"Hereditary meritocracy" is a phrase, and a concept, that hits home. Reluctantly, I must concede that these words characterize my small corner of the American experience (at least in part).
"Hereditary meritocracy" is a pointed irony. It's obviously an oxymoron -- a contradiction -- in which an adjective that goes one way is sutured to a noun that goes another -- juxtaposing, as it does, unearned heredity to earned merit.
Heredity, as it defines an individual, comprehends the talents or defects that happen to lie in one's genes. In the wider social sense, it refers to what is often called "ascribed status" or "ascribed value." You can be a marquis or a mogul because your father or grandfather was "well born" or because he made a ton of money -- not because you yourself ever lifted a finger. But to be a member of the meritocracy, you must have achieved something intellectual, financial, political, artistic, or whatever. Your own abilities, your own work.
But heredity and merit are not as distinct in practice as they are in theory, as the phrase "hereditary meritocracy" indicates. The hereditarily rich and well-born have advantages that allow their offspring to "achieve" and prosper. Children of the advantaged develop, it's been shown, larger cerebellums. They attend better schools, enjoy a richer home life, have better medical care and are coached in music and art and athletics. Of course they then perform better on standardized tests, which is then interpreted as as a sign of merit. It's a better forecast of "success" to be rich with mediocre genes than poor with excellent genes and good work habits -- though it's hard for some of the privileged to admit this obvious fact.
And now to the point. I myself and my family have during this last century made our way into the "hereditary meritocracy." Although we're not particularly rich in cash, we're rich in family resources and intergenerational support. I believe that every one of my own parents' descendants, and there are now 24 of them, has or will graduate from college. We are almost uniformly "professionals": accountants, lawyers, teachers, librarians, journalists. Not a one of us rolls cigars for a living, as did my grandfather. We're prosperous.
Should we be embarrassed or ashamed that we can provide a privileged life for our descendants. I don't think so, because we didn't step on anyone's heads to get here. We need not apologize for our successes in this new world.
But we do have obligations. The first is to be aware of our good fortune and to realize that our successes owe as much to opportunity as to effort. (After all, with the same genes, we were stagnant and miserable for a thousand years in the "old country"). And then we must also make sure that we do not put barriers in the way of others -- or more positively, we must try to help others find themselves in the same comfortable niche that we have reached. It's an imperfect system, this "hereditary meritocracy," but it is far from the worst the world has known.
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