Does a meritocracy inevitably create enclaves of "idiocracy"?

Great Debates
21

I am not making out to be racial in any way at all.

The simple fact is that after segregation ended there was a precipitous and much-studied decline in the social and economic standards of Black communities attributed to class segregation. By precipitous i mean it occurred in less than two decades, far to fast to be caused by genetic factors.

You have postulated that a less precipitous but otherwise identical decline in White communities *must *be caused by genetic factors.

That just doesn’t make any sense. If we know that a dramatic example of a phenomenon is observed in one community, then any attempt to explain a *less *dramatic example in another community must provide addiotnal epxlantory power not inherent on the original explanation. Anything else is a violation of Ockham’s Razor.

In short, we know that non-genetic factors can trigger a precipitous decline in social standards in population B. T posit that a less dramatic but otherwise identical decline in population W is due to some genetic factor is needlessly multiplying entities. The decline in W can be just as adequately explained without invoking any factors not already invoked to explain the event in B.

We have two competing hypotheses. The non-genetic one explains the decline in social standards amongst all human population in the US in the past 40 years. The genetic one only explains the decline in White population. It can not explain what happened to Black populations and has to invoke additional non-genetic factors to explain that.

That is a clear violation of Ockham’s Razor.

Nor did I ever suggest they were.

Well as a person who grew up living in a two bedroom government house with two parents and 5 siblings, who tested as a gifted child every year from the age of 8 onwards, who maxed out the reading test at 12th grade level at the age of 11, who won numerous national science competitions and so on and and so forth and who still never came close to qualifying for Ivy League admission, I respectfully submit that you don’t know what you are talking about.

I really don’t think you appreciate in any way at all the gulf between the impoverished and even the middle class. There’s just nothing to work with. Every solution comes with a problem.

Access to libraries? In my neigbourhood? After dark? Are you mad? Nobody would let a child walk home alone after dark in that neighbourhood. And my mother had five other kids to care for, she couldn’t sit in the library with me, or even walk up to get me from the buys stop. And the only car was being used by Dad at work even. And studying in a four room house with 5 other children? Forget it.

Your idea that all a child needs is native intelligence and a library somewhere in the vicinity doesn’t even come close to the reality. Libraries are at best usable until dark. Allowing for a half hour bus ride home and a half hour walk to the library and another half hour home, I had about 2 hours at the library max. And that time was spent doing homework that needed a quiet environment. I wasn’t doing recreational research, I was doing assigned homework. The stuff you were presumably doing at your desk in your room.

What’s that claim based on?

It’s beyond not being easy, it’s impossible.

Even the brightest High School senior needs to do 3 hours of study a night plus extracurricular activities to have a hope of qualifying for Ivy League admission.

How precisely can this be achieved when living in a trailer with two parents and a sibling, where you have at best 2 hours worth of time studying in the local library each night, and none at all on weekends because the library is closed? While the richer kids can go to extracurricular activities after school then come home and study after dark, that is never an option for kids in trailer parks.

That’s more than “not easy going”, it’s a physical impossibility. But that’s the standard scenario for a kid in a trailer park.

22

Blake, you can once again try to spin it all into a giant impossibility, but I already told you that two of my best friends grew up in poverty without college-educated role models, and eventually gained admission to a highly selective university that gets regularly featured in U.S. News and Money magazine rankings, a school at which a 32 score on the ACT only gets you to the 75th percentile of those who are admitted each year. Not Ivy, but still very selective and prestigious, and they have certainly “escaped” the places where they grew up.

23

I think the fundamental error you are making is in assuming these people are “diamonds”, or to put it another way, that “diamonds” in this context are rare. I guess they are kinda like real diamonds in that way :D. One of the things I have come to appreciate is how common talent is. Talent is often wasted as it is not honed or nurtured, but the raw ingredients are more common than we realize. Although I am sure your friends are smart, and did well on standardized tests, that doesn’t mean their potential for greatness was much better than plenty of other people. After all, standardized testing as a means of identifying talent leaves a lot to be desired. So your worry that the poor areas are being depleted of talent is misguided as, IMO, we leave a lot of talent behind.

Second, I think you are forgetting that there are many ways of honing and nurturing talent. The free market still functions in poor areas as well, so someone is gonna respond to consumer demand and market forces. That real world experience is just as good a means of training as school is in many senses. What is problematic is that, in poor areas, that talent is often guided towards black markets and illegal enterprises. That said, I think you can make a convincing argument that many drug dealers have management and business skills that rival most MBAs. They just work in an illicit industry. Just look at how many currently legitimate rap CEOs started by selling drugs. While the means of training for folks like this are less rigorous and less formal, they are still a great means of fostering talent. Even if the “best genes” are gone, the reality is you don’t need to be the smartest to do relatively well in life.

Two good books I would recommend on this topic are The Red Market, and Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy. Both talk about the growing informal economy (called system D), and black and grey markets around the world that operate in the shadows. The shadow economy is one of the fastest growing, and biggest economies on the planet.

The book also mentions some ways this informal sectors has contributed to the formal markets. Things like dual sim-card cell phones first came from these sectors.

What does that have to do with what you are saying? Think about just how big that sector is, and how disparate the participants are geographically and culturally. These are largely poor people you assume were left behind. People who live in communities whose “best and brightest” moved away, leaving behind exhausted soil. Yet, they collectively managed to establish functional markets that provide things as varied as fruit, human organs, and utility services to those who want them. I don’t think systems such as those could arise from exhausted soil. Regardless of how you feel about his actions, stupid people don’t make over a billion dollars selling drugs.

The reality is markets, networks, and technology provide humans with a “mechanical advantage” allowing us to leverage our talents. Those things are far more integral to individual success than innate talent is. I would analogize it to running speed. Regardless of how fast you are, you probably can’t beat a man riding a bike, and the bike rider can’t beat a guy in a car. So in terms of travel, it far more useful to focus on how to create faster cars than to fret about finding faster runners. Genes are important, as is helping people find careers suitable to their talents, but we are not running out of talented people even in “depleted” areas because even if the people leave, the opportunities to leverage talent generally don’t.

24

Follow the link above.

No idea what that means.

There are so many of these cryptic passages in your posts that if I don’t respond to parts of your posts from here on in, it is because it makes no sense at all tome.

:confused: I’m still lost. Are you saying that hardest working people all leave Amish communities yet they have still solved their problems? Or that Amish communities have these problems despite the hardest workers not leaving?

Because sports stars were part of the community I grew up in. I knew sports stars who came from that background and who were (I imagined) just like me at my age. If they could do it, I could. That’s what a role model is.

As I already explained, Patsors and teachers weren’t like me at my age. Even though Pastors may have been in fact, but that never occurred to us. The reverence they were given made them a class apart and not something a child can identify with. Somebody who you can’t identify with can’t be a role model. And as I already said, none of our teachers never came from our background.

The parent’s are the role models. That’s the problem. When both parents are chronically unemployed, the fact that they are role models is a problem, not a solution.

We do need people who came from the same place though. Suggesting that George Bush can be a role model for an Impoverished Indian child is ludicrous.

Really?

Can you name 12 people who aren’t middle class and white who considered Carl Sagan a role model while growing up?

And many of my teachers inspired me. That does not a role model make.

IOW your argument is that I had role models when I was 10, I just didn’t want to model myself after them?

Is that about it?

Because they would be role models. This is so obvious that I am guessing that I have missed something.

You do realise that status as a role model only *exists *if somebody models themself after it, right?

This is as bizarre as telling me that there were vegetables that I liked the taste of, I just didn’t think so. It’s rubbish.

If an 8y child doesn’t wish to model herself after a person, then that person is not, by definition, a role model to that child. Saying that the person really is a role model but the child just doesn’t think so is just nonsense. It’s logically and semantically incoherent.

If you want to be a role model of a white collar worker you kinda do, don’t you. :dubious:

25

Nobody disputes that this happens. I have done it myself. That is not the issue.

The issue is your claim that all it takes is genetic intelligence and an average poverty home life. That is clearly not the case. How, for example did your friends manage an hour of extra-curricular and study 3 hours a night in the typical trailer with 2 other people and only two hours access to public libraries? I’m going to guess that they had some very atypical upbringing such, as, you know, not living in a trailer at all.

26

The charge you leveled was this:

There were people to do that. You just don’t count them.

No, that’s the problem. There’s nothing cryptic about it: sports stars are like lottery winners. Actual role models—people who serve as exemplars of social virtue—are everywhere.

Unless you were a role model, then it is a good thing they weren’t like you. They’re supposed to lead you into a life you should live. Being “like you” is not a criterion for a good role model (though it may be that some role models are like you, like your parents).

Yes, exactly. It never occurred to you. It is still not occurring to you.

I don’t know the background of any of my high school teachers. But they served as examples of what it was like to know something, and I liked that. Learning felt good, it was enjoyable. They fostered that. For all I know each one of them came from Hudson OH (wealthy community) or all of their parents were abusive alcoholics. What would that matter?

Only because George Bush—either of them—aren’t good role models in the first place. I dare say most presidents aren’t particularly good role models. But their origin doesn’t matter in the slightest. How many mathematicians were inspired by Ramanujan, for instance?

That’s not a problem with Carl Sagan being a good role model. You are putting the cart before the horse time and time again, and continuing to bring race and socioeconomic status into it only confuses the issue.

Your criteria are obviously inspired by things that actually don’t serve as models for good social behavior. Being a good role model doesn’t mean “wealthy and white” and your insistence on dragging it back there doesn’t help your position.

Yes, that is indeed my argument, though I wouldn’t have tried to make it so personal. You think poor communities lack role models; I think they have other, prior problems that stop them from recognizing the perfectly good role models they already have.

I do not realize this, no. A role model is someone who can serve as an example of social virtues. Whether they are in fact used this way is a different question.

Enjoy your NASCAR, WWE, and basketball stars, then. It’s all you’re allowing.

27

Dude, no matter how often you tell a kid that hates broccoli that broccoli is a tasty food, he still doesn’t think that broccoli is tasty. Telling a child that broccolli is tasty doesn’t actually make the kid like the taste of broccolli.

This isn’t somehting that somebody is allowing. It is a subjective experience. Trying to argue that the experience exists, it’s just never experienced by anyone, is semantic and logical nonsense.

Yet that is precisely what you are attempting to do.

You seem to have some idea that people should all feel a certain way, and if they don’t they are dysfunctional. That’s a pretty narrow minded view, but even if it were correct it still doesn’t make it true when you claim that people actually do feel that way.

28

As I said, enjoy your sports stars.

29

OK then…

Unpacking some key points of what I read here, it appears that the availability of migration out of lower upbringing is a major factor in affecting the environment by removing abundant and adequate role models.

What feeds this migration, IMHO:
[ol]
[li]Ease of modern travel[/li][li]Awareness of options outside of ones environment[/li][li]Perceived advantages to migrating out[/li][/ol]

So, what can we do about these? Ease if modern travel is not going away, awareness of options due to information availability is not going to go away. Can we do anything about perceived advantages to migrating out?

What I see here is the unavoidable consequence of the growing wealth/income gap, as well as the disappearance of labor jobs. All speculation, but is seems that 50 some years ago one could expect to earn a decent living within ones modest community, while understanding that one in a more cosmopolitan community was not grossly more well off. This is not true in today’s world. It is much more difficult to earn a decent living in a modest community, and we are all aware of the people making obscene amounts of money in the cities. So, the incentive to leave is acute, if you are one who feels you may have a chance.

At the risk of suggesting something radical - maybe we need to recognize the need for a certain number of “role models” distributed throughout all communities and enact policies to “seed” these individuals into the communities. Something like the Peace Corp for domestic communities? Otherwise, we sit back and watch it all continue to decline?

30

Icarus, I like your idea! Alternatively, we could try to spread low income housing throughout mixed areas of more middle income housing (this is already being tried as I understand it, as an alternative to the giant public housing towers that most people now admit were a failure).

One study found though that the compensation is really shitty given the risks.

31

I just can’t let this sit.

The problem with your broccoli argument is simple: junk food is everywhere. Sports are everywhere, from tee balling toddlers to college and professionals. If your broccoli argument held the steam cooking it, we’d have to conclude that there are in fact no role models anywhere except for these junk food lottery winners. In that case, your concern about people leaving is bunk: most everyone leaves everywhere in that case. My lower middle class neighborhood didn’t have any football stars. No pro wrestlers. No supermodels. No glamor at all. Kids don’t like to eat their vegetables but most nevertheless learn to eat them (some actually really like them eventually) and even though junk food is everywhere, vegetables are everywhere, too, if you’re just willing to count them as food.

Count them as food, Blake. Count them as food.

32

Broadly speaking I agree with Blake, but I’d like to bring up another point that I don’t think has really been discussed so far.

First, although genetics certainly plays a role in intelligence, there isn’t just one “intelligence gene” controlling it, so it would take more than just a couple generations for any genetic signal to become apparent. Even just four or five generations would cover about a century, a time period long enough to ensure at least one socially-upheaving event would take place (think WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, the civil-rights movement, etc that have taken place in the past 100 years), and probably a large influx of immigrants as well (European immigrants a century ago, Hispanic immigrants now). These types of events have a way of stirring up the social pot in a way that will constantly be bringing fresh “smart” blood to the poor and fresh “dumb” blood to the upper classes. Do you read about any Astors in the tabloids today? Did they talk about the Hiltons 100 years ago?

Even if the brain drain described in the OP was 100% effective at removing the the smartest individuals (and ignoring the fact that other traits like ambition and drive as well as environmental factors are at least as important as intelligence when it comes to academic achievement), the gene pool in poor communities would be far from closed. Humans are often indiscriminate in their mating habits, so there will always be gene flow between the higher and lower classes (rich men boinking their maids/babysitters, rich women boinking the pool boy/milk man).

In other words, on timescales relevant to human evolution (at least one or two centuries), humans are genetically and socially pretty well-mixed.

33

WE are now living in a Post-Industrial Economy-one in which there are a small number of high-skill jobs, open to people with higher education. The well-paying factory jobs are not here anymore-they are in Asia. Meanwhile, the working class struggles on low level, service jobs-which pay low wages and no benefits. This is why the inner cities are deteriorating, and there is no investment.
Ther advent of this new economy was noticed 30 years ago-when GM, FORD, Chrysler learned that it was cheaper to import engines, transmissions, and complete vehicles, rather than make them here. This is another reason why Detroit is a city of abandoned factories. WE are constantly told that “free trade” helps us-while China racks up trade surpluses. This “post industrial” economy is not going to last, because the USA is now one of the most indebted economies in the world-while we have an enormous navy, and troops fighting wars around the world.

34

It seems like your disagreement is almost only semantic. By “role model,” you mean “someone who it would be a good idea to imitate,” but Blake means something different–“someone who it is a good idea to imitate, and who is actually imitated.”

It doesn’t seem like a good idea to argue over which is the right definition of “role model.” Just call them “role model” and “schmole model”.

You’re telling Blake that there are role models available in poor neighborhoods. He’s telling you that it’s important that there also be schmole models. Do you disagree? Do you think that there should be, not just people it would be a good idea to imitate, but people who it’s a good idea to imitate and who are actually imitated?

If so, then do you agree with Blake that there are not a lot of schmole models in poor neighborhoods?

If so, then do you think there should be?

If so then how do you think we can encourage that to happen? That’s what Blake is trying to discuss with you. What are you trying to discuss with him?

35

Yes, thank you for that wonderful example of kneejerk conservative American gibberish, Blake!

36

In the post being referred to, I don’t see anything I can identify as particularly stereotypical of conservative American politics.

(Maybe the very first sentence, now that I reread, but nowhere else in the body of the post.)

37

FWIW, I myself took **Blake’s **first post as being quite conservative. I’m surprised anyone would need to reread it to see that. The first sentence is, after all the *first *sentence, a tone setter–and I’d think if someone were to miss a sentence in someone’s post it wouldn’t be their first sentence, sitting all by itself up top as a one-sentence paragraph. Also, it’s not just a sentence, but a laundry list, hitting five different right wing hobby horses. So, Frylock: “maybe” the first sentence? Really? I’ve got to think you are yourself conservative (thus to you the sentence just came across like plain ol’ common sense), as to anyone outside the right that is a pretty blatant, flashing neon sign.

38

No. Here is what he said:

This is not a semantic difference. I then said:

In other word’s, Blake explicitly considers there to be a paucity of role models, and I disagree, because “role model” isn’t just a synonym for “rich folk [who left us dummies behind]”. The argument then focused on people kids would actually look up to, and those weren’t teachers and pastors. And that is what I said is the problem: the very people that are good role models aren’t being used that way.

Obviously my position is just that. It is Blake who holds that there were no good role models behind, because the wealthy people moved.

39

Definitely American Conservative talk. FWIW I simply didn’t see this the first time I read it.

Take that sentence out, though, and I literally see nothing stereotypically conservative in any of the rest of his post. What exactly are you seeing that I’m missing?

Blake’s post is all about interdependence. This (again, forgetting about the first sentence) is a far cry from any stereotypically Rightist talk I’ve ever heard.

40

You say:

But then, in summarizing the dispute, you say:

Disagreeing because you don’t think Blake is right about what a word means is by definition a semantic dispute.

And it’s the very dispute I said you were engaged in–the semantic dispute over the meaning of the term “role model.”