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<p>EricC -</p>
<p>Thanks for your thought out, coherent summary/analysis. I think
you cover the issues (as I see them) well, conflating credentials
with competence or capability (while there is a correlation,
sometimes it is negative, and in fact it is just a tiny subdomain
within a higher dimensional space). <br>
</p>
<p>My own collapse/summary of the topic is that there is a complex
tension between the instincts of the individual as organism and
the individual as a member of a
family/community/tribe/species/nation/culture/planet... <br>
</p>
<p>I have been trying to let Glen's offering of Anarcho-Syndicalism
settle in my heart/brain/soul a little more before I
"respond-from-the-hip". While I don't expect this particular
convolution of the above issues to be "an answer", it does sound
like a useful "stalking horse" to think from (closest idiom to
what I previously used "strawman" to achieve).</p>
<p>- SteveS<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/18/20 6:20 AM, Eric Charles wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">So.... delayed response to the original... based on
the longer reviews I've seen, this is partially a criticism of
meritocracy itself, but also a very strong criticism of the
neo-liberal bastardization of meritocracy. As it says in the
opening line of the review in the original post: The thing being
criticized are "pernicious assumptions" about merit. From what I
can tell, his TED talk summarizes the book well: <a
href="https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sandel_the_tyranny_of_merit"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sandel_the_tyranny_of_merit</a>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>He starts out with some discussion of moral luck, but in my
opinion not a great discussion of it. Then he moves on to
criticize a world where pieces of paper are confused for
ability. In such a world, those without the right pieces of
paper are deemed to lack merit and are told they can't have
dignity. That part is criticizing a world in which our leaders
continuously message that everyone should go to college,
encouraging a false belief that a getting a degree somehow
magically makes you successful, and encouraging the implicit
(or sometimes explicit) judgement that not getting a degree
somehow a personal failure and that getting a degree and then
not succeeding is an incoherent position to be in. The failure
of that program of thought has been huge. It is hard to
explain how many of the students I taught at Penn State
Altoona had their lives made worse by getting a degree. They
are working the same jobs they could have worked out of high
school, but with 4 years less experience, added shame and
frustration, crippling debt, and a worse relationship with
parents who can't understand why having a degree hasn't made
their kids successful. And you can't try to defend this by
hand-waving at education being virtuous in its own right, but
it won't work, because by any reasonable measure they aren't
very educated either. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Even with as right as some parts of that critique are, it
is all somehow seething with the suspect rhetoric of the
protestant work ethic. There is nothing inherently virtuous in
being exploited for your labor (in the Marxist sense of
providing profit to a capitalist), and he is somehow lumping
all "work" together in a way that obscures that. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>When all is said and done, it is an interesting argument,
but my Libertarian Goat is doing fine, thank you :- )</div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 1:28
PM <<a href="mailto:thompnickson2@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">thompnickson2@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
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0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<div class="gmail-m_6814639518191603248WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal">This should do it!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a
href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-j-sandel/the-tyranny-of-merit/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-j-sandel/the-tyranny-of-merit/</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The thesis is that “meritocracy” is
the cause of the fact that the us is now the least
socially mobile country among the western democracies.
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nick </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nicholas Thompson</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Emeritus Professor of Ethology and
Psychology</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Clark University</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a
href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a
href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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