It was refreshing to see a philosopher descending from the ivory towers of Harvard University and having the humility to recognise that his privilege in being part of that august institution did not in any way qualify him to look down in moral terms on the deluded masses scurrying around in the mistaken belief that their success which they believed was a reflection of their efforts was no such thing. We are indebted to him for his recognition that those who took out huge loans to enjoy the privilege of studying at the feet of scholars like him were in so doing merely nailing down planks that entrenched the tyranny of meritocracy; that their actions in so doing were corrosive of all that is good in society; and that they needed to be reminded by enlightened individuals such as the good professor of the contingency of all the benefits they enjoyed and imagined had accrued from their efforts. I wasn't quite sure, though, if he was coming down in favour of the position that university education is altogether a waste of time since it entrenches and amplifies privilege; or that perhaps it might somehow be salvaged as a way of enhancing equality levels by avoiding stretching students' abilities excessively. But his strategy to dispense with competition and offer a lottery for places at Harvard to everyone who surpassed the minimum level of competence was a stroke of genius. By lowering the incentive for students to bother putting any real effort into studying we could ensure that the ability of students in general at elite universities would drop and so their ability to extract any benefit from their education, which would otherwise only have the corrosive and clearly immoral effect of strengthening the illusion of their entitlement and "merit" and exacerbating the already appalling levels of inequality and embedded privilege in society. Indeed it might not be long before the very idea of an "elite" university would be consigned to the dustbin of history. It was also refreshing to see that he eschewed the sorts of strategies used by less enlightened philosophers of a previous generation who took seriously the arguments of their ideological counterparts and sought to address them on their merits (God forbid!), taking instead a modern approach much more suited to the popular democratic social media world inhabited by the hoi polloi today, heaping moral condemnation on any possible detractors from the outset, making straw men portrayals of their "ideologies" and dismissing them as the agents of tyranny, corrosion and injustice, and as the purveyors of offence and humiliation on the basis of the privilege they are deemed to enjoy; not to mention their foolishly mistaken belief that their concept of being in any sense free agents had no basis in reality. The world would be much diminished without such intellectual giants as Professor Sandel towering above us mere mortals and allowing their grace to shine freely down as we labour away in the mistaken illusion that any of our efforts amounts to anything of consequence.

Sandel's ciriticism of "meritocracy" in his talk and in his book is in essence a straw man argument. As with Marx's popularisation of the word "capitalism" to criticise a system which had arisen naturally through socio-economic forces, so the word meritocracy was introduced as a criticism only around 60 years ago and Sandel is attempting to discredit a system which was never really defended as such. In particular he goes back even thousands of years before the system he is criticising was recognised as existing to "understand" this phenomenon. What he is talking about, and he consistently (deliberately?) uses the term interchangeably (including in his branding) is the idea of rewarding merit, which is surely a natural human instinct, of which every child is possessed. The trick he plays to facilitate his criticism is to add the epithet "ocratic" on the end, turning it into an ideology (defined by him) rather than a virtue and making the issue apparently about power. But if he is against merit being rewarded and wants to argue against this practice, he should be more forthright and say so. And he should consider the consequences for human progress and human happiness of taking away the incentive for people to attain merit; including the demotivation of students thinking to apply to Harvard if the entrance exams sought to discriminate less on merit as he proposes. But no, his whole enterprise is a one-sided diatribe against the perceived negative consequences of a "tyranny" of merit. He suggests from his ivory tower that he understands those he refers to as "working people". But I wonder how many he has talked to when he says they are resentful of the "hubris" he points to of those who have achieved their position on the basis of merit? Can he report that working people are against the principle of being rewarded for merit? Really? I think if he bothers to explore more deeply he will discover that the real issue is rather in the definition of merit. People do want leaders in business and politics who demonstrate merit, and their demerits are regular topics of conversation down the pub (when they are open these days). And despite the stellar wealth they attract, working people never complain about the salaries of Premiership footballers. Why not? Because they see their talent/merit displayed on a weekly basis and expect any dip in performance to be punished (as it usually is). What in my experience they tend to feel is that those in the positions of power are not the best qualified to do the job but rather have the best skills in holding on to greasy poles and taking credit for the efforts of others; as well as having contracts which make it difficult or impossible to sack them and which reward failure as handsomely as success. If they do think in terms of classical Greek categories like "hubris" I suspect this kind of thing is more what they have in mind. I would wonder what merit they might see in a tenured Harvard professor with a good salary professing to be defending their interests in a talk to Theos in which he appears so egregiously to fail in representing adequately their point of view.