The Atlantic - Latest Comments in The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Marcos El Malo — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:05:46 -0000

I was just being a smart ass/trouble maker. Sorry! I'm really trying to keep that to a minimum because I am deriving such great pleasure from reading the intelligent comments here.

For every comment that I do post, there are at least two for which I click cancel, in case anyone thinks I have poor impulse control.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

pete from baltimore — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:29:02 -0000

MR BrettL

I live in a large city.I fail to see how that makes me reject the Christian faith. With all due respect have you actually visited a city ?Or actually talked to someone who lives in a city?

One of the most disturbing trends recently is for people to act as though ones political beliefs makes them different than people who have different beliefs.

It is stupid to hate another ethnic group.But it is even stupider to make it seem like conservatives and liberals are two different ethnic groups who live totally apart from each other and are almost completly different in every respect.

i am not going to ask you to change your opinions MR BrettL .But I would like to ask you to open your mind to the possibilities that there are good and bad people in both urban and rural areas.And that believe it or not , just because i live in the city it does not mean that i somehow lack patriotism or religiouse faith.

You should ask yourself why you have to feel that people like myself are your enemy just because we live in the city.Does it make you feel better about yourself that you are fighting some sort of crusade against us" evil" city folk.

MR BrettL Despite our differences in opinion i wish you well but I would leave you with this one last thought.

Life is too short to go through it with hatred in your heart.

I do not mean this sarcasticly MR BrettL . Please take time to think about what I have said and please reread what you have written.There is way too much hatred in what you have written.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Ralph — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:30:10 -0000

Yes, I agree that might be why Douthat's sympathies lie with her. But I don't understand why he thinks she would make a good chief executive that would make it her primary job to honor, obey, and defend the Constitution.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Ralph — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:26:37 -0000

Yes, I agree "provincialism" is a better word for Palin's side of this coin; I guess "cosmopolitanism" would be the other side; I'm not sure what to call the coin. I used "class" because that was Douthat's word. It's sloppy shorthand, but makes for good copy.

I don't necessarily think Douthat is not advocating this perspective (I tried to write my post without addressing that issue). If pressed, I'd say Douthat is too smart to buy this argument -- it's inherently anti-intellectual, and Douthat's an intellectual. Perhaps he's looking for his figurehead, too.

But debating Douthat's actual sympathies misses my broader point that he's got an insight into the mind of a lot of Palin supporters, whether he buys it or not.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Lemmy Caution — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:18:25 -0000

TNC, I wouldn't argue that race in general is just one of many other symmetrical categories in all things. Race isn't just like class in how it plays out. Racism is not the same as, say, homophobia. Its texture is different, its entailments are different. Is that what you want to hear said?

But the thing is, you don't even need to have deep racism to make the populist appeal collapse. It is a less interesting element of this dynamic at play. It is not a compelling element of the explanation for why there wouldn't be a black Sarah Palin as a national political contender. Pulling my statement into a broader social context about the consequences of racism is unfair and ungrounded.

And, I would point out to you that, um, BHO is president now. Not Sarah Palin. The populists lost.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Joshua Lyle — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:30:44 -0000

Sure, there's a common usage definition of "democracy" in which lots of things that have nothing much to do with one another are included. However, I didn't say the "the typical secular democratic standard", I said "the democratic ideal". The ideal is a matter of philosophical inquiry, a matter on which our understanding may be refined over time, but not something defined or changeable by the uneducated prattle of the masses that wouldn't know the ideal of democracy if it forced them into office and then had them executed afterward for screwing it up. The claim is not just that meritocracy and democracy are different things, but that they differ in this specific way, a claim which is eminently justified in the context.

Moreover, you also implicitly discount the larger ongoing discourse as to how systems of power-allocation and decision making by vote are designed, which exists in a theoretical framework that uses the sortition standard as a key part of it's analytical and evaluative standards; the question of the legitimacy -- or raison être -- of what you call democracies still turns on matters that are in part determined by their relation to ideal standards such as sortition (e.g.: one might argue that meritocracy is good because it produces results so different than that of sortition). Hence, what you refer to as democracy is certainly unlike what I'm calling the "ideal" of democracy, but they are still related in important ways, and you can't totally break that relation without also breaking with all of that historical thought on democracy, from Aristotle through Montesquieu to the designers of the Internet Engineering Task Force (all of whom discussed, and in the later case employed, sortition), and having to do all of the philosophical heavy lifting from scratch.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Sime — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:51:41 -0000

Look, I tremble for humanity that I have to stoop to stating something so vacuous, but common practice is often non-ideal

Well you don't have to. I don't think that's the problem

You said:

Palin is the democratic selection, being as she more neatly represents what one would expect if you just picked a person at random to be president ...

So what you are saying is that picking a person at random is democratic. That only makes sense if you are talking about democracy in Athens. Democracy has changed since then, and with respect to the question at hand, fundamentally so. The concept of elections - absolutly predominant in modern democracies - is not a mere change of the "common practice". It is a fundamentally different concept. The legitimacy - I would even say the raison être - of modern democracies mainly derives from the participation of the people as voters, and not from the participation of the people as potential POTUS-lottery winners. And the ideal of democracy, consequentially, has changed too. I would say it is legitimate representation through fair elections. Hence, the democratic selection is Obama.

I completly agree with you that meritocracy and democracy are two very different things.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Joshua Lyle — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:28:26 -0000

Look, I tremble for humanity that I have to stoop to stating something so vacuous, but common practice is often non-ideal, therefore the nature of common practice is not a usually good indicator of the nature of the ideal.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Joshua Lyle — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:26:01 -0000

I proudly accept the horns of secular Satanism. Thanks for your support.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Joshua Lyle — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:22:09 -0000

I straight up reject your assumption. I'm not trying to define democracy by it's prototype, I'm specifically talking about the ideal as separate from the prototype, and how "democracy", if looked at in the context of how it has been analyzed in serious thought for the last two-and-a-half millennia, has certain substantive qualities that make it something that is different than "meritocracy", which, by construction, is is opposed to democracy (it having been defined in a work of fiction [The Rise of the Meritocracy] with the intention of describing a prototypical system that was explicitly elitist and overthrown by a democratic uprising for its hubris).

So, while the selection of Palin as the Republican candidate in actual fact was not by lot, I very clearly stated that she is "what one would expect" in the contrapositive case of looking at which of the set {Obama,Palin} is more the meritocratic selection and which the more democratic, in the specific sense of "being like that produced by sortition", which I think is more apropos to what Douthat wrote than your prosaic example.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Joshua Lyle — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:04:13 -0000

More like saying a naked pentathlete represents the Olympic ideal. Which I have said, and is true.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Sime — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:47:57 -0000

Ok. Let's assume that the term "democracy" is really best defined by regarding the Athenian prototype (which ignores 99% of all forms of democracies ever practiced).

Douthat is still wrong. Palin was picked my McCain. If that process corresponds to sortition, so does the process in which a dictator randomly picks his heir, and I guess you wouldn't call that a representation of the democratic ideal.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:22:06 -0000

BrettL,

You're banned. I don't even know why you're on this blog.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:21:11 -0000

Others voted against him for what they identified as a subtly arch attitude. And I think that's actually a more important fact in understanding this tension between democracy-qua-populism and meritocracy. Yes, race remains a category that produces membranes against mutual identification. But I consider that both less interesting and less revealing than the central conflict in democracy between choosing the admirable and the best and choosing the most typical and representative. Even in an imaginary color-blind world where a black populist could be elected by a non-black plurality, this contradiction would persist.

The fact that we don't live in that world is "less interesting" to you. The fact that that "central conflict in democracy" actually has deep roots and is intertwined with America's racial history is equally "less interesting" to you. But some of us (and maybe you, I don't know) have to raise kids with the weight of that "less interesting" conflict on their heads.

At any rate, I appreciate the clarification. I now understand where you're coming from. You don't simply think that race is an equal factor, as you originally stated, you actually think it's less revealing, less interesting, and presumably, less important factor in fulfilling the "democratic ideal." That clarifies the disagreement. We aren't talking about whether there could be a lesbian Sarah Palin, as you originally stated. We agree that there could not be. We're talking about the fact that race isn't that big of a deal.

I think the idea that having an Ivy League education is just as much a disqualifier as being black speaks for itself. Readers can weight that notion against American history, against the very history of populism that we're discussing, and reach their own conclusions. I'm willing to argue about a lot of things. At some point, we hit a wall. This really is mine.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Sime — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:19:17 -0000

That's a smart defense.

However, saying that sortition represents the democratic ideal is like saying that a naked ice hockey player represents the olympic ideal.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Guest — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:50:08 -0000

You left out the fact that Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee were born and raised in the same small town.

Oh, that and Sarah Palin’s daughter had a child out of wedlock, she is a single mom. Is that supposed to be representative of small-town values? I guess Brett must have missed that…I thought that it was in the news a few times though.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Guest — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:34:51 -0000

I guess I do. Unless you mean he is more sincere than Bill Kristol. I would agree then but being more sincere than Bill Kristol is hardly a tall order.

For someone who was born into any real wealth at all, who went to a private high school and then Harvard University and possesses a plum spot in the media, for them to talk about the “elites” as if they are not "elite" themselves…it just beyond belief to me.

Again, it just strikes me as political ideology being prized over everything, even objective professional attributes. Elites are only elites if they don’t like Sarah Palin. If you do like Sarah Palin, no matter how wealthy or influential you are, you’re in touch with mainstream America.

But again, Douthat doesn’t want to make this argument. So he offers the meritocratic vs. democratic concept.

I won’t repeat my argument all over again. I’ll just point out the way in which he frames his meritocratic vs. democratic argument. He speaks of “the ordinary citizen who takes on the elites, the up-by-your-bootstraps role embodied by politicians from Andrew Jackson down to Harry Truman”.

This is just lazy intellectualism at its finest. Let’s forget the fact that plenty of ordinary citizens, who pull themselves up from their own bootstraps and end up taking on forces that could generally...possibly be called “elite” do so in part by graduating from Ivy League institutions. Taking a good look at his statement, it’s clear that Douthat is trying to call to mind an extremely vague character.

His character is someone who was born poor in a rural setting, never had a formal education and still made their way to “the top”. Now let’s look at his examples.

Andrew Jackson was born relatively poor in a rural setting and had no formal education. But he made his way into prominence through the military. Now perhaps his military exploits did not warrant all of the fame that they received, considering it was largely this fame that fueled his way into the White House, not anything he did in his brief congressional career. But one could easily argue that he made his way to the top in a meritocratic fashion. The Battle of New Orleans may not have made an actual difference in the War of 1812 but Jackson’s success there proved his merit as a military commander.

Harry Truman was born relatively poor in a rural setting and had no formal education. But he made his way through the benevolence of a corrupt political boss named Tom Pendergast. Now I think Harry Truman was a fine if also short-lived US Senator and I think he was a good President. But no one should look to his rise in politics and say, “hey, there’s a model all aspiring citizens should aim to follow.”

Sarah Palin was not born poor but very middle class by any reasonable standard. She was born in a rural setting. But she did have a formal education. Yes, it was from the University of Northern Idaho and it was a degree in “sports journalism”, whatever the hell that is. But it still is an authentic degree from an accredited school. That’s more than Jackson or Truman ever got and it’s more than over 70% of Americans get. To many people in Alaska and throughout America, the lifestyle that Governor Sarah Palin and her family live is very elite. And her spot as the Vice-Presidential nominee was little more than blind, dumb luck.

Is the argument that Douthat is trying to make is that only by attending an Ivy League University can you be called “an elite” or said to fulfill a Meritocratic (but never a Democratic) ideal? Mr. Coates, you yourself said “The problem is this notion that by merely not attending an Ivy, you somehow automatically fulfill the "democratic ideal." It's true Americans respect people who make it in the world without coming from an elite background. But the idea that the only real marker of that background is a college acceptance letter is reductive.” Quite right.

Now I would suppose one could find a big-shot Politician or world leader that better fits with Douthat’s model. But would that model, if it does exist in real life, say something good about America or something bad? Not just a person who made it big without a wealthy upbringing or a fancy education but someone who did never to anything to warrant success at all. As you say Mr. Coates, “Most Americans believe everyone, no matter their background, has the right to compete. Very few believe everyone, no matter their suckage, has the right to win.” Again, I agree totally.

Douthat has the right to make any argument he wants. But a good argument, in written form, shouldn’t be harder to understand than interpretive dance. And he shouldn’t expect any reader, gentile or otherwise, to come up with better examples to support an argument that he himself made, in an attempt to be fair.

I will say this. If I actually suspend my disbelief and trust that Douthat is sincere in putting forth his Democratic vs. Meritocratic dynamic…then race becomes key. Then his whole argument seems like an attempt to subconsciously cover over inherent racism. It’s the perfect case of, as others have said, moving the goalposts. As if no matter how admirable a black person’s success is, it’s not as admirable as what at least one type of white person could do.

Whether Douthat is to some degree, either racist, insincere or both, is not a determination I personally have a great stake in. I don’t regularly read his columns. But I still vote for a degree of insincerity, far more than any degree of racism. His argument doesn’t make sense. Generally when people don’t make sense like this, they are lying.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Lemmy Caution — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:52:18 -0000

Erick gets it (and, importantly, also gets that populism works locally, often to disastrous effect.) One might argue, too, that Marion Barry exemplifies the "democratic ideal."

TNC, the original comparison was made with a black guy, BHO. But it was also made with an Ivy-educated, peer-reviewed, cosmopolitan, world-travelling Democrat with a compelling resume. Those things, too, would negate a BHO-as-populist-hero, and those were clearly more at stake. All that says is that there's still a white plurality in Alaska and the US. Quelle surprise.

I didn't vote for "the black guy." I voted for the egghead. I was aware of the "historical moment" involved, it wasn't a matter of being color-blind or oblivious to it, but essentially most of the people who voted for BHO felt that he was different from themselves, and mostly in a way they'd call better than themselves. (He's certainly a lot more accomplished than I am likely to ever become; I wouldn't say the same for Palin and her ilk. I consider her political career a fluke.)

Others voted against him for what they identified as a subtly arch attitude. And I think that's actually a more important fact in understanding this tension between democracy-qua-populism and meritocracy. Yes, race remains a category that produces membranes against mutual identification. But I consider that both less interesting and less revealing than the central conflict in democracy between choosing the admirable and the best and choosing the most typical and representative. Even in an imaginary color-blind world where a black populist could be elected by a non-black plurality, this contradiction would persist.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

eric k — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:10:19 -0000

So much nonsense in one post I don;t even know where to start, since I'm sure you will soon be banned anyway I won't bother being polite.

Rejected the protestant work ethic? WTF does that even mean? Do you think we are all day traders flipping stocks to make quick bucks? You know most of us in the cities have jobs that we go to and work at all day in exchange for a paycheck, just like you.

It is this attitude that your values are superior to mine that makes your brand of populism so vile. I try real hard to not be an elitist snob who looks down on social conservatives and then jerks like you keep coming along to reinforce all the cartoon stereotypes.

Let me put it bluntly asshole, their are tens of millions of us who live in cities, we work hard and take care of our families. We also respect gay people and believe they have the same rights to share their lives with the one they love that we do. You call that wrecking the institution of marriage, that argument is so absurd it isn't worth engaging.

As for the rest of your rants and regurgitated 1970s stereotypes all I have to say is get out and see the world my friend, the divorce rate is way higher in rural and exurban red areas than in cities. So is teen pregnancy. And you might read up on Welfare reform, remember Clinton passing that in the 90s? Good lord have you been to a city in the last 30 years? None of them are Times Square circa 1975 anymore.

Oh and by the way you give away a lot of your biases by lumping Andrew Sullivan with Frank Rich, you may consider Sullivan a vile urban liberal since he is gay, but you might be surprised to find that he is pretty right wing on economics and probably shares most of your misinformed views about welfare and so on and is basically the polar opposite of Frank Rich on most issues.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

gwangung — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:08:37 -0000

We see our values of family, faith, and industry as far superior to those being embraced by Frank Rich, Andrew Sullivan and their ilk.

This is an argument by assertion that does not prove its point and ignores the vast problems of racism, poverty and generations of hopelessness in these "smaller communities," who tend to honor their values in breach.

"Urbanites", at least, do not sweep the problem under the rug.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

BrettL — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:39:10 -0000

Whether it is Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin, a large portion of this nation is looking for someone who will carry the banner for social conservatives. Many of these live in or were reared in smaller communities. We see our values of family, faith, and industry as far superior to those being embraced by Frank Rich, Andrew Sullivan and their ilk.

We are disgusted by...

Urbanites who have

lauded greed and corruption

wrecked our financial markets.

undercut and mocked the institution of marriage and left us with cities full of single moms and disadvantaged children.

replaced personal charity and generosity with taxation.

rejected the protestant work ethic.

created a welfare system that is now generational.

made racial division a game that politicians play for selfish ends.

created inferior schools and wasteful social programs that do not accomplish what they promise.

regularly rejected faith and replaced it with a compulsive cynicism.

Palin is a poor choice, but most any choice is better than celebrating or electing those who represent the horribly failed ideologies and policies of urban america. Obama has yet to do one thing to make America a better nation. He is doing all the things that the urbanists think will make the nation better, but the policies that have failed in the microlabs of our cities seem destined to fail on the macro level as well. Until his policies actually bring some real benefit to our failing nation, I'll wait to celebrate his presidency. It would be good if our press would wait to worship as well.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

irishpirate — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:16:52 -0000

Marcos,

I think what I likely meant was two Sarah Palin's would be unspeakable. White or black or yellow or green or any other color or ethnic background wouldn't matter. Would black Sarah Palin be more annoying that white Sarah Palin.........I hope never to find out.

I think it's possible to read too much into a statement. Particularly a statement that is a quick "comment" on a blog. If I were writing a column I might have "caught" the possible implication you saw.

Stupidity doesn't bother me as I think we all have our moments of it.

Proud stupidity does bother me.

Willful ignorance bothers me; although, in fairness since most of us don't strive to be elected officials willful ignorance is likely not that dangerous in most of us.

I seek three qualities in a political leader.

1. Relative honesty.

2. Intellectual curiosity. You don't have to be a genius to be an effective leader, but you do have to be "curious". Harry Truman is an example of someone who was extremely well versed in history. I''ll take that over a high IQ and "incuriousness" any day.

3. Comfort in oneself. People who have "demons" tend to make lousy leaders.

FDR was said to have a second rate mind and a first rate personality. I'll take that over the opposite.

The problem with Palin, among many, is that she is dishonest, intellectually lazy, and extremely resentful of others. Outside that she would make a great President to harken in the end times.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:09:26 -0000

My point is that the "if BHO were white" thought-experiment would leave someone who tempermentally could never play that populist role. And race is by no means the only reason.

This seems like a really obvious point, and I'm not sure what it's actually an argument against. I don't know where I wrote that race was "the only reason." I don't think anyone would seriously argue that there could be a gay Sarah Palin, for instance. Again, the reason I pointed to race--as in race is key--is because the comparison was made with a black guy. I guess I could have talked about the problems of a Jewish Sarah Palin....

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

nolo93 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:44:51 -0000

Lemmy, you make a very good point. I think it's tangential to whatever Douthat was trying to say, which (if I understand it correctly) is that people who didn't come from the right schools get punished in the political realm by people who did. It's a silly point, I think, especially because the people who get voted into office don't get voted in by the Ivy cabal (though I appreciate how certain cabals can provide some of the support one needs to succeed as a political candidate). They get voted in by all those people who didn't go to either Ivy or state schools. And those people don't care about the chips that state school grads may have on their shoulders about their job opportunities vis a vis the Ivy grads. They don't.

Re: The Democratic Vs. The Meritocratic

eric k — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:42:40 -0000

I gotta go with Lemmy on this one and I'll take it further. I think he understands Douhat's argument even better than Douhat does himself.

What Lemmy has correctly identified is that Douhat's Democratic vs Meritocratic is really a just a restatement of the classic Populist vs Intellectual divide that has been present in American politics pretty much since day 1.

A black could never win as a populist because the populist appeal is based on tribal identification - so a black populist can win say a Congressional seat in a majority black district, but not a statewide office. That is why there couldn't be a black Sarah Palin, but there could easily be a white Barack Obama, in fact there have been several of them.

What the republicans don't realize is that a white populist in the Sarah Palin mode can't win either, the demographics don't work anymore.