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| What if we got report cards our whole lives? Do we? |
As
the semester closes, and people are getting ready for finals, doing final
papers and projects, and looking to the next semester for (hopefully) good
classes and better grades, the subject of Menand’s theories of higher learning
we read about in “Live and Learn” at the beginning of the semester have come
full circle. Because I personally want to, and need to, go to graduate school,
my grades are very important for getting me into a graduate school that I will
like, and additionally a good job to take on while I go to school and finish my
degree. I realized that this attitude of placing so much emphasis on my GPA is
very supportive of the meritocratic theory, which, as another blog posted
about, is basically a result of the current system, and is hardly anything new
to students at a school such as Michigan. Grades matter, always have mattered,
and will probably always will matter in some way, shape, or form.
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| Failure hurts |
Our
meritocratic schools are a reflection and byproduct of our meritocratic system
of life in today’s society. Because of the great stress and questionable
personal tolls taken because of our meritocratic society, the value of
meritocracy has been much debated. Meritocracy is actually stressful for both
those who succeed and for those who don’t, because those who do not succeed
have low self-esteem as a result, because their value in society is placed upon
their achievements, and for those who do succeed, it is rarely an easy journey,
and often an inordinate amount of pressure is placed on those people to get
there. So much of our social status and self-image are based on what we do and
how successful we are viewed as by society, but how much control do people
really have over whether they succeed or not?
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| The New Yorker |
The
other night, I was inspired to write this blog post while watching a Ted Talk
about the philosophy of American success. Alain de Botton, a Swiss writer,
philosopher, and entrepreneur, discusses his problem with the atmosphere that
meritocracy harbors in a society, and his wish for a new philosophy regarding
success and failure. Botton asserts that the problem of meritocracy is
manifested in what he calls “job snobbery”, or passing judgment on peoples’
character and worth based solely on the title of their occupation. Because our
society advocates social mobility, job snobbery is born from the belief that
people have complete control over how well they do in life. Botton argues that
there is a strong correlation between a society that tells people that they can
be anything they want, and the presence of low self-esteem, because people
attribute both their successes and their failures to their own competence.
This, he says, makes failure all the more crushing. Botton also talks about how
today’s society is more drawn to human competition because previous societies
have been centered around something non-human, like gods or nature, while we
worship people: our heroes are human. I thought that this was an interesting
insight into our meritocratic system, because it reflects the fact that it is
within the realm of possibility to be one of the most admired figures in
society now, whereas in previous societies, no one could ever be above the supernatural
being that they worshipped. This only adds to the pressure to succeed, and
Botton states that jealousy is a prevailing emotion in modern society due to
the comparisons we make between ourselves and other people. Botton does not
advocate changing the system, but instead trying to find a brighter philosophy
within the system of meritocracy that does not put people down or judge them.
He states that success is a great thing, but choosing a career path because it
is viewed as “successful” or “respectable” by society should not be a driving
force in our work lives.
I particularly enjoyed and wanted
to share this Ted Talk because I think that Botton has a really accurate point,
because I personally know that when I get a bad grade, or test score, or suck
at a sport, I take a large hit to the ego, because I correlate those things
with failure and thus a personal lacking of some kind. I knew since I got in
that I wanted to go to Michigan, but when I got waitlisted at other schools, I
cried because I was afraid that my peers would judge me for being less
intelligent, and I’m positive that it will be the same way with jobs in the
near future.
I
found another article about meritocracy as well, called “The Merits of Meritocracy”, by David Brooks. This article focuses more on the effect of a meritocracy
on children, and how it forces them to grow up faster, with increasing amounts
of pressure to succeed placed at a younger and younger age. I identified with
this article too, as I went to a gifted school in Chicago, where you have to
apply to go to certain high schools that were public, but highly ranked in the
state and extremely competitive. Our grades and scores from 7th
grade were used for this, so when we were in 6th grade (11 years
old) we were already scared, and preparing to go through the process of being
in competition with each other and the rest of the city for limited spots in
the top few schools. Brooks made a valid point in this article, because clearly
children are being forced to look at their futures at earlier and earlier ages.
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| We can't all win the gold |
All
of this troubles me, because though the idea of a meritocracy is a good one, it
leads to schools becoming solely meritocratic, and people having inordinate
amounts of stress and grief on their shoulders as they go through life,
imperfect as we all are, striving to be as talented as an Olympic athlete, or
as rich as Bill Gates. Botton really made me think, because the problem does
not necessarily lie within meritocracy itself, but in the attitudes and
prejudices it brings with it. As much as I want to do as my mother instructed
me and never compare myself to other people, I can never help but feel a twinge
of jealousy and sadness when someone else achieves something that I did not,
especially if I attempted it. However, I think that despite the way the world
is right now, we can all aspire to be a little less harsh on ourselves and
others, and accept that some things are out of our control, and after all,
we’re all doing the best we can.
Great post Daisy!
ReplyDeleteI can totally relate to the feelings of stress and anxiety about my achievements in school.
I remember taking the ACT junior year was especially stressful. Even though we know that the score isn't all that matters for getting into college we all start to feel as if that number score is part of our identity and compare our scores to friends and schoolmates.
These type of things definitely affect your self esteem and your feelings of self worth. This is particularly problematic because our high school and college years are very formative for our identity.
Can't wait to watch the TED talk!
Daisy,
ReplyDeleteGreat post, highlighting one of my favorite TED Talks. I think you bring up a good point about an issue of academic meritocracy that most of us can relate to. All of us being students at a highly rigorous and competitive institution like the University of Michigan, we lived through (and succeeded in) the competitive process to get here.
While there are certainly negatives associated with this system, our stress and anxiety high on that list, I don't see any real alternative. The competitive merit-based nature of our system is able to separate and distinguish individuals in a society based on capitalistic competition.
Very interesting and apropos post!
Brad
This post is relevant to all college students. I must first start by saying that while I have so much studying to do for finals, and a paper to write, you basically forced me to watch this TED Talk, and I thank you for it. I along with every student I know have felt this pressure. For me, it started in 7th grade, when "just for the heck of it" my teacher recommended I take some sort of ACT prediction test. From that point on it seems, I have lived in a constant stress of school. Is this healthy for American students should be the first question. I believe the answer would be no. But more importantly, is there an alternative, should be the second question. To this, I would also tend to say no. I think it is also important to compare our system to that of other systems across the world. Look at Japan's education system, South Korea's education system. It only takes a second to see that our sense of meritocracy is quickly belittled by others'. Great post! Great video.
ReplyDeleteYour post about meritocracy, while relevant to us in the United States, is quite a daunting thing. I am looking to apply to medical school in a few years, and I understand the pressure of getting good marks in an attempt to make myself seem qualified. A few years back, in high school, I was trying to do the same -- only to a lesser extent -- to try to get into a decent college. In a few years, we'll be trying to get our job performance ratings up, too. I guess no matter what we're doing, we're always trying to build up our merit. The most successful people unintentionally accumulate merit by focusing in one thing instead of a bunch of different things. Einstein was not who he was because he knew some American history in his theories of relativity.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, like you said, it is stressful. I guess people who have been conditioned to work for merit, though, do not feel stressed out. For instance, children in China are hard working at the ripe age of 6. There isn't much fun s they're conditioned that hard work leads to happiness. I think, though, that it's important to forget the merit and do what makes us happy. Some of the happiest people took a long and slow time to get there, but they aren't well-known for their accomplishments. They're just happy.