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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   15629 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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Explicit meritocracy’s emphasis on grinding, explicit competition and credentialism does not seem to produce maximally good results.

I think this is key. As I see it, most successful societies historically either had open aristocracies (a small number of exceptionally able outsiders could get in, often by marrying into aristocratic families) or enarchies (my coinage based on the French ENA - the point is that you select down to an aristocracy-sized elite by a single high-stakes exam which is more heavily g-loaded than the modern American meritocratic grind).

"Being from an aristocratic family" is sufficiently g-loaded to select a plausible class of potential elites if the aristocracy is open and not inbred. In the alternative patronage system, so is "sufficiently interesting to attract a patron", providing that patrons actually have to patronise their proteges rather than just writing a note in exchange for a favour from the proteges father (see for example the role of patronage in the Royal Navy when it was the winningest organisation in human history).

I may do an efforpost later on the broader advantages of this approach.

you select down to an aristocracy-sized elite by a single high-stakes exam which is more heavily g-loaded than the modern American meritocratic grind

How do you prevent the preparation for this exam from turning into a decade long grind? Most exams like that (including the French ENA entrance exam and stuff like the International Math Olympiad) effectively are.

I may do an efforpost later on the broader advantages of this approach.

I, for one, would like to read that effortpost, should you write it.

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