I’d say today’s meritocratic elites achieve and preserve their status … mainly by being ambitious and disciplined. They raise their kids in organized families. They spend enormous amounts of money and time on enrichment. They work much longer hours than people down the income scale, driving their kids to piano lessons and then taking part in conference calls from the waiting room. [bold emphasis mine]
Oh, those clever elites! They can multitask! If only poorer people could learn to sit in a waiting room and take part in conference calls at the same time, then their kids would be successful too! Unfortunately, poorer people can only perform 1 task at a time (at most).
If I work 2 hours in front of a computer doing stimulating work for high pay, and you do 1 hour of work moving heavy furniture on a hot day for low pay, I worked longer hours than you did! You lazy f*ck! And if I come home from work with the energy and money needed to engage my kids in fun, enriching activities, and you come home too tired and poor to take them to and/or afford piano lessons, then I am the superior parent. Further, while you’re at home cooking dinner (because you can’t afford a personal chef), I’m watching my kids perform, while networking over my cell phone at the same time, because, you know, my job involves networking.
No excuses
David Brooks is a strong proponent of ‘no excuses.’ What ‘no excuses’ means is that he does not want to hear about anyone’s circumstances (the Haiti earthquake would not have been as damaging if Haitians were not so “progress-resistant”). In my view, the phrase ‘no excuses’ is an attempt at censorship. It’s a way for people with privilege to live a guilt-free existence.
David Brooks believes that it basically comes down to some people working hard and others not. Essentially, there are good genes and bad genes. This belief that the elite are that way because of their genetic superiority is pervasive in elite circles (no surprise), including academia. Unfortunately for the Brooks’ of the world, reality is not that way.
When people talk about a good genes, like genes for altruism say, what they really (should) mean is: this gene is part of a network that, when the right combinations of them are on (expressed), tend to lead to more acts of altruism in the environments we’ve studied. Everything is gene-environment interaction. Even things that people would think of as purely genetic, such as whether a guppy is colorful and has descended testes, are in fact affected by the environment.
I happen to enjoy my job and am well paid. But I can point to particular events in my life that, had they gone differently, could have put me in a much different situation. I could have ended up with a much lower paying, more stressful job. In that case, I probably would not be as good of a parent. I wonder why it is so hard for people to acknowledge that the reasons that they succeeded when someone else failed, was at least in part due to things outside of the control of either person. Rather than implicitly boasting that they have good genes, they could instead boast that they had good gene-environment interactions.
“I wonder why it is so hard for people to acknowledge that the reasons that they succeeded when someone else failed, was at least in part due to things outside of the control of either person.”
Isn’t it obvious? It is a status grab. It’s higher status to claim the ridiculous lie that all one’s success is by one’s own hands than to admit that luck was literally all of it. (Born with motivation = lucky! Try to deny it!)
But it’s also high status to be humble. I think it is largely about guilt-avoidance. The belief that being more motivated than others isn’t just luck, must have a very strong need behind it, since it seems like pretty obvious BS.
I made no claim that humans are automatically *strategic* in their status grabs!
Good point
I-love-being-ignorant gene’s gonna rule the planet….-.-
The “good genes” theory is going to crash and burn, but maybe not in my lifetime. For now it still echos in the classrooms of many of the Ivies. Of the 50 classes I attended, more than 50% of them had professors who reminded us, “You where chosen for your superior memory, good genes, etc.” Many profs talke explicitly about good genes. Others acknowledged that it’s not “all good genes because it is a mix of good genes and environment.”
This will, like so many other things, be reflected in our history as a gross injustice to those deemed “less than.” But, don’t expect it to happen any time too soon. First we need to show that the environment is what gives rise to gene expression (epigenetics) and then we need to understand that expression can be effected (by the environment) for many generations. When you add on to this the fact that how we define good actions (those things your good genes helped you accomplish), it will be challenging to usher this view into general awareness.
This reminds me of David Rockefeller bragging that he had never in his life been uncivil, the implication being that he’s incredibly well bred. It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that as a top aristocrat, he need never become so annoyed as to be uncivil because he was going to get exactly what he wanted 99% of the time, and that nearly everyone in his presence was also likely to be civil, if not deferential.
Thanks for this post!
Great example
My opinion is that it is a particularly strong reaction to the guilt implied by the huge degree of inequality in our society relative to our relatively recent past:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways-three-complementary?page=2
I guess I’m just repeating your point that it’s a cognitive dissonance canceling machine.