by
John Hills
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What is often forgotten is that Michael Young's 1958 book, The rise of the meritocracy, which introduced the word, was a satire, not a blue print. Its point was the smugness of those who rose to the top of such a society and believed not only that they deserved whatever rewards flowed from that, but also that their own children would deserve them too reflecting the advantages of their inherited abilities, as well as the way they would be brought up.
It maybe should not be a surprise that there is a symbiotic relationship between high inequality in a society and low social mobility. In a highly unequal society, many advantaged parents will do all they can to ensure that their children do not slip down the economic ladder--they know that it goes a long way down. And if incomes and wealth are unequally distributed, they have the resources to help them. At the same time, they may realise that higher rates of social mobility, in relative terms, cannot be a one-way street. If policy helps increase the chances of someone starting in a less privileged position to go up the social scale, that must mean that someone else's chance of going down has to rise, which may include their own children, and does not then seem so attractive. While many favour increased upward mobility, few want to mention the increased downward mobility that has to go with it (in terms of relative positions, at least).
wonder how such parents would feel about dismantling the ladder entirely
[...] If there is causality here, it is not from high benefits to low work commitment. It could, however, go the other way. Perhaps because we believe we are lazy and do not seem to enjoy our jobs much, we may also believe we have to keep benefits down. The solution to this, however, surely lies elsewhere [...]
this ties in nicely to the idea of suffering/sacrifice (see note 1314)
basically you find yourself suffering, and you look at your neighbour and see he is not suffering, and you immediately feel angry and demand that he suffer too, instead of asking, what if i don't need to suffer??????
[...] The last horse I'd been on had bitten me constantly. This one just thrust his head rhythmically at the future.
just a cool phrase
I wanted to know that I wouldn't die like a bug, I said.
Sorry, he said. These men died, were embalmed, and have been stolen. People sold them again and again. Their every effect, their bones, were traded for gold. You'll be no better off.
[...]
If these kings believed, why would they hide themselves in these plain boxes under these heavy stones?
Ah, but they didn't believe, he said.
[...] Why did he feel violated? He felt punched, robbed, raped. If a soldier was killed and mutilated in his own country, this man would not feel this kind of revulsion. He doesn't feel this way when he hears about trains colliding, or a family, in Missouri, drowning in their minivan in a December lake But this, in another part of the world, this soldier dragged from his car, this soldier alone, this dead unbloody body in the dust under the trck--why does it set the man on edge, why does it feel so personal? [...]
relevant to my thoughts about terrorism I guess (also DFW's 9/11 essay). also on national pride and identity, "othering" based on nationality
[...] Chuck insisted on ending the letter with "I trust that this matter will not present a problem." Every legal letter Chuck writes ends this way. He loses half of his cases.
just funny
My mouth dried and I pretended to keep smiling. Why do we pursue information that we know will never leave our heads? I was inviting a permanent, violent guest into my home. He would defecate on my bed. He would shred my clothes, light fires on the walls. I could see him walking up the driveway and I stood at the door, knowing that I'd be a fool to bring him inside. But still I opened the door.
the narrator is on the edge of confirming that the girl he loves had a threesome with his former male coworkers
Nobody had warned her that the figure to pay attention to when she was being interviewed by Igor, the head of consumer outreach at Renewable Solutions, was not the "thirty or forty thousand dollars" in commissions that he foresaw her earning in her very first year but the $21,000 base salary he was offering, or that a salesman as persuasive as Igor might also be skilled at selling shit jobs to unsuspecting twenty-one-year-olds.
From somewhere, in college, Pip had gotten the idea--her mind was like a balloon with static cling, attracting random ideas as they floated by--that the height of civilization was to spend Sunday morning reading an actual paper copy of the Sunday New York Times at a café.