Questions of Competence
29th June 2023
ZMan says the quiet part out loud.
The crisis of competence has been a popular topic in dissident circles but largely ignored by mainstream politics. Human intelligence is a dangerous subject in this increasingly primitive time because it points to immutable differences in human beings, which contradicts the new religion. If who we are is determined by our genes, then many of the popular social fads are invalid. This makes discussing the declining competency of Western societies difficult.
Even so, the reality of the situation is hard to ignore, and we are seeing more mainstream writers notice the topic. Here is a post in the Claremont Review of Books discussing one cause of the decline. While the article focuses on how civil rights theology has warped the law, this warping of the legal system is having a deleterious impact on society by reducing competence to happy accident. When vague notions of social justice are primary, competence is an afterthought.
The most recent Budweiser panic is a good example. The ethic inside the company was built around notions of representation and equitable outcomes. These magic phrases did not spring from nothing. They are rooted in the same civil rights theology as the legal mechanism that enforce diversity quotas. It is a straight line from expecting equal outcomes to thinking you need to market cheap beer to crossdressers in order to make sure everyone is represented in your marketing.