The Dark Side of Meritocracy

Posted on | September 28, 2008 | Comments Off

Thanks to Marion Doss for the pic.

I’m working my way through Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class at the moment. I’m finding it a little US-centric, but I can live with that given that the author is American. I’ve quoted Florida before, on the ’spiky’ nature of the flattening world we live in, adding a much-needed nuance to the over-simplistic Friedman thesis.

I’d seen many references to the Rise of the Creative Class before I finally came across it in a bookshop in San Jose. He writes persuasively about ‘….a world where the creative ethos is increasingly dominant…’ and about the shifts being caused in the labour market by the rise of the creative economy and the creative class that inhabits it.

I particularly liked his take on meritocracy. He writes:

“….meritocracy…has its dark side. Qualities that confer merit, such as technical knowledge and mental discipline, are socially acquired and cultivated. Yet those who have these qualities may easily start thinking they were born with them, or acquired them all on their own, or that others “just don’t have it.” By papering over the causes of cultural and educational advantage, meritocracy may subtly perpetuate the very prejudices it claims to renounce.”

So while the notion of meritocracy pulls many positive aspects along in its wake – the valuing of achievement, a perception of status based on more than mere wealth or birth, the utility of self-determination, and so on – its dark side must be considered too.

Our education system is, of course, a bedrock of meritocracy – or should be, at least – so when we extol, in our classrooms, the notions that underpin meritocracy in our society and culture, we should take some care to ensure that the dark side is just as recognized, and recognizable, as the bright side.

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