Meritless TikTokracy
Some of my favorite writers I like because they inspire further thought. Walter Mead is one such writer: really more of a narrator of society as a whole, depicting our modern civilization in something of a national aerial snapshot. It sets a scene and establishes a mood in a grand sweep: These are narrative features that appeal to me as a reader.
Mead’s recent article for Tablet analyzes the perceptible decline in the meritocracy as the most recent stage of its evolution over the past hundred years. A class that began as a small elite sliver at the top of society became a significant chunk. The class of highly educated meritocrats were trained to be good at following rules and furnishing the right answers on standardized tests. They were born and educated to believe they were meant to be the rulers of their fellows. Mead describes how we got here:
Merit, for the 20th century, was increasingly dissociated from the older ideals. It was more and more conflated with the kind of personality and talent set that define what we call a “wonk.” Wonks do well on standardized tests. They pass bar examinations with relative ease, master the knowledge demanded of medical students, and ace tests like the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). Wonks are not rebels or original thinkers. Wonks follow rules. What makes someone a successful wonk is the possession of at least moderate intelligence plus copious quantities of what the Germans call Sitzfleisch (literally, sit-flesh, the ability to sit patiently at a desk and study for long periods of time).
The technological information revolution has instead led the ones ruled over by the meaty-bottomed to question their claims to authority—just as the credentialed administrators have seen their bureaucratic rule cemented ever more firmly in place. In short, the meritocrats appear to have become entitled to their posts atop the political pecking order at the very time that the commoners have come to find them all the more incompetent and undeserving of being followed. Technology has allowed the ruled to compare notes among themselves as to the rulers’ past performance, and to find their performance lacking.
Digital communication has helped the ruled to decide themselves fit enough to rule themselves—even to rule the meritocrats and wonks. Social media have permitted the subjects to find even larger cohorts of followers than the meritocrats had ever had to earn to achieve their posts. The meritocrats may have enjoyed their power and monopoly of force to establish their authority, but the tech-enabled citizenry could organize in numbers to offer significant opposition.
Or not. As Martin Gurri spelled out in The Revolt of the Public, the rebellion of the ruled has succeeded thanks to digital and social media spreading the sentiment of disapproval and defiance. But it has not enabled the ruled—what Gurri defines as “the Public”—to settle on a single replacement for the governing status quo. The public can agree on what they don’t like, but not on what they’d rather have. The result of which amounts to an incoherent message of nihilistic complaint.
As Mead concludes, the only clear signs of what is to come is more of the institutional erosion:
[T]he populist resentment of the sleek, self-interested reign of rule-following meme processors for whom blue chip academic credentials are the modern equivalent of patents of nobility, conferring a legitimate right to rule over the unwashed masses, is too deeply grounded in human nature to fade away. The peasants have added smartphones to their traditional weapons of pitchforks and torches, and they are in no mood to peacefully disperse to their hovels.
With the inexorable pace of technological advance, the gravitational pull of economic advantage, the stark requirements of national security, and the molten magma of populist rage all working against the wonkish status quo, the accelerating disintegration of that status quo seems inevitable.
All that is needed is someone with SINCERE convictions that make sense to the ruled and the connections to run for office, someone who would GENUINELY resonate with those voters, possibly someone who was from among them or had generational roots among them. Trump, incredibly, tapped into this but lacks any sincerity, his only genuine concern being himself. Nonetheless, he did demonstrate that it can be done and that is worthy of note. (Another route might be someone who lacks the means but attracts one critical backer who is well enough connected to make it happen.)
I have an ex girl friend who lives in Wisconsin. She's a school teacher, and is terrified of Katie for some reason (Katie has met 3-4 ex girl friends, and is sweet to them, but she is sweet to everyone).
Long story short, she called me last week. She needs a "mental health day" from school, so she plans to play hooky, and come watch the solar eclipse. I suggested she talk to a female friend of mine, Kathy, who lives in the watch belt on the east side of Indy. Kathy's husband died of a similar cancer as Pam a year after Pam did, so we swap stories from time to time. My ex-gf is friends with Kathy. My ex-gf wanted to avoid driving through both Chicago and Indy. Okay.
Yesterday as Katie was driving home my ex gf called, asking if she and a friend of her children could come to the farm to watch? The farm is west of Indy, very rural. Sure! She asked for the farm's address...I didn't know it had one. It's at the intersection of Coloma road and Strawberry road. Katie came home and I asked her...she didn't know it had an address. She called her sister: 1692 Coloma Road, Montezuma, Indiana. I screen shotted a map of the farm and all of Coloma (it's an intersection in the road, no stop light), and gave my ex-gf directions. US-41 runs a few miles from her house in Wisconsin, and runs 5 miles from the farm. So the directions are "go to US 41 to US 36 (turn right), go to Coloma Road (turn right). The jog in the road is the southern edge of the farm.
I told her to take a camera, as several wild turkey are walking the farm, and the vultures appear to have nested in the old barn.