Meritocratic hubris. This is the tendency of winners to inhale too deeply of their success.
To forget the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way. It's the smug conviction
of those who land on top that they deserve their fate. And, by implication, that those
on the bottom deserve theirs too. A lively sense of the contingency of our lot
conduces to a certain humility. The idea that ‘there but for the grace of God or the accident
of fortune, go I’. But a perfect meritocracy banishes all sense of gift or grace or luck;
it diminishes our capacity to see ourselves as sharing a common fate. And so, it leaves
little room for the solidarity that can arise when we reflect on the contingency of our
talents and fortunes. This is what makes merit a kind of tyranny.
Now, seen from below, the hubris of elites is galling. No one likes to be looked down
upon. But the meritocratic faith adds insult to injury. The notion that your fate is in
your hands - that you can ‘make it if you try’ - is a double-edged sword, inspiring
in one way, but invidious in another. It congratulates the winners but denigrates the losers - even
in their own eyes. For those who can't find work or make ends meet, it's hard to escape
the demoralizing thought that their failure is their own doing - that they simply lack
the talent and drive to succeed. This gives rise to a politics of humiliation. It combines
resentment of the winners with nagging self-doubt. It's a potent ingredient in the volatile brew
of anger and resentment that fuels populist protest.
To reinvigorate democratic politics, we need to find our way to a morally more robust public
discourse; one that takes seriously the corrosive effect of meritocratic striving on the social
bonds that constitute our common life. Disentangling the intolerant aspects of populist protest
from its legitimate grievances is no easy matter. But it is important to try. Understanding
these grievances -and creating a politics that can respond to them - is the most pressing
political challenge of our time.