Sean Illing's Essay 'Meritocracy Is So Pernicious'

In the current state of America, several issues such as race, gender, sexual orientation and upward mobility are still relevent concerns. The Horatio Alger Myth of being able to move upward on merit and hard work alone is an ideology of the 1950's that clings to the coattails of America's lower class even today. Though the thought of moving upwards in society is hopeful, it is not always plausible. The barriers seperating people in the lower class and upper middle class is growing. What is needed is the Redefinition of upward mobility for pleople of lower income. The Horatio Alger Myth is still just a myth for most, when it needs to become a reality.

Ever since a young age, the youth of the United States are taught that they must strive to be the best they can be. This would ultimately result in one possessing a competitive edge, once one enters the selection process of joining one of many higher institutions of education or the job market. In the essays “Project Classroom Makeover,” “Biographies of Hegemony,” and “Rent Seeking and the Making of an Unequal Society,” respectfully by, Cathy Davidson, Karen Ho, and Joseph Stiglitz, the topic of competitive behaviors and practices is widely addressed and heavily criticized. Education is competitive, yet bias. Institutions of higher education value students based irrelevant factors, something which is unacceptable in the modern, digital age. This heavily impacts the selection process of candidates, leading the system to favor unqualified individuals. Prevalent business superpowers, many residing in Wall Street, pick low hanging fruit. In other words, these firms take very minimal effort to choose candidates in positions that are extremely competitive and valuable. They recruit individuals who graduate from top schools and have no other realistic edge for the company, aside from namesake. Woven into these practices, many examples of uncompetitive behavior arise as well from other factors of the system. In this essay, I argue that competitive and uncompetitive behaviors have molded modern America, with massive organizations and authorities playing into these behaviors from all

In The Merits of Meritocracy, by David Brooks, Brooks discusses the lives of middle-class children growing up in America. He opens up with an anecdote about his daughter, to lead into one of his main points: middle-class children have busy and protected childhood, filled with many opportunities supervised by adults (193). For instance, his daughter has four different helmets for biking, pogo sticking, skateboarding, and playing baseball (193). She is a prime example of how the middle-class is presented with opportunities and busy lives; because of this, Brooks claims the general middle-class parent fears their child is too spoiled by abundance, and will never have to commit to one thing (194). Another large fear Brooks states they have, is

In the reading “The College Dropout Boom,” the author, David Leonhardt, describes the college admissions system as being ruthlessly meritocratic. When looking at the word meritocratic, one can visualize it as the construction of two parts: the word merit and the suffix “-ocracy”. The word merit can be defined as the deserving of reward for past actions and the suffix “-ocracy” is understood as a form of governing body. Therefore, meritocracy without context means a form of governing body which rewards deserving individuals based upon their past actions. From this definition, it is quite obvious why David Leonhardt used the word meritocracy to describe the college admissions system. According to Leonhardt, students are admitted into college

The controversy between the two ideologies has been around for many years and continues to exist today.

Unit 1 Assessment Transformation is a dramatic change in form that signals excitement, momentum and opportunity for something to go wrong. My house went through transformation that was terrifying and shocking to my family. The night after Christmas and our house caught on fire. There are many stories meant to scare us, but how did they use transformation to elicit fear in the reader?

This country’s education system was built on the back of meritocracy and was created to function as an objective measure of a child’s performance and their intelligence. It was the gateway to the American Dream, and provided everyone with an equal chance of success in America. It was a place of not only intellectual, but also personal growth. In her essay “From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” Anyon argues that this is no longer the case. Anyon’s study concludes that from the fifth grade, students in poorer communities are groomed to succeed in low-class, blue collar jobs, while children in wealthy communities are prepared for more desirable careers. Anyon analyzes four different types of schools that all varied based on

The United State is definitely not a society where there is meritocracy because of the class system within our country. Class plays a major role in which the rich have access to higher education, jobs and opportunities than compared to the lower classes. A great example of this would be an upper class in the United State, better known as the one percent. The upper class is a numerous small group with wealthy member, which is said to make up about 1 percent of the population. They are the upper class of United State, who owns a large amount of the money in the country. The class system is something that is very well known as stated by William Domhoff “People are very aware of basic economic and educational differences and they can size up social standing fairly well from such outward signs as speech patterns, mannerisms, and style of dress, but the

To Hayes the failure of meritocracy comes from its focus on equality of opportunity over equality of outcome. Thus, as inequality escalated, the meritocracy ended up becoming so entrenched and isolated that it is no longer even much of a meritocracy. Hayes cites his elite NYC alma mater, Hunter College High School, as a prime example. The only admissions requirement is passing its entrance exam, yet the percentage students from minority and low income backgrounds has been steadily declining due to the expensive test taking prep courses that more affluent students can afford. Meanwhile the increasingly wealthy “meritocratic elites” isolate themselves from the rest of us in the 99% by living and traveling privately – in gated communities, exclusive clubs and resorts, corporate jets, etc., blaming the masses rather than themselves for societal woes.

Meritocracy, the system where each person's progression is due to their achievements, is seen constantly throughout society and it is suggested to be in Australian higher education. This essay will argue that rural students who attend or plan on attending university challenge this suggestion of meritocracy in Australian universities, as rural students are unequal compared to urban students. This essay will show that universities are not based on merit alone, as rural students are disadvantaged in areas such as distance, family & community values, course availability and university availability.

Here, in the United States, the “American Dream,” is a popular belief. There is a strong relationship between hard work and success. In this perfect scenario, those who put in multiple hours are on the road to success and can move up the social ladder. Thus stating, one could be thrust into the lowest of the social status, and with some hard work, one can elevate into the world of the social elite. As a demonstration to this global view of the United States, immigrants from all over the globe have made the excursion to the “land of opportunity” in beliefs of better education, employment, government, communities, religious freedom, and lives for not only themselves but the generations that come pursuing behind them. All of this survives based on a game of social stratification – a diagram on how to successfully obtain the American dream. This observation of social class is based on many mechanisms, some of which is bestowed to people at birth, and not rewarded for hard work and dedication. The class system at play in the United States has become incredibly complex – it no longer has the fundamental class values of our forefathers. Those trying to move up in the social ladder of America are often caught replication the actions of the rich and famous, but this alone cannot make them part of the higher social class. Some think that there are simple rules to follow to climb higher into another social class ladder, but there is more to being upper class than just talking the talk or having the right identity.One way to look at class is the model developed by Janny Scott and David Leonhardt's article, “Shadowy Lines That Still Divide,” in The New York Times. They assert that “one way to think of a person’s position in society is to imagine a hand of cards. Everyone is dealt four cards, one from each suit: education, income, occupation and wealth, the four commonly used criteria for gauging class” (Scott and Leonhardt 27). While being sure on these four criteria, a basic understanding of a person’s predicted class can be made. While this model works fine for providing an elementary level of perception, it must be recognized that a person could rate well on this scale and still be in a different class than those

My presentation document was focused on social attitudes because I know in our society that is kind of an issue. In my presentation, I touched on a lot of issued about prejudicial attitudes and how that affects our society in general. For the movie presentation, I used "To Kill a Mockingbird" and explained the many connections it had with social attitudes. I found that socials attitudes still need to change in our society, a lot of people, in general, think issues like this is fine which not the case is. There are still many examples like the YouTube clip I found that unconscious and institutional racism is still a problem in our society.

Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” teaches us about prisoners in a cave they have been there most if not all there life, there is a fire projecting images of shadows made up of different puppets, shown by the guards. The prisoners are chained down so they cannot find the truth until the guard lets one of them go and the prisoner is forced to see the world for the first time as an individual not what the certain few want you to think or see. It is talking about ignorant people who believe whatever they hear or see in there perceived circle like people believe what they hear on T.V. , or people who think politicians and leaders only mindset is what’s best for the people. I once believed when I was a little kid that the Tooth Fairy was real. I of course learned the truth when I woke up to my parent giving me a Nickle and took the baby tooth.

Do Americans believe meritocracy exists in America? Do talented people who work hard earning the reward that they deserve? Do talented people have enough challenges for their promotion that they merit? Living in the United States, many people think meritocracy exists because people expect about the opportunities to learn, to work, to earn, and to deserve. People also think they may have chances to earn what they deserve because the trusting of meritocracy. However, talented people do not receive any adequate reward as they expect. Meritocracy does not exist in America and becomes a myth for many debates. Moreover, most talented people in America who work hard still have fewer resources, less promotion,

The myth of meritocracy has been proven true in multiply sources. Studies have hypothesized this before when relating to upward mobility. Upward mobility in the last forty years has been more and more unlikely for years and years now. Factors like race, socioeconomic status, household makeup, and economic conditions of this country play a big role. I will go more indepth about this study by showing more facts in the following paragraphs.