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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   28513 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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Prior to the modern age, there was a fundamental disconnect between the classes. A nobleman was better than a commoner. He wasn't necessarily smarter, or better looking, or more talented. He was better as a condition of his birth and nothing could change that.

Now we live in a meritocracy and things are much more brutal. Nowadays, the rich are actually much smarter and better looking and more talented than the poor. They studied hard, got into an Ivy, and then got the big job at the bulge bracket bank. Do you suck? It's not because you were born poor, it's because you actually suck. That's a bitter pill to swallow.

This was the general position Osnabrückish jurist Justus Möser argued — or, perhaps better to say predicted — in his "No Promotion According to Merit," circa 1770. It's a point also made by a number of subsequent thinkers, as outlined by Jeremy Beer here. (Though he omits one of the most notable of all, Michael Young, who popularized the word "meritocracy.")

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