“The Meritocracy as We Know It Mostly Works to Perpetuate the Existing Upper Class”
14th April 2013
It is possible to imagine another Times writer discussing higher education’s role as a class sorting machine. But the liberals would end the op-ed with a call for admitting more people to college, and Brooks would trail off into nostalgia for the alleged era when Ivy graduates had more noblesse oblige and the rest of the country reciprocated by respecting their authority. And maybe someone would try to argue for a “national service” program, the better to get the elite out into the world for a bit before they run it. Douthat, who has a healthy decentralist streak, seems to suggest there’s something wrong with the whole setup to begin with. Better still, he’s doing it in the paper that serves as the class in question’s community bulletin board.
Not really news, but a useful reminder.