Angela Putnam, a Pennsylvania State University-Brandywine professor thinks college faculty need to do more to undermine their students’ belief in “meritocracy” and the value of “hard work” (link). Her view is that meritocracy entrenches white power and privilege. See “Working Hard” Is A White Lie, According To Penn State-Brandywine Professor (link to article) The two articles both come from what some would call right-wing websites. I personally found the rhetoric to be conclusory, and not likely to persuade many people outside the Internet echo chamber. Thus, I visited Ms. Putnam’s website (link to main website) and associated blog (link to blog). I will post a few excerpts and keep them brief enough to stay within posting rules. Excerpts:
An abstract from one of her seminars (link) states “Three ideological discourses emerged before, during, and after the seminar – Liberal Pluralism, Meritocracy, and “Reverse Racism.””
It is quite difficult for any institution with academic rigor and selective admissions to be other than a meritocracy. That is just common sense. However, not all professors exercise common sense or even coherence. As much as I criticize right-wing websites, I find the so-called “work” of Angela Putnam to border on incoherence. She argues that “every white person—no matter how rich or poor, old or young, educated or uneducated, can and should step up and work toward dismantling systemic racism and fight for equity and social justice.” She gives no suggestion as to how that “dismantling” would occur.
Other professors even argue that white civility towards blacks is somehow racist. Two professors at University of Northern Iowa,C. Kyle Rudick and Kathryn B. Golsan “say classroom ‘civility’ promotes ‘white racial power’” (link) & (link to paywalled article).
Perhaps there answer is in a less restrained, even violent and/or chaotic academic environment that prevails in many schools and much of society. I actually believe that the merit system is time proven, works and benefits all.
What are the alternatives to meritocracy? Awarding honors and privileges based on some sort of lottery? Based on sycophancy? Give them to everyone evenly, or giving more to certain people based upon feeling bad for them? None of these feel like rational or effective ways to handle life, or at least not as an improvement over working hard to gain what you want.
But in a way, Angela Putnam is doing us all a favor, even beyond providing obvious entertainment value. She’s showing what sort of nonsensical thinking is bound to result from those who become obsessed with “white privilege” and other such buzzwords. Her conclusions are exactly what would be expected from someone who’s web domain is whiteprivdoc.com .
Why does higher education exist? In theory, at least, to educate students and then grant degrees and transcripts that confirm who’s educated, separating them from those who aren’t educated. Thus, society knows which individuals are fit to become doctors, engineers, and so forth. If we didn’t separate out the competent from the incompetent in these important jobs, people would die. Thus, we must have a meritocracy and encourage young people to work hard.
How does the esteemed Dr. Putnam propose to run a society without meritocracy? Exploring her website doesn’t offer much of an answer. In fact, it offers not very much of anything. Her last blog post was almost two years ago.
Obviously I can’t speak for Putnam, but that would be the case given her premise. All “white” people are of European ancestry, which is the source of the values and definition of civility that she targets as racist.
Her concept mirrors the phenomenon of African-American students who work hard and excel at education being derided by some of their Black peers for “acting white.”
Leaving aside the question of how scientifically grounded - based on evidence Putnams theories are, this right away is an Assertion without evidence (Appeals to common sense are fallacy) and from what Little I know about US college Admission policies, not true.
A true meritocracy-based Admission System would use a full test of previously-agreed upon skills and knowledge showing scholastic aptitude and maturity in order to enter college. If e.g. 200 People qualify, but there are only 100 places, then the college expands to accomodate everybody qualified.
What happens instead in US Colleges is all Kinds of non-merit-based additional factors to get the numbers down to 100, and a lot of them favour White People:
children of former alumni (favours middle- and rich = mostly White)
children of big donors (dito)
students with extracurricular activities (favour middle-class = mostly White who may not have to work after School to help Family)
students with letters of recommendation from influential People (favours middle- and rich = mostly White who know influential People)
And, the Special US route to college: Sport scholarships (which now turn out to be Close to slavery: rules that are exploitation by the league to make Money for the college, while forbidding the students from earning anything, getting them no adequate healthcare or helping them with the academic classes).
Based only on what I’ve read so far in this thread, it sounds to me as if some so-called merit-based systems are not judged strictly on merit. They should be. For example, when there are 200 qualified and 100 places, there should be a lottery, not further adjudication on criteria other than merit.
But the apparent call to eliminate merit as a factor? That’s an idea totally without… oh, wait, I’m not supposed to say that.
Not only that, but “merit”, as defined by societal metrics of success, is kind of inherently tied with privilege in any society with privilege. People may have poor grades, be from a substandard school, or otherwise disadvantaged for a multitude of reasons and “merit” is a rather value-fueled metric that asserts the people who do achieve those things are just better. People struggling with mental illness to the point they couldn’t do homework in high school or finish tests may finish high school with poor grades, people from poor areas may do poorly on standardized tests, people who were disowned due to being LGBT or raised in a toxic, abusive home may not even finish school, and so on.
These effects cascade and create a cycle of privileged hegemony that is not intentional, but is pervasive. People that struggle with things get fewer opportunities which leads to fewer chances to get merit which leads to worse outcomes which all repeats with their kids. Yes, individuals can and do break this cycle, but overall it can be very, very stacked against you.
Of course, I’m not suggesting we can never consider somebody’s talents or accomplishments, but it’s worth recognizing that a “meritocracy” is inherently based on a whole ton of cultural baggage about what, exactly, defines success and the opportunities or lack-thereof various groups within that society have to meet those metrics. No, we don’t have to wave our arms, assert “all animals are equal”, and move to lotteries for everything, but we do need to critically examine how our values and view of the concept of merit serve to prop up the dominant class by making them appear, by definition, to have more value than people in an underclass.
This isn’t even getting into the idea that our particular cultural notion of success is very wrapped up in making markets more efficient, obtaining capital, and wielding power which are not, prima facie, good definitions of merit or success and are based very heavily in our neo-liberal, staunchly capitalist outlook on society.
Hmmmm. Thank you Jragon - a lot of important stuff in one post.
I wonder just how different the results might be, if as a first step there was a concerted effort to restrict “merit” to a bare measure of competency in the subject matter, and to try to minimize the effects of the advantages or disadvantages that people show up with.
But these things are very difficult to untangle, and in some cases I’m not sure if it makes sense to try.
I’m not convinced you are accurately representing Dr. Putnam’s views, which are not so much “meritocracy and working hard are bad things” and more “people who believe that we live in a meritocracy and that working hard is a sufficient condition for success are ignoring significant societal factors that disproportionately negatively affect minority populations in the US”. Which, on the face of it, appears to be entirely true and reasonable, and I’m wondering why the articles you cite so blatantly misrepresent her arguments.
I realize that it is a kneejerk reaction in certain right-wing circles to shout “There’s no such thing as white privilege! I had to work hard, and therefore I had no advantages over those poor, black people who clearly live that way because they’re lazy scroungers!” but the Just World Hypothesis (which appears to be the main subject of Dr. Putnam’s thesis in the cited works) remains rife with fallacious thinking.
You mean, apart from the ten-point list of actions she sets out in the blog post you linked to?
Her argument is that the way to address systemic racism is to get as many individuals involved in both addressing their own issues and in countering systemic racism when they can. Which is what that list says in a fair amount of detail. I’m not sure what else you’re looking for.
It appears that whiteness is a demon inside all of us who are deemed to be “white” at any moment in time. Our only salvation will be in subduing our earthly urges to indulge in our privilege.
