The educated elite in America are turning against meritocracy, against standardised testing, and towards identity-based policies and rhetoric to promote equity and social justice. Some have suggested that the chief driver of this drift from meritocracy is what Peter Turchin calls “elite overproduction”. America is creating more elites than it can accommodate, and those whom it cannot accommodate are becoming bitter while those who are still competing for scarce but coveted positions in the status hierarchy are anxious. Anti-meritocratic rhetoric alleviates the bitterness and anxiety by providing a justification for defeat: America is not meritocratic and therefore failure is not a reflection of personal unworthiness, but a reflection of the fundamental unfairness of society.
This is an appealing argument but is ultimately implausible or at least incomplete because it almost entirely ignores the most forwarded complaint against the ‘illusory’ American meritocracy, namely, that the United States is riddled with racism which, though often unseen or ignored, powerfully shapes the status hierarchy in the country. In a piece on the fashionable assault on meritocracy in 2020, for example, Ross Douthat argued that by assailing hard work and discipline, anti-racist rhetoric might even be a cynical (unconscious) attempt by elite whites to sap the ability of minorities to compete, which would explain why elite white families are attracted to a ritualised denunciation of supposedly antiquated ‘bourgeois’ values. But this still does not appear to address the fundamental function of anti-meritocratic rhetoric about white privilege and toxicity, nor does it explain why successful white elites who write for the New York Times and Vox would so enthusiastically embrace it.
The hypothesis here is that such anti-meritocratic rhetoric serves at least two functions. First it functions as a signal to distinguish educated elite whites (or ‘elites’) from hoi polloi (relatively uneducated whites); and, second, it functions as a justification for the large disparities in prestige between these elites and hoi polloi. It is not, therefore, as a salve for stinging envy and anxiety that elites have promoted the language of white fragility, toxicity and anti-meritocracy, but rather as an instrument for public (and perhaps self-) justification. It is both a signal and a form of apologetics.
Many elites believe that modern society is rife with racism. Some of this belief is an understandable reaction to large and stubborn disparities between whites and blacks. Most elites are what might be called equalitarians and believe that demographic groups are roughly equal on all socially valued traits. Therefore, if there are disparities between groups, then the cause or causes must be environmental. One obvious environmental explanation is persistent prejudices against blacks.
But another potential cause of this belief in ubiquitous racism is that it signals a kind of educated sophistication and scepticism about the West, a cultured disdain for simplistic narratives of European righteousness that distinguishes enlightened elites from nescient rubes. This would explain why such beliefs are often expressed in an obscure argot imported from postmodern philosophy and why even the understandable jargon and acronyms about race and social justice (e.g. ‘people of color’, ‘black’, ‘African American’, and ‘BIPOC’) routinely change in ways that are baffling to the uninformed. The more these signals discriminate between the educated who have perfected the intimidating vernacular of critical theory and the ordinary who do not have the time or perhaps the verbal facility to do so, the better.
But this puts elites in a tough place. If they believe that society is irredeemably racist and unjust, then how can they possibly justify their prestige? Suppose, for example, that one asks an elite writer at the New York Times, “Why should we listen to you and why do you warrant your status — your pay and your influence and your fancy dinners?” The elite writer cannot feasibly maintain that he or she deserves the pay and prestige while also maintaining that society is systemically unfair, for, if it is unfair, then how do we know that this particular outcome is merited? Wouldn’t that, in fact, suggest that society is fair? Thus, the belief in widespread racism and injustice puts the successful elite in an uncomfortable and apparently indefensible position. Fortunately, the language of white fragility and accusations of ubiquitous unfairness also provide the Nietzschean solution to the very puzzle it created.
Elites deserve their status not because they are necessarily smarter or more talented than hoi polloi, but rather because they are fully aware of their own wickedness. Like the religiously righteous, their self-disgust and self-flagellation are in fact evidence of their spiritual purity, and their willingness to confess their sins is evidence of their ethical enlightenment. Hoi polloi should listen to them because they are morally superior, not because they are more skilled or educated. The world of progressive institutions, then, is in fact a kind of meritocracy; it is a meritocracy of moral wisdom.
Thus the reason that people such as Robin DiAngelo and Ibram Kendi are praised so fulsomely by elites is because they serve an important apologetic function. They, like charismatic religious preachers, provide the moral narrative that explains and justifies the current status hierarchy. Backward and benighted, Hoi Polloi don’t write for the New York Times or Vox and don’t have as much cultural power and prestige as the elites precisely because they are morally inferior to them. Therefore, elites can maintain without contradiction that instruments that measure intelligence or college preparedness are hopelessly biased and are in fact tools exploited by white supremacy to create the illusion of meritocracy, while also maintaining that their own status is deeply deserved.
America is not a skill-based meritocracy, they say. It is racist, sexist, classist. Elites do not believe this because it assuages their own anxieties about possible failure. Rather, they believe it because it is necessary to explain demographic disparities; and they confess it enthusiastically because the more they confess it, the louder they confess it, the more earnestly they confess it, the greater their own merit and righteousness.
Like the religious devotees who maintained that humans were sinful and depraved, elites maintain that humans are blinkered and bigoted; and like those devotees, the elites believe that the only chance for salvation lies in an absolute and unconditional acceptance of the world’s wickedness. This is exactly what progressive institutions such as universities and the New York Times and Vox and Mother Jones do. They document the many ‘iniquities’ of modern society, and they unveil the ‘fraudulence’ of the standard story about merit. And because they do that, the people who work for them and who rise through their ranks really do, in their own eyes, deserve their prestige. In other words, elites malign meritocracy precisely to prove that they inhabit one based on moral righteousness.
Bo Winegard is the Executive Editor of Aporia, a fantastic new Substack, where this article was first published. You can subscribe here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
How proud the Welsh must be for having such rational, switched-on, competent geniuses in the Senedd.
What an intellectual colossus.
Yes, especially since the Welsh have been complaining about the English for centuries, only to feebly lie down like doormats before Third World Invaders.
“Racism is, fundamentally, the belief that white people and their ways of thinking, culture, political systems and histories are superior to that of other ‘races’.”
That seems to me to be a racist statement so it would appear Maya Sharma is a racist.
Sharma is a Hindu Brahmin surname.
Brahmins are the highest in the Indian caste system, which is just like racism but based on ‘caste’ instead of racial features.
So perhaps Maya Sharma wants to pretend racist-like beliefs and behaviour are limited to white people?
And her definition is not a definition of racism.
Racism is discrimination based solely on race. The colour of the discriminator is irrelevant.
Racism has existed throughout history between many different races.
India is one of the most racist countries in the world. Your status depends on your skin colour.
Dark – low
Light – high
An observation. The reason greenhouse global greenhouse gas emissions are increasing is because most non-Western countries (the source of over 70% of such emissions) refuse to prioritise their reduction. This – according to politicians and climate scientists – is an egregious and disastrous error. The solution they say is for us (the UK and other Western countries) to exercise ‘leadership’ by setting an example. As such politicians and scientists are almost all white and the inhabitants of non-Western countries are almost all people of colour, this view would seem, if Maya Sharma is right, to be a blatant example of racism.
Good one! I’m using that.
Not really, because it’s based on the claim the we are – for historical reason – not superior but inferior to others and thus, must atone harder for our climate sins of the past. Eg, ‘green’ global funds fund construction of especially energy efficient coal-fired power stations by Japanese companies in India because it’s considered ok if coal-fired power stations are built in India.
For us, it’s supposed to become “Scrape by with sun and wind, you deserve no better!”.
Silliband has donated 11 billion to colonise the “underdeveloped” to achieve net zero.
How can he ‘donate’ to himself?
He clearly fulfils the criterion however.
And are you correct? I thought there is a £40 billion ‘black’ hole in our economy?
Is it ‘black’ because it is not going to white people?
Isn’t that just a tad racist calling him them ‘underdeveloped’?
There must be some sort of death wish in the Welsh people to make them persist in voting for governments that foster this kind of nasty propaganda.
When I was younger it was all about bigging up Welsh culture; Welsh language signage; dragons/mythology/ wild grey-haired female bards singing Welsh songs to harp music and all that kind of guff – but at least it valued the native culture and was interesting, and signalled self-esteem.
The pernicious drivel currently being promoted is designed to demoralise and subdue the native Welsh so they don’t dare react to their new colonisers, (who won’t be as warmly disposed to traditional Welsh culture as were the English back in the day, despite a bit of opposition).
Where’s the current Prince of Wales? Oh yes, he’s been captured and no doubt approves of this horrible woman and her ilk.
Or perhaps the people living in Wales have given up paying any attention to the clitter clatter of the political machine as it trundles along. It’s only when it does things that affect ordinary people (like the lower speed limit) that the political machine hiccups for a moment.
Yes you’re right. They’re just a bunch of irrelevant wankers.
You mean they vote Labour. 2TK used Wales as an exemplar for his government!
Why do these deranged people always look the same? They’re smug, fat and ugly as shit.
And some XX chromo at birth
I was definitely wondering if that was one of them ‘women’ with a penis.
Anyhoo, nice to know I’m not the only biatch in DS Town.
And clearly devoid of any knowledge of history or maybe I should just stop at the word knowledge.
“Racism is, fundamentally, the belief that white people and their ways of thinking, culture, political systems and histories are superior to that of other ‘races’.”
There is nothing racist in believing that our ways of thinking, culture, political systems (?) and histories are superior to that of other races. That is just fact. I am not aware of any significant areas in which non-whites have significantly improved the lot of mankind.
The greatest nation ever to inhabit planet earth has no non-whites in its history who made any impact. Fact.
And with a name of Maya Sharma it is improbable that this woman would have any understanding of such as the Wars of the Roses, the Civil War, 1745, Tolpuddle and numerous more events in our glorious history. Ill placed therfore to lecture true Brits on our significant history.
If this hallowed nation is not in your blood you will never truly understand us or our glorious past.
I am white, I am English, I am British. And proud.
I totally agree. I have blood from all four UK nations in me, two from one parent and two from the other. I am proud of all four and proud to be British. My British roots go back 100s, even over a thousand years, according to a genetic test. This island is my home – not just in my physical presence now, but deeply rooted in my psyche and soul. It is truly disturbing me what is going on at the moment.
My son started at Cardiff University last month, reading Medicinal Chemistry. I went to visit him a couple of weeks ago – his mother, who is Welsh, dropped him off. I had never been to Cardiff before. As a city it is lovely. Really spacious, with some fine old buildings, but the make up of the population really took me by surprise. The diversity of different nationalities and races was quite overwhelming. If I had been blindfolded and dropped there and asked to say where I was, based on the inhabitants, I would not have said Wales or the UK for that matter.
Thanks.
The towns here in the North West are grimmer than ever these days. Ashton-u-Lyne yesterday – it truly was like being in a foreign country. Awful, awful, awful.
I know what you mean. I was in Ashton-under-Lyne the other day.
I agree- though I do personally know a handful of foreign born people who live in England who love our country and 100% get what it’s about- and appreciate that all the more because those things are lacking in their own countries. But agree they are in a minority. Equally I am sad to say many of our fellow native born English men and women do not appear to love our country. More fool them.
I know what you mean about foreigners who love our country tof and I respect them but they are few and far between.
The foreigners clinging to their old ways of life, clothing, religions and languages have no place here and clearly feel no loyalty or gratitude. For these people we should facilitate a return.
Yup I agree
Can we send away some of those English born people who seem to so want our culture to disappear too? Funny that they have not left already
Good point re the wingeing natives.
“Anti-racism” is code for anti-whitism. “Decolonisation” means the colonisation of white countries by means of the destruction of white cultures and white history. “Institutional racism” was an invention of the Trotskyists in the 1950s who were attempting to smear the Western democracies as being the same as the Nazi regime.
They are all Orwellian terms designed to hide a tyrannical and racialist (i.e. anti-white) agenda.
Far Left agenda.
Hitler used to stupidly think all the world’s problems were caused by the Jews. This lady think the world’s problems are caused by white ppl. Plus ca change!
The madleft believe that whites are “world poisoners”.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/our-bill-for-ending-the-slave-trade-please-pay-asap/
Maya Sharma needs to give this article some of her time before butting in on the history of a nation about which I confidently predict she knows F A.
But don’t the madleft believe that all these inventions were stolen by wicked whitie? For example, I’m sure I read somewhere that in the 18th century the our ancestors went to Africa and stole all the steam engines …
“our ancestors went to Africa and stole all the steam engines …”
Nah, it was definitely Watt Tyler.
Not James Watt then?
Another word that has been redefined by the left
Her definition is the one that all the grifters use
“Racism is, fundamentally, the belief that white people and their ways of thinking, culture, political systems and histories are superior to that of other ‘races’.”
..and where this can be substantiated as correct, what is it then.?
The voters in Wales will have future opportunities to either end this bollocks, or further encourage it. It’s up to them.
Sharma’s theory is roughly is that she’s entitled to break into other people’s living room without invitation, crap in a corner and tell people who complain about that there’s something fundamentally wrong with them because she’s so “fascinating”.
Here’s your reply: Go back to where you came from¹. You’re not adding anything to our world or – for that matter – to the world at large at all and you’re not entitled to be a louse in our hair.
¹ Or go back to where the last generation of normal people in your family came from who were welcome here because they were normal people. Whatever applies.
Outrageous hypocrisy coming from that member of the “BRAHMIN GOD-LIKE CASTE” of India, who look down upon all other humans as inferior, especially all the castes lower down their racist scale than Brahmins.
Hypocrite Maya Sharma says: “ “white people, institutes and nations hold far larger amounts of power”.
— YES, IN WHITE COUNTRIES, AS IS ONLY NATURAL AND RIGHT!!!
Ethnic Indian people, institutes and nations hold far larger amounts of power IN INDIAN COUNTRIES, you nauseating Ethnic Indian hypocrite!
Whilst one cannot claim Sharma favours the caste system the point has been made here that as a member of the Brahmin caste perhaps Maya Sharma wants to pretend racist-like beliefs and behaviour are limited to white people?
Which if correct, as seems to be the case from her definition, it seems to me makes her a racist and in this context thus an hypocrite.
But tell me if I am wrong.
why does Wales need an advisor like this – why does she not give advise the Middle East countries who need sorting out but then she knows the reaction she would get – another grifter on the welsh tax-payers
Until the real racists get it through their heads that racism works all ways we will never be rid of racism.
It is rather ironic that a group of Museums seek to label all white people racist by denying the facts of racism: it works in both directions. Surrounded by the teachings of History and yet unable to learn anything from it all.
I suppose they are not even aware that racism is not simply a matter of colour. The most racist person I ever met is Indian, he loathes Pakistani’s purely because they are Pakistani’s. If that s not an example of racism I simply give up.
This woman, according to the definition of a racist, is typical of the genre:
“characterised by or showing prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalised.”
She makes all encompassing, insulting and ludicrously inaccurate statements about white people, yet she is pure as the driven snow?
Of course she is.
You have to keep in mind that these people aren’t really Marxists anymore but they stand firmly in the Marxist tradition of considering their ideological theories a science of human history, society and sensible future development thereof. She has been schooled in critical theory, especially, critical race theory and just repeats the tenets of that in the way which is currently proscribed for marketing them (that’s the “fascinating international stories” bit) without any own thought.
As advisor to the devolved government of Wales she’s, after all, a rather minor figure, and who is she that she wouldn’t question something the mankind’s finest minds have laboured to create?
This is not a definition of racism:
“characterised by or showing prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalised.”
That version of ‘racism’ includes discrimination in favour of a person based on their race.
Britannica’s definition is better:
And in the context of its use to denote hatred, prejudice and discrimination it is about time it was extended to religion and nationality or else a new and better word is needed to describe discrimination on the basis of race, religion or nationality.
“Fred hates all Syrians.”
So as Fred’s hatred is based on nationality and not race or religion, Fred is not a racist.
Syria is not a nation. It’s a synthetic state created out of the remnants of some former provinces of the Ottoman empire inhabited by the usual mix of different peoples and tribes of peoples on finds in this area. Originally, it was a arabic tribal kingdom. But that was overthrown by Arab communists (Bath Party) a fairly long time ago and since than, it has been an increasingly less nominally Marxist tyrannis (still closely allied to Russia, though).
Fred hates all Syrians is semantically equivalent to somthing like Fred hates all Londoners.
England is not England. It is a sythetic state created out of the remnants of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
So your synthetic state idea does not work for me.
You can apply the same thinking to Iraq, Iran, Saudia Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Israel, Palestine etc.
This is a debate about the concepts of statehood and the nation which I am frankly underinterested in.
I didn’t quote this definition. It’s however, perfectly appropriate to include discrimination in favour here, because there is really no such things as side-effect free discrimination in favour. Discrimination is always for the benefit of certain people and to the detriment of all others. Based on their usual “if we were expected to live up to standards we expect others to live up to, this would lead to the absurd conclusion that we aren’t really better than those others” attiude, the woketurds call discrimination in favour of people they call white racism and discrimination to the detriment of these people affirmative action. But this “We dislike the first and very much like the other!” value judgement doesn’t change the fact that the mechanism is the same in both cases.
The Britannica definition is really just the usual woke grab bag of random crap: It starts with the assertion that human races don’t exist (implied by calling it a belief despite dogs are classified into different race based on much more superficial characteristics than people and nobody objects to that), adds a strawman to that by intentionally conflating races and species (the exclusivity claim nobody ever made), then, for some reason only known to the author, progresses to the essentially marxist assertion that humans don’t have instincts governing their behaviour but are born as blank pages every can be written on, something which has been disproved by biological science a long time ago (there’s a reason why woketurds just hate biology) and then closes with another strawman as there’s nothing particulary racist in the belief that some races are innately superior to others. One of the instinctive behaviours of humans (like all other animals, BTW) is that they believe their own people are more valuable than other people, ie, care more about their own relatives than about other people’s relatives. Bloody racist lot, they are!
I’m intentionally ignoring the “islamophobia is racism!” closing nonsense.
Flocking to white countries, why are black and brown people so keen on moving here? What’s wrong with their countries that they want to come here?Is it because we have a much better system? It is sinking now into their style of broken third world countries…..
So now we know,not just suspect, the definition of racism is only one way in the eyes of those that are promoting it. That I’m afraid to say is in itself racism. No wonder an adult debate cannot take place as the proponents are exhibiting complete ignorance on the topic which is their expertise.
And by the way I hope the project is in the medium of welsh.
“the belief that white people and their ways of thinking, culture, political systems and histories are superior to that of other ‘races’.””
Strange that some places have cultures that have created societies that are rich and free while other cultures have produced places that are less free and/or rich, and lots of people are trying to flee to these rich, free countries and trying to flee from those other cultures.
They could resolve the Racism issue completely by getting rid of all the artefacts.