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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
challenging
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Adam Curtis has made an excellent series of documentaries, including 'The Century of Self' and 'All Watched Over by Machines of Love and Grace', which deconstruct the Objectivist point of view, heavily championed by the likes of Ayn Rand, which places the needs of the sovereign individual above those of society. Curtis made the argument that, while we have all been granted our personal liberty, nothing has been offered to us to replace the sense of collective belonging and community that gave us purpose. We all now live we no sense of shared identity or vision.
Rather than discussing that loss of Common Good, this book takes a different track in focussing not on the common good of society, but on the inequalities of a system that we’ve been led to believe is fairer than it really is. I was a bit disappointed by this because the subline 'What's Become of the Common Good?' led me to hope I might find something more positively engaged in the communitarian argument.
Sandel reviews the modern myth that we live in a meritocratic state, arguing that the problem with the meritocracy narrative is that it makes it easy for conservative philosophers (such as Thomas Sowell in ‘Discrimination and Disparities’) to argue that it’s perfectly OK to have poor sections of society, because mobility means everyone will all have the opportunity to work their way up. I must admit that my own lived experience has done quite a lot to leave me with this convenient assumption, which I’m now rethinking. I would suggest that my saving grace is that I’ve never lost track of just how bloody lucky I am to have a ‘successful’ life without the benefit of family wealth or a college / university degree.
Much like [b:The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics|32446555|The Road to Somewhere The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics|David Goodhart|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1475829312l/32446555._SY75_.jpg|53033116] by David Goodheart and ‘[b:Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class|54883507|Despised Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class|Paul Embery|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600676619l/54883507._SY75_.jpg|85644163] by Paul Embery, Sandel makes a great job of defining the underlying prejudices that the educated have regarding the lower orders. In particular, Sandel makes an apt reference to the fact that, in an era of inclusivity and sensitivity, it’s still perfectly acceptable to sneer and deride working class men as buffoons and racist idiots. To be fair, this point has been made many times since George Orwell first mentioned it in ‘[b:The Road to Wigan Pier|30553|The Road to Wigan Pier|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414451091l/30553._SY75_.jpg|1034643], but it is especially well made in this book.
Although reasonably geo-balanced in many cases, for a book aimed at an international market, this is still very heavily slanted towards an American readership. There are references to Brexit and New Labour (when it helps to illustrate a point), but in the chapter discussing America’s manifest destiny to succeed based on “Great because Good” arguments, Sandel missed an opportunity to discuss the Divine Right of the British Monarchy to rule as God’s representative on Earth. It was this arrogance of divine majesty that led to much of Britain’s shameful colonial exploits (as well as other more recent examples in other parts of the world).
Sandel makes important points about America’s College system that means having a ‘good’ degree from a ‘good’ university is absolutely crucial for a commercially affluent lifestyle. This point is made more salient by his discussion of just how rigged the admissions system is. He does mention that the situation is better in Europe, but I would have liked him to consider some of the ways in which it is worse. Higher level education in the UK is now a massive sausage-machine which saddles every student with enormous levels of debt (same fees for every UK university) for the sake of for-profit companies. At the end of their degree courses, most students end up in mundane jobs that never required graduate qualifications in the first place. Since the mainstreaming of British college education (in 2007) The key signifiers of later-life wealth in the UK are:
1) The right subject of degree (In finance or law, for example) and
2) Having wealthy family support to undertake an unpaid internship in central London.
In a final section of the book, the author discusses methods which could be used to help make society fairer. It’s in this section that I encountered one of the few arguments that I disagreed with. There is a suggestion that if somebody makes their way through life through talent, they should remember that talent is an inherited trait. Likewise, if somebody rises through hard work, they should remember that it’s only good fortune that enabled them to develop a work ethic. To my way of thinking, this thought process would lead to a total abdication of responsibility for just about anything, in which somebody could be free to say “it’s not my fault I can’t be bothered to get up and go to work every day – I had bad parenting.” That said, I completely “get it” about remembering to be grateful for your status in life.
Two examples which I feel help to illustrate that point about gratitude for success are:
1) an experiment by psychologists at the University of California, in which pairs of strangers to played a rigged Monopoly game where a coin flip designated one player rich and one poor. The rich players received twice as much money as their opponent to begin with, and received considerably more money for passing “Go”. When the ‘Rich’ players won, they generally still responded in interviews that they believed their success had been down to wiser strategy and better tactics.
2) At the University of Los Angelis, social psychologist Prof Paul Piff conducted experiments and surveys which concluded that drivers of prestige vehicles were far less likely to stop at pedestrian crossings, demonstrating an increased lack of empathy for those in a lower status.
Finally (phew!) I’m all in favour (as Sandel suggests) of taxing reckless investment and ‘gaming’ on credit for difference engines. In the UK this idea was presented in 2010 as the “Robin Hood Tax” (it still hasn’t got any traction) , but we should remain mindful that the safety net provided to LLC corporations has led to most of the risky developments that we now take for granted. Each commercial venture is a gamble, and without a protective mechanism for a company’s riskier investments, there would be no i-Phone, no low carbon technology and no modern medicine.
Rather than discussing that loss of Common Good, this book takes a different track in focussing not on the common good of society, but on the inequalities of a system that we’ve been led to believe is fairer than it really is. I was a bit disappointed by this because the subline 'What's Become of the Common Good?' led me to hope I might find something more positively engaged in the communitarian argument.
Sandel reviews the modern myth that we live in a meritocratic state, arguing that the problem with the meritocracy narrative is that it makes it easy for conservative philosophers (such as Thomas Sowell in ‘Discrimination and Disparities’) to argue that it’s perfectly OK to have poor sections of society, because mobility means everyone will all have the opportunity to work their way up. I must admit that my own lived experience has done quite a lot to leave me with this convenient assumption, which I’m now rethinking. I would suggest that my saving grace is that I’ve never lost track of just how bloody lucky I am to have a ‘successful’ life without the benefit of family wealth or a college / university degree.
Much like [b:The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics|32446555|The Road to Somewhere The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics|David Goodhart|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1475829312l/32446555._SY75_.jpg|53033116] by David Goodheart and ‘[b:Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class|54883507|Despised Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class|Paul Embery|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600676619l/54883507._SY75_.jpg|85644163] by Paul Embery, Sandel makes a great job of defining the underlying prejudices that the educated have regarding the lower orders. In particular, Sandel makes an apt reference to the fact that, in an era of inclusivity and sensitivity, it’s still perfectly acceptable to sneer and deride working class men as buffoons and racist idiots. To be fair, this point has been made many times since George Orwell first mentioned it in ‘[b:The Road to Wigan Pier|30553|The Road to Wigan Pier|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414451091l/30553._SY75_.jpg|1034643], but it is especially well made in this book.
Although reasonably geo-balanced in many cases, for a book aimed at an international market, this is still very heavily slanted towards an American readership. There are references to Brexit and New Labour (when it helps to illustrate a point), but in the chapter discussing America’s manifest destiny to succeed based on “Great because Good” arguments, Sandel missed an opportunity to discuss the Divine Right of the British Monarchy to rule as God’s representative on Earth. It was this arrogance of divine majesty that led to much of Britain’s shameful colonial exploits (as well as other more recent examples in other parts of the world).
Sandel makes important points about America’s College system that means having a ‘good’ degree from a ‘good’ university is absolutely crucial for a commercially affluent lifestyle. This point is made more salient by his discussion of just how rigged the admissions system is. He does mention that the situation is better in Europe, but I would have liked him to consider some of the ways in which it is worse. Higher level education in the UK is now a massive sausage-machine which saddles every student with enormous levels of debt (same fees for every UK university) for the sake of for-profit companies. At the end of their degree courses, most students end up in mundane jobs that never required graduate qualifications in the first place. Since the mainstreaming of British college education (in 2007) The key signifiers of later-life wealth in the UK are:
1) The right subject of degree (In finance or law, for example) and
2) Having wealthy family support to undertake an unpaid internship in central London.
In a final section of the book, the author discusses methods which could be used to help make society fairer. It’s in this section that I encountered one of the few arguments that I disagreed with. There is a suggestion that if somebody makes their way through life through talent, they should remember that talent is an inherited trait. Likewise, if somebody rises through hard work, they should remember that it’s only good fortune that enabled them to develop a work ethic. To my way of thinking, this thought process would lead to a total abdication of responsibility for just about anything, in which somebody could be free to say “it’s not my fault I can’t be bothered to get up and go to work every day – I had bad parenting.” That said, I completely “get it” about remembering to be grateful for your status in life.
Two examples which I feel help to illustrate that point about gratitude for success are:
1) an experiment by psychologists at the University of California, in which pairs of strangers to played a rigged Monopoly game where a coin flip designated one player rich and one poor. The rich players received twice as much money as their opponent to begin with, and received considerably more money for passing “Go”. When the ‘Rich’ players won, they generally still responded in interviews that they believed their success had been down to wiser strategy and better tactics.
2) At the University of Los Angelis, social psychologist Prof Paul Piff conducted experiments and surveys which concluded that drivers of prestige vehicles were far less likely to stop at pedestrian crossings, demonstrating an increased lack of empathy for those in a lower status.
Finally (phew!) I’m all in favour (as Sandel suggests) of taxing reckless investment and ‘gaming’ on credit for difference engines. In the UK this idea was presented in 2010 as the “Robin Hood Tax” (it still hasn’t got any traction) , but we should remain mindful that the safety net provided to LLC corporations has led to most of the risky developments that we now take for granted. Each commercial venture is a gamble, and without a protective mechanism for a company’s riskier investments, there would be no i-Phone, no low carbon technology and no modern medicine.
"The technocratic faith in markets set the stage for populist discontent. The market-driven version of globalization brought growing inequality. It also devalued national identities and allegiances. As goods and capital flowed freely across national borders, those who stood astride the global economy valorized cosmopolitan identities as a progressive enlightened alternative to the narrow, parochial ways of protectionism, tribalism, and conflict. The real political divide, they argued, was no longer left versus right but open versus closed. This implied that critics of outsourcing, free-trade agreements, and unrestricted capital flows were closed-minded rather than open-minded, tribal rather than global."
"To reinvigorate democratic politics, we need to find our way to a morally more robust public discourse, one that takes seriously the corrosive effect of meritocratic thriving on the social bonds that constitute our normal life."
"The Calvinist doctrine of predestination, combined with the idea that the elect must prove their election through work in a calling, leads to the notion that worldly success is a good indication of who is destined for salvation…this confers divine sanction on the division of labor and supports a ‘providential interpretation of the economic order….The humility prompted by helplessness in the face of grace gives way to the hubris prompted by belief in one’s own merit…In the end, merit drove out grace. The ethic of mastery and self-making overwhelmed the ethic of gratitude and humility. Working and striving became imperative of their own, detached from
calvinist notions of predestination and the anxious search for a sign of salvation."
"One of the casualties of meritocracy’s triumph may be the loss of broad public support for higher education. Once widely seen as an engine of opportunity, the university has become, at least for some, a symbol of credentialist privilege and meritocratic hubris."
"Foroohar argues that the primary takers in today’s economy are those in the financial industry who engage in speculative activity that reaps enormous windfalls without contributing to the real economy."
"Higher education has become a sorting machine that promises mobility on the basis of merit but entrenches privilege and promotes attitudes toward success corrosive of the commonality democracy require."
"Wages and salaries are not awards for good character or worthy achievement but simply payments that reflect the economic value of the goods and services market participants have to offer."
"The meritocratic ideal is not a remedy for inequality; it is justification of inequality."
"One way of framing the globalization debate casts the ‘highly skilled, college-educated winners of the modern economy’ as open-minded and their critics as closed-minded, as if questioning the free flow of goods, capital, and people across national borders were a kind of bigotry. It is hard to imagine a more condescending way of defending neoliberal globalization to those it leaves behind."
An aside of powerful men enumerating their ‘wits’:
“I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect. I went to law school on a full academic scholarship—the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship…and in fact ended up in the top half of my class. I was the outstanding student in the political science department at the end of my year. I graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school and 165 credits—only needed 123 credits—and I’d be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours." (Joe Biden)
“I was at the top of my class academically, busted my butt in school. Captain of the varsity basketball team. Got in Yale College. When I got into Yale College, got into Yale Law School…That’s the number one law school in the country. I had no connections there. I got there by busting my tail in school.” (Brett Kavanaugh)
“Now, you know, I was a good student. I always hear about the elite. You know, the elite—they’re elite? I went to better schools than they did. I was a better student than they were. I live in a bigger, more beautiful apartment. And I live in the White House, too, which is really great.” (Trump)
"To reinvigorate democratic politics, we need to find our way to a morally more robust public discourse, one that takes seriously the corrosive effect of meritocratic thriving on the social bonds that constitute our normal life."
"The Calvinist doctrine of predestination, combined with the idea that the elect must prove their election through work in a calling, leads to the notion that worldly success is a good indication of who is destined for salvation…this confers divine sanction on the division of labor and supports a ‘providential interpretation of the economic order….The humility prompted by helplessness in the face of grace gives way to the hubris prompted by belief in one’s own merit…In the end, merit drove out grace. The ethic of mastery and self-making overwhelmed the ethic of gratitude and humility. Working and striving became imperative of their own, detached from
calvinist notions of predestination and the anxious search for a sign of salvation."
"One of the casualties of meritocracy’s triumph may be the loss of broad public support for higher education. Once widely seen as an engine of opportunity, the university has become, at least for some, a symbol of credentialist privilege and meritocratic hubris."
"Foroohar argues that the primary takers in today’s economy are those in the financial industry who engage in speculative activity that reaps enormous windfalls without contributing to the real economy."
"Higher education has become a sorting machine that promises mobility on the basis of merit but entrenches privilege and promotes attitudes toward success corrosive of the commonality democracy require."
"Wages and salaries are not awards for good character or worthy achievement but simply payments that reflect the economic value of the goods and services market participants have to offer."
"The meritocratic ideal is not a remedy for inequality; it is justification of inequality."
"One way of framing the globalization debate casts the ‘highly skilled, college-educated winners of the modern economy’ as open-minded and their critics as closed-minded, as if questioning the free flow of goods, capital, and people across national borders were a kind of bigotry. It is hard to imagine a more condescending way of defending neoliberal globalization to those it leaves behind."
An aside of powerful men enumerating their ‘wits’:
“I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect. I went to law school on a full academic scholarship—the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship…and in fact ended up in the top half of my class. I was the outstanding student in the political science department at the end of my year. I graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school and 165 credits—only needed 123 credits—and I’d be delighted to sit down and compare my IQ to yours." (Joe Biden)
“I was at the top of my class academically, busted my butt in school. Captain of the varsity basketball team. Got in Yale College. When I got into Yale College, got into Yale Law School…That’s the number one law school in the country. I had no connections there. I got there by busting my tail in school.” (Brett Kavanaugh)
“Now, you know, I was a good student. I always hear about the elite. You know, the elite—they’re elite? I went to better schools than they did. I was a better student than they were. I live in a bigger, more beautiful apartment. And I live in the White House, too, which is really great.” (Trump)
to me this was REVOLUTIONARY. Until I read this I believed that meritocracy was the ultimate fair way to distribute opportunity. (I still believe that jobs/school places etc should go to the best qualified people, that makes sense and is most efficient.) BUT this book raises a wider philosophical problem. Do we deserve our talents?
Of course meritocratic systems that exist are imperfect and this is a problem. The single best predictor for a student’s performance on the SAT is their parents’ income. But the second part of the problem is the meritocratic ideal itself. Perhaps all the mythologising about social mobility and getting what you deserve is actually demoralising - Sandel argues that we attach a moral value to success and failure under a meritocratic system, where those who succeed believe they did it off of their own back (and forget all the help they received), and those who still do not manage to achieve great things feel like personal failures for not trying hard enough. Meritocracy says that the failure to achieve is not a failure of the system, it is a failure of you. It is a justification of inequality (not a solution), that would reconfigure inequality to align with ability. But why should people who are naturally intelligent and skilled be better off than anyone else? There is a genetic lottery at play here. Some people are suited to the education system etc and some people really are not. Who is to say that one group is morally superior to the other and deserves material success?
Ultimately, the solution must lie in a "broad equality of condition", as Sandel puts it. Everyone must be able to live in dignity regardless of ability, and only then is there space for meritocracy to work in any morally acceptable way. People should be rewarded for hard work, yes, but a decent quality of life should not be hinged on one's abilities. The only criticism I could offer for the book itself is that it gets quite repetitive which is a bit bizarre. I felt like I was having the central thesis drummed into me. But Sandel is a brilliant mind and it is an important idea.
Of course meritocratic systems that exist are imperfect and this is a problem. The single best predictor for a student’s performance on the SAT is their parents’ income. But the second part of the problem is the meritocratic ideal itself. Perhaps all the mythologising about social mobility and getting what you deserve is actually demoralising - Sandel argues that we attach a moral value to success and failure under a meritocratic system, where those who succeed believe they did it off of their own back (and forget all the help they received), and those who still do not manage to achieve great things feel like personal failures for not trying hard enough. Meritocracy says that the failure to achieve is not a failure of the system, it is a failure of you. It is a justification of inequality (not a solution), that would reconfigure inequality to align with ability. But why should people who are naturally intelligent and skilled be better off than anyone else? There is a genetic lottery at play here. Some people are suited to the education system etc and some people really are not. Who is to say that one group is morally superior to the other and deserves material success?
Ultimately, the solution must lie in a "broad equality of condition", as Sandel puts it. Everyone must be able to live in dignity regardless of ability, and only then is there space for meritocracy to work in any morally acceptable way. People should be rewarded for hard work, yes, but a decent quality of life should not be hinged on one's abilities. The only criticism I could offer for the book itself is that it gets quite repetitive which is a bit bizarre. I felt like I was having the central thesis drummed into me. But Sandel is a brilliant mind and it is an important idea.
informative
reflective
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
medium-paced
I read this book for Ethics class in the master's and wrote a whole paper about it, so I will give some condensed/random thoughts here.
Learned: The book's main thesis is that meritocracy is not the shit everyone makes it out to be and although I don't really agree with him, I liked that the book challenged me to really question meritocracy (and then come to the conclusion.... there is no alternative.... I think it is worth striving for). The book also made me reminded me how fooked up some things in the US are (glorification of elite universities and all the negative social impacts this has, the over-representation of the wealthy in said elite universities, lack of investment in technical colleges, how much more CEOs make than the avg worker in the US) and how important public institutions and the welfare state are (public universities are more socio-economically diverse and lead to greater social mobility).
Lacked: The thesis of my paper was that 1) the book was incredibly US-centric without ever acknowledging it and 2) the problems he describes are less symptoms of meritocracy and more symptoms of neoliberalism and individualism (both of which are strongly present in the US). I also had interesting convos with Jesus and Adriana about this book, who argue that the social strife that Sandel claims to be because people at the bottom feel (/are told) that they "deserve" their social standing is total BS. They argued that this is not a new phenomenon at all (see below).
Follow-up questions: Toqueville and his observations on social mobility and contested societies? More social mobility means ppl are constantly confronted with what they DON'T have which leads to more contestedness? How does neoliberalism interact with this phenomenon?
Learned: The book's main thesis is that meritocracy is not the shit everyone makes it out to be and although I don't really agree with him, I liked that the book challenged me to really question meritocracy (and then come to the conclusion.... there is no alternative.... I think it is worth striving for). The book also made me reminded me how fooked up some things in the US are (glorification of elite universities and all the negative social impacts this has, the over-representation of the wealthy in said elite universities, lack of investment in technical colleges, how much more CEOs make than the avg worker in the US) and how important public institutions and the welfare state are (public universities are more socio-economically diverse and lead to greater social mobility).
Lacked: The thesis of my paper was that 1) the book was incredibly US-centric without ever acknowledging it and 2) the problems he describes are less symptoms of meritocracy and more symptoms of neoliberalism and individualism (both of which are strongly present in the US). I also had interesting convos with Jesus and Adriana about this book, who argue that the social strife that Sandel claims to be because people at the bottom feel (/are told) that they "deserve" their social standing is total BS. They argued that this is not a new phenomenon at all (see below).
Follow-up questions: Toqueville and his observations on social mobility and contested societies? More social mobility means ppl are constantly confronted with what they DON'T have which leads to more contestedness? How does neoliberalism interact with this phenomenon?
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced