Meritocracy & Losers

Some time ago now, I posted here a quotation from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, in which Tocqueville points out the mental strain common in an egalitarian, meritocratic society like America. The reason for the mental strain, according to Tocqueville, is "the constant strife between the desires inspired by equality and the means it supplies to satisfy them." In other words, equality makes the average person in society think that the only limitation on what he can achieve is his own ambition. When this person eventually realizes that he simply cannot achieve everything he might desire, he will most likely scale back his ambitions somewhat, but will secretly still end up frustrated because he has not come out on top. High expectations inevitably get dashed--and disillusionment and depression result. This was the mental strain of which Tocqueville spoke.

Here's a much pithier way to express all this:

Frustration is the distinctive psychological characteristic of democratic society. Where all may legitimately aspire to the summit, the entire pyramid is an accumulation of frustrated individuals.
(Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a un texto implícito: Selección, p. 196)

For Tocqueville--and I would agree with him--the representative American believes in the virtue of ambition and meritocracy. Indeed, from an early age we are all taught to believe in our dreams in school, to pursue our ambitions. Moreover, we are taught to be proud of everything we achieve. If we reach the top, it is because of our merit.

But what about all those people without ambition? Are they just a bunch of losers? And, what about all those who simply have a hard time with life? There are a lot of them out there, perhaps more than we would like to admit. Are they just a bunch of losers too? Christian charity, I believe, dictates that we answer with a resounding "No."

We have to approach these questions on two levels. First, there is no doubt that we must start on the individual level. Every individual must realize that he does not have to live the rat race, and then make a deliberate choice to live out this insight. Nobody else can make that decision for him.

Second, even though the individual must make the decision himself, he probably cannot persevere all by himself. It is a conceit to imagine that the individual must become some kind of superman and achieve virtue all on his own. It's a Pelagian, perhaps even Promethean, view of virtue. In other words, individuals are generally weak by themselves, and therefore need the support of society at large in their pursuit of virtue and happiness.

But, is there any way to solve this problem? The only societal solution to this problem might be to do away with meritocracy, and the egalitarian ideology propping up the meritocracy.

In societies where everybody believes they are equal, the inevitable superiority of a few makes the rest feel like failures. Inversely, in societies where inequality is the norm, each person settles into his own distinct place, without feeling the urge to compare himself with other, nor even conceiving the possibility. Only a hierarchical structure is compassionate towards the mediocre and the meek.
(Ibid., p. 138)

The mediocre and the meek are the losers of today. They are the "least of these" whom Christ teaches us to care for.

So, here's my question: Is advocating a radical meritocracy just one way of saying that we really shouldn't have to care about others less talented and weaker in faith than ourselves?

I'm not sure exactly where I come out on this question. However, I would like to end by suggesting that any adequate answer to this question has to acknowledge two principles that are in tension with each other. On the one hand, somebody has to govern society, and it is not necessarily a bad idea to let the talented rise to the top. That's the meritocratic approach. On the other hand, it also seems likely that the meritocratic approach induces those few who do rise to the top to become excessively proud of their own accomplishments, and to neglect the mediocre and the meek. What do we do?

Note: Some of the language about it being a "conceit" to imagine we can be virtuous on our own I found on the Internet recently, but I can't remember where now. Somebody else deserves credit, but I don't know who.

Common Fallacies in Political Arguments

Of late I have noticed that certain sorts of fallacious arguments recur with distressing frequency in discussions of American politics, so I decided to keep track of some of them. Here are four such fallacies.

I begin with the reductio ad Hitlerum. You attack your opponent’s position by saying that it is a spitting image of the Nazi party program. It’s a low blow, but often very effective. After all, what sane person wants to be associated with Adolf Hitler? It is essentially nothing but a verbal stick with which to beat your opponents into submission. A related fallacy, employed by some of the more hysterical conservatives, is the reductio ad Stalin or the reductio ad communismum.

In the US, liberals do not always resort to the reductio ad Hitlerum, because many people have figured out that it is a logical fallacy. So, they have invented the reductio ad segregationem. Anything they don’t like reminds them of the days when blacks in the South were not allowed to share public places with whites. Thus, when someone opposes gay “marriage,” liberals immediately cry out that not allowing gays to marry is equivalent to segregating them from the rest of society, or like not allowing blacks and whites to marry (i.e., miscegenation laws). They don’t realize—or they intentionally ignore the fact—that the two issues are completely different. In one case, the issue is race; in the other, it is sex.

Equality = Equity. I actually cringed all the way through the first reading at Mass one Sunday when the lector kept replacing the word “equity” with “equality.” He apparently didn’t know that, though the two words are etymologically related, they have acquired distinct meanings over time. The proper relation between the two words is akin to the idea of “equal protection of the laws.” Nobody should be above the law, and nobody should be considered beneath the notice of the law, but that does not imply that the law should treat everyone the same. For example, as Justice Scalia pointed out during oral arguments for the Ricci v. DeStefano case, throwing out the results of an employment test for all applicants is certainly equal treatment, but it most definitely is not equitable treatment. This confusion of equality with equity is the dark core of egalitarianism.

The moral strength of the will of the majority. Shockingly enough, I found this idea in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America:

There is nothing as irresistible as a tyrannical power commanding in the name of the people, for while being clothed in the moral strength derived from the will of the greatest number, it also acts with the decision, speed, and tenacity of a single man.” (Vol. I, Part II, chapter 5, “The Efforts of which Democracy is Capable”)

I hope that Tocqueville was merely making an empirical observation about how men react when confronted by a large majority. However, I hasten to point out that a majority in and of itself does not have moral strength, but only brute strength. This confusion of numerical strength with moral strength is yet another sinister aspect of egalitarianism.

Well, those are four logical fallacies I have noticed lately. If you can think of anymore, please do not hesitate to add them in the comments.