen in a meritocratic society, it happened in semi-aristocratic society which had extremely powerful concepts of social class. Even 70 years ago in America, "gifted and talented" programs in education weren't so controversial because success in school wasn't as important - eg an Asian person wasn't going to become the CEO of a major corporation regardless of their grades. Obviously, I'm not suggesting that we should return to that world, but meritocracy is also bad. The solution is egalitarianism and democracy.