The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good

By Michael J. Sandel

The meritocratic model is something that is all around us, even in my own pursuit to vindicate myself in the mad race for college, but something that I never could put a name to. This book helped me understand how this came about and its effects on society.

“The Tyranny of Merit” is like a brilliant response to that misguided but well-meaning math teacher from the viewpoint, as it were, of a kid in some back-row seat of any classroom in a Rust Belt, prairie town or inner-city school in America.

As Hochschild puts so well, Sandel points out the problem with a philosophy ingrained into American society. Every teacher talks about grades and degrees, but people striving toward this only widens the societal divide.

    Today's social model is based on the philosophy of meritocracy - where the successful deserve their success and the poor deserve their poverty. It is based on the idea that you deserve what you get, and it is what Sandel claims were at the heart of Donald Trump's election in 2016 and the populist uprisings around the world.

    The American Dream, the one of rising, has become increasingly less an "American" dream. Today, rich parents can afford to help so much, and poor parents so little, that it's become virtually impossible to move between social classes. But parents still tell their children that if they try their best they will succeed - and when rich children succeed, they look down upon the unsuccessful, and even the poor believe that they deserve their place in life. It inspires hubris in place of humility from a position they were given by luck.

    And this is exactly what Trump took advantage of. The oppressed working class, who lack degrees and struggle to put food on the table, was tired of the Democrat's talk of rising and meritocracy, which politicians had relied on for decades. He utilized this discontent and used it in his favor. Sandel's solution lies in acknowledging the oppressed and empathizing with their pain.

    The true tyranny of globalization and the meritocracy that it brought with it is that it left too many behind in a place where everyone, even they themselves, looked down on them.

One reason, perhaps, is that many of us need what he does so well: help us grapple with the unexpected and uncomfortable questions that history delivers us.

 All of these create controversies that are so important to face in our society but are hard to think about alone. Books like these create good starting points for talking about them.

So you who are highly educated, Sandel concludes, should understand that you’re contributing to a resentment fueling the toxic politics you deplore. Respect the vast diversity of talents and contributions others make to this nation. Empathize with the undeserved shame of the less educated. Eat a little humble pie.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/books/review/the-tyranny-of-merit-michael-j-sandel.html