Is meritocracy overrated?

Great Debates
221

[quote=“bump, post:217, topic:817385”]
Sure, but immigrants aren’t really the issue here, are they? I mean, having grown up and lived in areas with a lot of immigrants (primarily Asian, but also a lot of Hispanic ones), they’re not the ones permanently mired in poverty in the US. I mean, look at SW Houston for an example of how immigrants can do well in the US despite racism and no money. And I don’t actually have a lot of citations, but ISTR that Hispanic immigrant families usually move up the socioeconomic ladder to middle class after a generation or two, which is what I’d note is the case in the Hispanic families I know.[/quote]

I agree, hispanic immigrants (as well as white asian and black immigrants) tend to follow a typical immigrant glidepath. Hispanic attendance at UC and Cal State schools have increased despite a prohibition on affirmative action. Each generation hispanics tend to do better than their parents until they reach middle class. Then their kids become entitled and spend all their time complaining about their parents and the quality of the avocado toast. Asian kids just get to the avocado toast portion of the ride a generation faster.

I agree that we (as a nation) have a moral debt to the descendants of american slaves and and american indians. But when that moral debt is paid to an overly expansive group of beneficiaries mostly at the expense of another minority group with a history of oppression in america, I think things are broken.

I think that it’s hard for single parent families. Half the income, half the parental supervision. Unless you have extended networks to rely on, it can be difficult. But sometimes those very tight networks also hinder the breakout kids because they may be the ones that have to help the other members of their network. I think different communities approach this sort of thing differently. In some communities, the breakout kid gets an afterschool job to help with the bills because they’re the ones that can juggle work and school. In other communities, the parents endure embarrassing poverty to make sure the kid can focus on academics. But for the parents in those communities, the poverty is still painful but not quite as embarrassing because noone in their community feels sorry for the guy with holes in his shoes and a kid at berkeley. they might feel pity and maybe even disdain for the affluent parent with a kid that dropped out of high school to become a professional fortnite player in their basement.

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I take issue with the idea that there’s an entitled class that is dependent on the government. Mostly because government aid is pretty paltry, and hardly the kind of thing that would really incentivize someone to be lazy and not work. It’s not some sort of UBI proposal which, depending on the execution, might actually incentivize some people not to work. It’s a series of minimal programs intended to help people as little as is necessary to keep them from starving, or being homeless, or whatever.

I personally suspect that it’s more of a cultural issue in communities with generational poverty- education isn’t seen as a net positive, and nor are things like hard work, etc… Some is due to systemic racism blunting the positive effects of those things, and some is drawing the wrong conclusions from the data that is present. I mean, graduating high school with good grades isn’t actually an accomplishment that means anything to society at large. It’s a bare minimum, and a stepping stone to higher education. But if you’re looking at it like you’ve done something important by graduating, and then expect something big from it, you’re setting yourself up for terrible disappointment and likely going to view the whole educational system with a jaundiced eye from then on out.

So if you’re from one of these communities, and you work hard, graduate from high school against the odds, and find out that all it did was set you up for more school, or minimum wage jobs, you’re going to be disappointed.

I kind of think there needs to be a governmental push to illustrate how education can benefit people in those communities- both things as minor as high school graduation, but also college/trade education, or military-related trade education/GI Bill, with special attention paid to showing how this can break the cycle, and how to actually avail yourself of what’s out there. That might be a good place to start- from what I understand, without parents who know how to navigate the high school-to-college transition, it’s a lot harder than if you do, and maybe that’s a place for governmental efforts to be concentrated.

And maybe some kind of program to track students in more of a European-style could work as well- identify college-capable students early on, and shepherd them through the process to get into college when they graduate from high school. Stuff like mentoring, etc…

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Of course they did. There have always been the haves and the have nots. When you have the will to get/be better, you are.
This is evidenced by the immigrants that come here and better themselves and their children but as bump said, it takes vision, sacrifice, and a knowledge that you likely aren’t hitting the lottery, it is slow progress.

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The incentive to keep government assistance or struggle is most assuredly there.
One dumb ass thing that we , as a country , have implemented is the assistance cliff. You either qualify or don’t. Do you really think this provides incentive to get an extra $1.00/ hr, especially if it puts you over the cliff?

And we have been told countless times, by some very vocal board members here that there is no such thing as culture …

I have stated many times, if you are in one of those communities that doesn’t value education, sacrifice and hard work, then that is not the fault of the government and needs to be addressed in that community but I would definitely not be against programs designed to push the importance of education.

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Most of the people that kearson might be asking to “claw their way out” are not the descendants of slaves. There are more hispanics than descendants of slaves.

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It is always and forever about race …

Say it with me, stop with the identity politics.

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The catch is that at least with the black community, there’s been generations of conditioning that in effect says “You can’t succeed, because the system (i.e. white people) will rig it such that you can’t.” Which was a real thing until very recently (i.e. the 70s or 80s at the earliest). So if you’re growing up in that community, you’re conditioned to believe that the system’s going to work against you, and that you’re doomed to poverty regardless of your education, sacrifice and hard work, and that the government/police are basically hostile to you and yours. So education, sacrifice and hard work aren’t seen as nearly the sure-fire paths to prosperity like they are in white society. That’s not to say that black people don’t value those things- they absolutely do, but I get the impresison that there’s a feeling that the legacy of historical systemic racism is something that’s adding drag or dead weight, so to speak, to their efforts.

I don’t really know how the government can change those attitudes, other than maybe through things that could show that education, sacrifice and hard work DO pay off now. Even then, it’ll be a generations-long process of unlearning those counterproductive attitudes, I suspect. Which isn’t anything anyone wants to hear, but I am skeptical that you can raise the socioeconomic standing of any community in a single generation, especially if there are cultural/social attitudes involved that need to change.

228

Which is why it gets turned back to racism, that is the much easier answer. I happen to agree that it will not be a quick fix, but listening to most folks, they want every problem addressed right now. The opportunities have been equalized you say, oh well the outcomes aren’t even close, so racism!

Not many people speaking about the inherent problems within the communities that need to hear it in order to start the change. It is much easier on the ears to blame it on someone else, anyone else.

BOTH things can happen. Both things need to happen. Encourage, not enforce, diversity

Acting white is something that the white community can do jack and shit about. If the other cultures deem the things that white people do as “not for me” when a lot of the things they do also correlate to success, then wow, talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Whatever we can do to change the dynamic of the conditioned responses, we need to do. But laying blame is a sure fire way to just divide some more resulting in little positive accomplishment.

229

So your position is that the government needs to figure out a way to change the black community, not that the government needs to figure out a way to change itself? Because that’s the read I’m getting. You’re not the first person I’ve encountered making such a claim, but I don’t think it’s nearly as enlightened as you might imagine.

It’s just one more way of saying “the problem is with the community at disadvantage: if they are disadvantaged, it’s because they are disadvantaging themselves.” It’s only slightly less disingenuous, to my view, than opining that their “culture” must value poverty.

230

This is literally head in the sand territory.
No, they don’t value poverty. They devalue the things that would get them OUT of poverty.

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[quote=“bump, post:227, topic:817385, full:true”]
The catch is that at least with the black community, there’s been generations of conditioning that in effect says “You can’t succeed, because the system (i.e. white people) will rig it such that you can’t.” Which was a real thing until very recently (i.e. the 70s or 80s at the earliest). So if you’re growing up in that community, you’re conditioned to believe that the system’s going to work against you, and that you’re doomed to poverty regardless of your education, sacrifice and hard work, and that the government/police are basically hostile to you and yours. So education, sacrifice and hard work aren’t seen as nearly the sure-fire paths to prosperity like they are in white society. That’s not to say that black people don’t value those things- they absolutely do, but I get the impresison that there’s a feeling that the legacy of historical systemic racism is something that’s adding drag or dead weight, so to speak, to their efforts.[/quote]

I agree. I think there is absolutely a difference between coming from a culture where there is a millenia long tradition of social mobility through education and coming from a culture where literacy was sometimes punishable by death, black doctors still suffered humiliation at the hands of white illiterates, and education didn’t pay the sort of dividends it did for white people.

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That’s not what I’m saying- I’m saying that there are likely attitudes and viewpoints and values that were not maladaptive in the days of systemic racism, but that are probably not so helpful when that systemic racism is gone.

IF it’s the government’s problem to try and remedy those attitudes, and we’re not just leaving the black community to figure it out for themselves, then I’m not sure how we’d go about it, like I said.

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Moderating

I have deleted a link to BBQ Pit thread. It’s not appropriate to try and bring arguments from the Pit here.

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Who is “they”? If this sounds like a rehash of previous arguments, it’s because I suspect you’re still making the same mistake – broad-brushing attitudes from the few to the many. If not, then please correct me.

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Follow the thread and the responses to find out who the mysterious “they” are.

Stay tuned!

Awe hell: To make it easy for you, they are whoever commits the mistakes of not doing something beneficial because it is seen as not acting the right way, or not valuing the things that help people get ahead (education)

They. And you have taken issue with they before, they is just a placeholder for whomever the attributes are true for, no broad brush needed.

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Okay. That’s tautological, and obviously would include people of any and all ethnic/racial/etc. backgrounds. Which, IMO, makes it a pretty useless statement. What are we supposed to do about bad attitudes by a relative few? I’m not sure if there’s anything we can do, aside from try and make opportunity as equal as possible. Which I think we can still make a lot of progress on, considering the myriad of obstacles that still remain that make it harder for members of certain groups to succeed.

237

If they are a relative few, then I suppose not much change needed as a few people aren’t going to bother asking the government (or the government simply wouldn’t listen) to change or modify policy for the relative few.

If however, there is a big group who need to change those prevailing attitudes, then I suppose the argument holds? The bottom line is as simple as people need to do what is good and right for those people. If they wish to succeed at making money, then do the things that correspond to making money. Certain groups of people find this difficult for various reasons. But lately , it is all the rage to blame it solely on the back of racism. I find that to be wrong headed.

There are a lot of obstacles for people in poverty to overcome. Have you read bumps postings in this thread, you ought to as I would be interested in your arguments for, or against them.

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If these attitudes exist, and if they’re significant in any particular community, then it’s the fault of the American government (and society in general) that they exist. Therefore, IMO, it’s the responsibility of the government, and society in general, to do all possible to help correct these attitudes. The very first step would be acknowledging this responsibility. To say, in essence, very publicly, prominently, formally, and permanently (or as permanently as possible) “The American government and American system was, by and large, a deadly and dangerous enemy of black people [and other groups as applicable – particularly Native Americans] for the vast majority of American history. The plight of black people [and other groups], in terms of being represented at the bottom of so many statistical indicators for well-being as a group, was due to these hostile policies and practices for the vast majority of American history. Things have improved significantly, but not as much as they need to, and we as a government and as a people (the American people as a whole) are committed to making our society as equal as possible.” In my experience, many black Americans still don’t believe (and rightly so, IMO) that the country has really honestly come to terms with how black people were treated through our history. Without such a reckoning, even the chance of overcoming potentially self-sabotaging attitudes is impossible. How could anyone who really believes that the system is unfair and rigged possibly change their attitude if most of the country doesn’t even acknowledge that it was clearly unfair and rigged for the vast majority of its existence?

And that’s just the first step. Necessary, but not nearly sufficient.

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The thing is–and I’ll try and tie this around into the meritocracy topic–that a great many people, myself included, do not believe that systemic racism is gone. Slavery is gone, Jim Crow is gone, but (1) the effects of Jim Crow and slavery are not gone and (2) systemic racism is not gone (and there is systemic racism, still, above and beyond those after-effects).

Where meritocracy comes into this is that a race-blind or race-neutral system is not necessarily an anti-racist system. What meritocracy may be (too often is) is a thinly veiled excuse–veiled atop the history of racism that led to so many disparate outcomes based on race and ethnicity, among other things–to perpetuate the old racism of the past through a nominally race-neutral system. It’s the kind of system that acknowledges, for instance, disparities in primary and secondary education due to school funding based on the wealth of local residents, but treats those issues as somehow disconnected from the broader social questions like “Is the legal system in this country racist?”

As if, say, who can become a lawyer and how is totally distinct from the question of “Is the legal system in this country racist?” That’s just a “for instance.”

240

When I’m saying systemic racism, I’m not talking about the after-effects. But one of the after-effects is that the black community has values, attitudes and viewpoints that aren’t necessarily so handy in a post-systemic racism world. Whether or not we’re there today isn’t really the point.

I’m reminded of a high school friend who was black, and who mentioned one time that he caught a LOT of flak from his black peers in his neighborhood, church, Scout troop, etc… because he was attending our high school (a predominantly white college prep school with a terrific academic reputation) and getting above his station, and/or trying to be white. Very much the “crabs in a pot” mentality- they were tearing him down for making a very good choice for his own future. Meanwhile, I was incredulous; I’d got nothing but acclaim from my mostly white/hispanic friends for my ability/choice to go to my high school. And my friend was from a more educated family than my own- his father was a medical doctor, his mother was college educated, and his older siblings were as well. So his family clearly valued education, and there wasn’t any question that he was going to college. But I’d be willing to bet that a kid not from a doctor’s family might not even consider our high school, because of the fear of being perceived as trying to act white, getting above his station, or whatever.

Even if systemic racism was eliminated today, via some sort of Thanos-esque finger snap, the after-effects would linger, and this sort of mentality is one of them. How that would be changed, I don’t know. I suspect it’s not a fast process to change that sort of attitude though.