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.
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The profound and humbling lesson of the pandemic is best expressed as follows.
When a butterfly mistakenly enters a home it instinctively heads for the light, the window, where it encounters glass. It is not equipped to understand glass. All it can do is flap helplessly against it, up and down, until exhaustion and death. But its death is of no evolutionary importance because butterflies survive by simply breeding in large numbers, not by being smart. No matter how many die, there are always enough left to produce the next generation. Same with shrimps, oak trees, giraffes, chaffinches, slugs etc. etc..
And human-beings? Humans are smart. We are not fooled by glass. We have the power of objective observation and analysis with which to understand the pitfalls of our world and the wider universe. We pass on the knowledge gained to the next generation for them to build upon. In this way, one day, we will have unlocked the secrets of the universe in totality and will become its master. The future looks good for us. But then along comes Covid and we surprisingly respond by abandoning objective observation and analysis at the outset in favour of stupidly flapping against the glass until we drop.
Why is this? The sad answer is that when we apply our amazing objective observation and analysis survival tool to ourselves we notice that most of us are in fact completely incapable of objective observation and analysis. It takes only one of us to discover, for instance, the health benefits of penicillin through objective observation and analysis, but this discovery then saves and breeds countless millions who, left to themselves, would never discover penicillin in a million years and are happiest looking after their health concerns by sacrificing a goat in some form or other.
So the evolutionary reality is that, instead of furthering survival of the smartest, objective observation and analysis actually furthers disproportionate survival of the least smart (predominantly amongst the most well educated). This is because, after all, just like butterflies, shrimps, oak trees, giraffes, chaffinches, slugs etc. etc., we also survive simply by breeding at a faster rate than we die, and absolutely not by being smart. No matter how many of the least smart get stuck behind the Covid windowpane, and no matter how many of the smartest they force to stick there with them, there will still be enough of us left to produce the next generation. The only true difference between ourselves and other lifeforms is that we seem to fancy ourselves a lot more than they do.
If there’s one thing Fascists want to promote, it’s the Survival of the Stupid.
No need to explain why.
I watched some shark programmes recently and their evolution seems way more advanced than the human species who seem positively stagnant in comparison, but yes humans still think they are at the top
The education system is set up to weed out critical thinkers and reward those who simple repeat without question things they are told. These order followers then progress into positions of control and influence in society. If you do not conform, you are ejected by the system. This is how a tiny few manage to control the many. We have seen this control system develop the climate hoax, and now the same principles are being applied to the covid scam.
I think its a whole degree worse than that cornubian. It filters out those intelligent enough to realise that repeating the current narratives is the way to the top who are able to adapt to Orwellian inversions of ‘the truth’ from one year to the next and have no moral compass that makes them baulk. They end up being gatekeepers and generators of said narratives when they get to the peak – hence our current political, media, academic – and increasingly – clinical classes.
how the Common Purpose system works, they can spot a gullible in the audience a mile off
The most damning part of this whole hoax is how easily it has been to buy peoples voices & souls, I could not lie unless their was millions on offer and I would probably fail at it anyway.
Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines ‘Dramatically Increase’ Heart Attack Risk, Renowned Cardiologist WarnsIn an analysis presented during a meeting of the American Heart Association, Dr. Steven Gundry, a pioneer in infant heart transplant surgery, said mRNA COVID vaccines put many patients at higher risk of a new acute coronary syndrome, such as a heart attack.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/sharyl-attkisson-steven-gundry-pfizer-moderna-vaccines-heart-attack-risk/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=b2e8747f-cbbc-42db-922f-1b6f7c9d1765
In part, the analysis states:
“We conclude that the mRNA vacs dramatically increase inflammation on the endothelium and T cell infiltration of cardiac muscle and may account for the observations of increased thrombosis, cardiomyopathy, and other vascular events following vaccination.”
Gundry explained:
“Recently, with the advent of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (vac) by Moderna and Pfizer, dramatic changes in the PULS score became apparent in most patients.”
Thousands of heart-related injuries have been reported following COVID mRNA vaccines. These injuries lead to the formation and progression of cardiac lesions which may become unstable and rupture, leading to cardiac events.
Top ICU Doctor Suspended After Suing Hospital for Banning Life-Saving COVID TreatmentsIn an exclusive interview with The Defender, Dr. Paul Marik said patients are dying “unnecessarily and unlawfully” because the hospital where he is director of the ICU prioritizes expensive drugs like Remdesivir while banning more effective and less costly treatments.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/paul-marik-lawsuit-hospital-remdesivir-ban-life-saving-drugs/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=b2e8747f-cbbc-42db-922f-1b6f7c9d1765
Marik filed his lawsuit against Sentara Healthcare on Nov. 9, arguing the organization is endangering the lives of its COVID patients by preventing him from using his treatment protocol, which he says has reduced mortality rates in the ICU from approximately between 40% and 60% to less than 20%.
The lawsuit alleges Sentara’s ban on the use of certain therapies against COVID violates U.S. and Virginia medical laws and the concept of informed consent — whereby “patients have the right to receive information and ask questions about recommended treatments so that they can make well-considered decisions about care.”
We have gone back to the dark ages. We’ll be prescribing leeches next.
His peer reviewed & published paper has been removed since the hospital disputed the death data used in it. Funny that they only disputed this data when Marik filed his lawsuit against them for banning the treatment regime….
Well, well, well, well,well. The ‘discovery’ of a new ‘variant ‘ in Africa, with 4 weeks until Xmas.
I read it last year: page 313 of Agenda 30.
It is of no surprise to me whatsoever.
It is somehow the “worst” and most “horrible” variant yet according to the science.
I was lead to believe that viruses mutate to become less deadly but more infectious… a bit like flu?
Or am I a crazy conspiracy theorist?!
Fake news, fake variant, fake pandemic, fake everything….
I don’t entirely agree Kate.
I think the “virus” is real enough. The reaction to it however… off the scale crazy!!!
Ha! The variant is fake!
I agree that Sars-Cov-2 is real but I doubt that much is circulating now.
Sars Cos 2 genome has not been found naturally and had to be dreamt up via a computer program. It exists only in cyberspace.
No, you’re stark, raving sane!
The new variant has ‘longer chains’, just like they have planned for us.
Jabbit’s wide eyed honest gov’ner stare, when delivery such news is hilarious,
Entirely predictable isn’t it.. I rather thought it would establish itself a bit earlier in November to allow more time for the frenzy to build up but I suppose the timing is perfect for locking us all down round about Xmas eve…
Worth listening to in full.
Dr. Robert Malone | The Coordinated C-19 Censorship & Propaganda
Covid19 vaccines have been authorised for tiny children aged 5 years old & up.
It’s public knowledge that there are ongoing trials in babies 6 months and up & it’s inevitable that they’ll be mandated also.
There’s no possible benign interpretation of any of this. The vaccines are horribly dangerous. They don’t work. Repeated injections are a reality with some countries planning 4th already.
I can’t see any reasonable person concluding other than this ends with substantial, deliberate loss of life.
For survivors, however many that might be, VaxPassWorld will be here to stay, with a database & algorithms deciding what you may or may not do.
It seems likely that with these preconditions established, it’s merely a complex technical issue to withdraw all sovereign currencies as well as cash & introduce central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Many central banks have been openly exploring these, including programmable CBDCs. For example these can be set to expire periodically do you cannot save. High resolution geolocation may be used, for example, to disable your spending apps at 5miles from your home. This is the Great Reset & the end of the long era of Free Humans. Once established I regard reversing it as impossible.
Please think carefully about what you’re going to do.
Best wishes,
Mike
Dr Mike Yeadon
The banning of cash will be check mate for freedom. Final victory for Big Brother. There is no doubt this is the goal of the Powers that Be.
That is an absolute doozy of a letter. I’ve passed it onto friends and family in RNHS.
I think my wife is likely to print it out and leave copies laying around at her clinic.
a comment about the article – how refreshing…
it is indeed an excellent letter
Professor Chris Whitty, UK government advisor, delivers a lecture at the Museum of London for Gresham College and is ridiculed on his comparison of past draconian measures exceeding those utilised in the Britain today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUyAI6u0NDs&ab_channel=ResistanceGB
24th November 2021, London.
Excellent. This is exactlty what needs to be done for every one of these creatures.
WTF has typhoid Mary got to do with sars2?
To the medical fascists she is the justification for locking down everyone because they could maybe possibly be infectious and for forcibly incarcerating anyone because of disease, injection status or just… well… because…
Thankyou for your presentations. I see patients in community ophthalmic clinics. I shouldn’t see significant vaccine complications, but I have seen 3 Bell’s Palsies, 2 CVA’s and heard of 2 deaths of patient relatives from pulmonary emboli after vaccination.One wife was told categorically that her husbands death 4 days after vaccination could not possibly have been caused by it. That is manifestly untrue without a full pathology report which was not done.
I have presented this at work and colleagues were shocked.
I also have a relative denied an examination for a ‘wart’ by her GP surgery. She has now at last had treatment for grade 3c melanoma. She is 51 with a 5y survival expectation because of this.
She has also been persuaded to have vaccines and her first booster which will have at least a short term risk of harm because of the reduction in immunity just a she starts chemotherapy.
One day we will look back in horror at what was done.
we already are.
It seems clear that medical systems and care have been weaponised, to use as a means to subjugate and control populations. We are being groomed to accept that constant medical oversight and monitoring is necessary for our survival, even though much of that medical “care” never cures anything. The sheer cost of supporting either an NHS style monolith, or profiteering of insurers, has the means of reducing each of us to a serf paying dues whilst scraping a living.
These huge organisations allied to this form of rent-taking must be disbanded and never allowed to form again. Doctors should earn a living by results: if you can’t offer something that has a good chance of working, why should we pay you? And the biggest hazard of all is the choking of independent thought and voices. A diffuse non-accountable organisation like the NHS can literally get away with murder.
Quite. It’s simply mind boggling that over £200bn is being shovelled into the NHS dumpster fire and yet many of us are struggling to even access Primary Care.
60 million population, maybe 20 million economically active? That’s £10000 a year for each worker. Take out those working for government, as we pay their wages anyway… The whole thing is grossly unaffordable, the population will be working just to support the nhs, much like everyone’s labour supported the lords and churches hundreds of years ago.
Re: Grossly unaffordable …
That’s why they have to continue to be able to print infinite amounts of money.
It’s beyond the scope of this page, but, fwiw, that’s why they manipulate “markets” for gold and silver and smear/denigrate gold “bugs” – those who believe in real money or history’s money.
Not a surprise. Our enemies are many and powerful, but they also feel uncomfortable because they have lied so much and so egregiously and they know they have got so much wrong and done so much damage that if their Big Lie were to be exposed, and public opinion turn against them, they would be in very serious trouble. They will stop at almost nothing to stop that happening. As their lies become harder to hide, expect the reaction against anyone who is fighting against them to be vicious and ruthless.
“Imagine a new birth control pill, that allowed you to get pregnant, and required you to wear a condom, and be given to your kids who weren’t sexually active nor anatomically mature – for the sake of ensuring your neighbour didn’t get pregnant. REMIND YOU OF ANYTHING?”
Dr Anthony Hinton
https://archive.fo/pg9rO
On the French island of Guadeloupe the situation is escalating.
To control the situation, Paris has ordered special forces from the RAID and the GIGN to deploy on the Island.
Gun fights are now opposing anti green pass protesters to the Gendarmerie (military police), who is also deploying armoured vehicles to destroy burning barricades.
https://t.me/s/robinmg
“Be vaccinated or die, Guadaloupian chaff!”
We know about these cases because they are relatively high profile sportsmen. If this is representative of the population in general, then the problem is far more severe than anyone is telling us.
This story line – taboo in the MSM – is probably the Achilles’ Heel of the entire BS COVID narrative. It’s the greatest point of vulnerability that would expose these people and their lies. So we can be sure these stories will continue to be ignored in the MSM.
P.S. Thanks for posting these. Such info in Reader Comment sections is about the only place the public can connect the dots.
https://aaronsiri.substack.com/p/a-majority-of-americans-are-anti
So, if you oppose a vaccine requirement, you are an anti-vaxxer. Well, an official NBC News Survey by Hart Research found that 50% of American adults opposed “requiring that everyone who is now eligible must get a COVID-19 vaccine.” It appears half of Americans are now officially anti-vaxxers.
In reality, based on the more common, colloquial use of this term, even more Americans are anti-vaxxers. According to mainstream media, if you raise questions about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines – anti-vaxxer! If you raise questions about the efficacy of this vaccine – anti-vaxxer! If you question the FDA, CDC, or White House guidance on this vaccine – anti-vaxxer! If you want pharma companies to be liable for vaccine injuries – anti-vaxxer! If you want long term placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure – anti-vaxxer! If you raise concerns about breakthrough cases – anti-vaxxer! If you think natural immunity has anything to offer without a vaccine – anti-vaxxer!!
You would assume that if the CDC was going to crush the civil and individual rights of those with natural immunity by having them expelled from school, fired from their jobs, separated from the military, and worse, the CDC would have proof of at least one instance of an unvaccinated, naturally immune individual transmitting the COVID-19 virus to another individual. If you thought this, you would be wrong.
My firm, on behalf of ICAN, asked the CDC for precisely this proof
ICAN wanted to see proof of any instance in which someone who previously had COVID-19 became reinfected with and transmitted the virus to someone else. The CDC’s incredible response is that it does not have a single document reflecting that this has ever occurred.
https://aaronsiri.substack.com/p/cdc-admits-crushing-rights-of-naturally
Interesting comment https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-false-narrative-doesnt-like-being/comments
science. https://www.jimmunol.org/content/207/10/2405.long
Results: after vaccination, 8 individuals had blood carrying lipid vesicles of spike protein (they call them exosomes). This means that the cells that took up the mRNA made lots of spike protein for weeks, and then blebbed off spike into the bloodstream to be carried in these lipid vesicles. These vesicles were still present (albeit at lower levels) four months after vaccination.
The authors found that they could inject these exosomes into mice and the mice would make antibodies to spike, as well as activate T cell immunity.
My questions after reading this article –
1) do people naturally infected make these exosomes filled with spike? The authors may answer this “yes” because they cited 3 articles (some by them) that claim these exosomes are a common feature of our immune response to respiratory viruses. I should read these other articles next.
1B) if naturally infected have these exosomes, is there a difference in what is carried in them? – for example, is it a piece of spike, all of spike, or some other contents – and are they embedded in the membrane in a similar manner? In other words, how much would this mimic our natural response?
2) is the timeframe for these exosomes to be circulating the same for vaxxed and naturally infected?
Interesting framing of matters by the writers of the original hit piece:
act as if you’ve already won (right side of history etc)
invoke class envy
invoke envy of superior minds and real excellence (equity, solidarity etc)
scapegoat a hidden internal enemy
dont engage with substantive arguments, keep things vague and suggestive.
It’s all very cliquey / mean girl / marxist.
An excellent, forensic and professional take-down of the official narrative of misrepresentation.
My only minor quibble is (perhaps necessarily, given the context) that the authors are quite restrained on the ‘vaccine’ issues, which infusions are immediately put beyond the pale by the abandonment of a proper testing regime and the ethics of medical experiment.
https://jermwarfare.com/blog/piers-robinson
When a government proudly boasts about perpetuating propaganda, it’s probably a good idea to sit upright, as Piers Robinson explained to me. Piers heads up the Organisation For Propaganda Studies and the Working Group On Syria, Propaganda, And Media, which means that he knows a lot about how governments and corporate media deceive.
WORLD’S FIRST VACCINE MURDER CASE AGAINST BILL GATES, ADAR POONAWALLA FILED IN INDIA’S HIGH COURT
“Petitioner has sought prosecution of AstraZeneca’s (Covishield) manufacturer Bill Gates, his partner Adar Poonawalla and other Government officials and leaders involved in the murder of a 23 year old man, who lost his life because of vaccination. The deceased took the Covishield vaccine by believing in the false narrative that the vaccine is completely safe and also owing to the compliance requirement set by the Railways that only double vaccinated people would be allowed to travel.”
https://indianbarassociation.in/worlds-first-vaccine-murder-case-against-bill-gates-adar-poonawalla-filed-in-indias-high-court/
Scientists reject pundits’ vaccine ‘theory’ after three footballers collapse in a weekWigan’s Charlie Wyke hospitalised while Sheriff’s Adama Traore went down clutching chest and Sheffield United’s John Fleck fell ill in games
Leading scientists have rejected speculation that the Covid vaccine is linked with recent on-field collapses of three footballers, as sporting pundits came under attack for fuelling hesitancy of the jab.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/11/25/wigan-striker-charlie-wyke-becomes-third-footballer-collapse/
The article is behind a pay wall. What do the leading scientists say is causing this spike in cardiac events among athletes? Or do they see it’s not a spike at all?
Here is a New Zealand nurse reporting what she is seeing in hospitals.
“Cardiac. Cardiac. Cardiac ….”
She asks are people blind?
This video has received only 900 views and I don’t think it was the product of New Zealand TV journalism. I haven’t seen ONE interview of an American nurse who makes the same claims (although there must be thousands who could).
So, anyway, I think it reinforces the point that nurses’ comments can be shared with wide audiences only if they conform to the narrative.
https://odysee.com/@ETKE21:8/lbry69NewZealandNurseexplainswhatshe'scurrentlyseeinginhospital:3?fbclid=IwAR2K54p5y91GIS3Out4pfXJzEMz_ExH51Wii74QGrdWTJ7ic3MpTJMBityw
Hospitals in USA and in first world countries are refusing life-saving Ivermectin treatment even with court orders. Big Pharma doing everything they can to jab us no matter what, while alternative COVID cures EXIST! There happens to be heavy censorship who are looking for these treatments. The Research Is Clear: Ivermectin Is a Safe, Effective Treatment for COVID. Get your Ivermectin today while you still can! https://ivmpharmacy.com