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I'm a liberal who's been here for a while but doesn't post very frequently. I wanted to argue about the core disagreement I think I have with the prevailing political views and values on this forum. Specifically, whether this disagreement is real or just against a strawman, and if it is real, what are the best reasons why the disagreement is not serious enough to justify conclusions like "despite all their craziness, I would rather the woke have power than people with TheMotte-like views".
I think the prevailing views and values here are anti-individualistic and anti-meritocratic. To make more precise how I'm using these terms
Individualism means people should be judged based on their own personal qualities and actions instead of based on groups that people assign them membership to. Since the groups someone belongs to often give you information about their personal qualities, this needs to be made more precise as a conditional independence statement: conditional on someone's personal qualities and choices, judgements about them, their obligations, what they deserve, etc. should be independent of the groups they belong to.
Meritocracy means that positions of influence and power should be given to those best able to wield them in service of society's goals. While you can get into a lot of arguments about what society's goals should be in corner cases, for most practical decisions---who should become a doctor/lawyer, who should get research funding, who should run a company---this rounds off to two soft consideration: competence, that when someone wants to do something related to their position, they actually can, and personal virtue, that people don't use their position in ways that help themselves at the the expense of others.
The first point of argument is whether these definitions are reasonable and deserve the good connotations that "meritocracy" and "individualism" have. Therefore we should discuss what the point of these terms is and why they're considered good things:
Individualism is important for motivation---if people know that they're life outcomes are dependent only on them and their choices, then they have the strongest possible motivation for improving themselves as much as possible. Secondly, most people are happiest when they have a sense of agency and control over their lives. Individualism maximizes this control.
Meritocracy is important to make society as effective as possible in achieving its goals---this is the standard "if a surgeon is operating on you, you want to surgeon to be as competent as possible" argument.
Note that neither of these justifications are about "fairness" or anything like that (even though they line up with a many widely-held intuitions about fairness); they're both just very powerful instruments for achieving whatever terminal values society actually has at the bottom.
Now as for why I think this place does not follow these values, it might be most productive to focus on a very specific example instead of a billion arguments about racism, skilled immigration etc. A few weeks ago, J.D. Vance made a statement that citizenship in the US should be based on ancestry instead of individual choices and beliefs:
I am under the impression that most posters here who care about American politics would 99% endorse this statement, even though it's pretty strongly violating meritocracy and individualism---judging people based on what their ancestors were regardless of their own qualities and competencies. Now, in the quote the the alternative is judging based on if "you agree with progressive liberalism in 2025" for rhetorical punch, but the way it's framed, he likely would also be against the alternative of e.g, "whether you agree with 1995 tolerance and colorblindness"---otherwise the entire frame of the argument wouldn't be against deciding belonging based on personal choices.
So now the specific questions:
Does this place actually overwhelmingly support JD Vance's statement?
Is this statement actually anti-individualistic and anti-meritocratic as defined above?
Are the above interpretations of meritocracy and individualism reasonable and consistent with anti-individualism and anti-meritocracy being very bad things or are they just word games?
I disagree with your definition of Individualism, the word is usually meant to describe something more like "every man for himself." I do agree with the statement that "every man should be judged for his own capabilities and qualities." I also agree on the Meritocracy front - we should have the best people in the toughest jobs getting the biggest compensation.
I suspect JD Vance would agree with these two statements as well.
Where I disagree with you is the idea that this would apply to membership in a nation. It's really odd to me that you see the two as connected so I will try to make analogies and you tell me where you think things are dissimilar.
Membership in a family is not based on meritocracy. There aren't game shows where kids compete against each other to have the best parents. There aren't quarterly reviews of a child's grammar school progress lest it turns out a child is not good enough for their current last name and have to move down the road to join the Johnson's.
For most people, membership in their family is based on happy accidents of their parent's geographical proximity and how well they got along.
People can join a family without without genetics, too. There's adoption of young kids. There's adoption of older kids. There are people who declare themselves brothers as adults because they enjoy similar interests and look out for each other. There is marriage.
Within a family there is a hierarchy and meritocracy to an extent. Parents are usually the most competent members of the family and are rewarded with the majority of decision-making. But being a member of a family is not a measure of merit. For most people it's something that just happens to them and even if they are disabled and need extra help they usually don't run the risk of getting disowned.
A nation is like a family in this way. Membership in a nation is generally an accident of geography and family tree. There are ways of getting adopted in, but this requires agreeing to conform into the nation's culture/mindset and should be a very limited, personal, and slow process. A child can't just crawl in through your window and declare they are your child now. Adopting a child is deliberate, adopting a new citizen is also deliberate.
Within a nation, there should be merit. The best people should be governing, doctoring, etc. But I strongly disagree with any conception of American citizenship that perceives it as a reward.
It's utterly ridiculous if you take it to the logical conclusion. Every year, let's send our bottom 20th percentile to Mexico and let in their top 20th percentile! No, there just isn't a hierarchy among nations like that.
American citizenship is not a prize, is not fungible, is not tradable. American citizenship is an identity. American citizens are the group of people who elect American leaders who in turn make decisions to prioritize the well-being of American citizens over everyone else. There are smart Americans, stupid Americans, lazy Americans, hard working Americans. Our leaders represent us all. Or at least, they should.
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