We Need to Return to Meritocracy

Do you know what meritocracy is? Possibly not. Especially since the practice of it has been decreasing over the last couple of decades. Instead, we have begun to focus on the immutable characteristics of people to decide their worth; things such as the colour of their skin, their religious or cultural background and even their social status.

Meritocracy is simply recognizing the skills, abilities and knowledge of people over anything else. In a world that has been screaming about ending "systemic racism" for years while only stoking it through society's actions, meritocracy is the epitome of non-racist actions. Meritocracy does not take one's past, their religion or their skin colour into account; it simply seeks out the one who is the best at what they do.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) do not take a person's abilities, knowledge, skills or training into account. The entire focus is on meeting quotas to have 'enough' people of certain skin colours or backgrounds in an organization. They don't need to actually contribute anything of value to the organization, as long as the correct boxes are checked. This has created a situation wherein the value of products and services that are available has noticeably decreased in many areas. We can just look at government hiring, for example. Our Canadian government, particularly under Justin Trudeau, was laser focused on the ideology of DEI, and partially as a result of that, under Trudeau, the public service workforce increased by 40% while the quality of the services provided took a nosedive. When immutable traits are a basis upon which to hire, what is really being accomplished in the organization?

We have seen the same thing in higher education. This may have been a greater problem in the U.S., but there has been an influx of foreigners in Canadian schools as well; a large part of this is likely due to the higher fees that Canadian schools can charge to foreign students. There have been numerous reports of students of colour being accepted into schools over white students who have better academic records. The logic behind this is baffling to me. A school will advertise itself using the successes of it's alumni, so one would think that choosing students who will excel in school and who have the greatest chance to succeed after graduation would be the preference, and for this, academic success is the primary indicator of that type of outcome.

Unfortunately, there is another aspect of the loss of meritocracy that I hadn't considered until recently when it was presented to me. Forgetting about the DEI issues, when meritocracy is abandoned and everybody is celebrated for simply showing up, this severely undermines the institutions that adopt such low standards of success.

Consider this; since even before I began my secondary education, many years ago, there has been a push to get as many people as possible to go to a post-secondary school. The selling point was that someone with a degree would make more money over their lifetime than someone without a degree. There was definitely an argument to be made for this when meritocracy was still observed, though even then the argument was often easily defeated. But the death of meritocracy occurred either alongside or as a result of the death of objective truth, which has undermined this claim for the value of post-secondary education, which I will explain shortly.

First, let's make sure everyone understands what objective truth is. Objective truth is a truth that can be proven, such as 2+2=4, though even this has been challenged by those who have positioned themselves against the bulwark of objective truth. This position is ludicrous, since numbers have a specific order, and to prove the above truth, one simply has to take two items, place them alongside another two items and count up the sum total. Because there are undeniably four items, this is an objective truth.

The opposite of objective truth is subjective truth; this is to say that the truth is subject to my own interpretation. My preference of a certain food over another is subjective; it is based upon my own observations and personal tastes. The same goes for whatever colour may be my favourite, and even, to a certain degree, whether or not it is a hot or a cold day. The last one actually has aspects of both objectivity and subjectivity to it, since the temperature can be specifically and accurately measured and there are certain ranges which are widely regarded as hot or cold, but how a day feels to me is a subjective matter. You may find it cold while I am enjoying the warmth. This is particularly evident when one sees Canadians vacationing in a warmer climate during our winter. We'll be wearing shorts while the local population may be wearing long pants and a light jacket or even a parka!

This distinction between objective and subjective truth is very important to understand; moreso today than at any other time. This is because we are hearing more and more that people like to claim "their truth" over someone else's. I see a lot of pro-life content in my online feeds. The pro-life advocates assert that the fetus inside a woman's womb is a human being worthy of legal protection; the murder advocates claim that it is 'just a clump a cells'. One position is scientifically provable, that is, it is an objective truth; the other position is completely subjective and void of the gravity of truth, but you will almost never convince those who hold that position that they are wrong. The main reason for this is that when they are eventually cornered with no wriggle room around the facts, the most common response is for them to claim that there is "your" truth and there is "their" truth. That appears to be what the educated masses consider their coup de grace; "Well, that is just your truth; that is not my truth."

When objective truth can be so easily ignored, how can one defeat that subterranean level of logic?

This leads to a situation of the making of the universities themselves, where it is getting more and more difficult to grade the work of the students in an objective manner. This is not the case for those who are studying the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) courses. These courses are rooted in observable fact, though as I mentioned before, there is an effort to undermine that as well.

The real problem comes when one has decided to study the humanities which examine things such as society and culture; courses that include philosophy, psychiatry, psychology and probably too many more to list fully. It is truly amazing the kinds of things that one can get a diploma in these days. These courses are the most common among university students. They do not require the strict adherence to a "correct" understanding of things in the same way that the sciences do. These fields of study were probably the ones that opened the doors to subjective truth in the first place. So how can a professor properly grade the work of someone whose positions are based upon their own observations and feelings? They can't; and here is where the crux of the matter is found.

Young people go to university in order to set themselves apart from others in their education. This is done with the expectation that they are increasing their personal value to future perspective employers, and their grades are the proof of their abilities. But when truth is subjective in these humanities courses, where is the value in awarded grades? When everything is relative to one's own positions, the grading process has lost all meaning. Therefore, for one to spend years and tens of thousands of dollars to study to prove oneself useful is also useless, which makes the entire humanities studies departments of the universities useless as well. It is simply a means by which self-applauding academics can replicate themselves in malleable young minds and collect an unreasonable salary and unearned social statues at the same time. While the STEM courses at least offer the stability of objective truths getting planted in young minds, the humanities plant the notion that all truth is subjective.

We need to return to being able to tell someone that they did not make the cut. This still happens in organized sports, at least at the mid to professional level leagues. This leads to advancements in game play and records being broken over and over again. This leads to excellence because if you do not merit the opportunity to move up in the league; if you do not merit the chance to play with the best, then you will be cut, and you will need to find something else to do, something that your abilities are better suited to.

And speaking as a man, I can attest that there is a certain pride that comes with being able to do a particular thing well. I used to operate a business in a very competitive field; limited work was available in that field, but if one could set themselves apart from the others, then one could succeed. I managed to set myself apart, and the level of expertise that I developed in my workmanship was valuable to me in and of itself. I was called on specifically in certain situations because of my expertise, to the point where I actually got called into the operating areas of others who were doing the same type of work, but who had not proved themselves as being as proficient as I was. That is meritocracy, and meritocracy is based on objective truths. One can take pride when they set themselves apart in a system of meritocracy; how can one take pride in a system that awards you for something that you have no control over?

We need to return to objective truths or the foundations of society will disintegrate. Truth is not in the eye of the beholder. Truth does not belong to the 'elite', the 'educated'. Truth belongs to those who are honest and who seek out the truth. It has been my experience that those who are the most anchored to the truth are actually those who have not received as excessive education. Post-secondary training is of no value to those who are not entering a specific field of work, particularly in a STEM field. These fields require training in order to understand the forces that are at work and there are clear guidelines as to whether or not one has met the minimum threshold of success.

Given the current state of society, I wonder if the best way to return to upholding the value of objective truth is to return to meritocracy. When we refuse to grant praise on the basis of one's own personal values and observations and we instead only praise those whose efforts are actually worthy of praise on the basis of what they offer to the betterment of society, then we will finally, eventually get to the place where we will judge each other based on things that really matter.

This will lead us back to a society where the colour of our skin in unimportant and the religion that we practice has nothing to do with how far we progress in our field. Meritocracy is the solution to the "racism" problem that is only exacerbated by the constant focus on race. The constant false elevation of those who do not deserve it simply because they have the right amount of melanin in their skin just leads to further divide and strain. It also cheapens the successes of those who could benefit from the DEI system, but instead earn their advancements by their own efforts. The return to meritocracy is the solution to the decrease in production, the lack of innovation and the even the moral decline and heightened race strains of society.

We need to stop listening to those who claim that their sophistication, based upon their education, is a basis upon which we are supposed to grant additional weight to their positions. The very root of the word 'sophistication' tells us that these people are not worth listening to. According to Wordnik, a "sophist" is "One skilled in elaborate and devious argumentation"; or put another way, one who argues in such a way as to make the worse idea sound like the better. Let's rather reward those who earn our respect through the outcomes of their efforts by which why demonstrate their merit and their value to society.