David Brooks on Rethinking the Meritocracy

            In this article in The Atlantic, David Brooks says the American “social ideal” from the late 1800s to the 1950s was a well-bred graduate of Harvard, Princeton, or Yale – “good-looking, athletic, graceful, casually elegant, Episcopalian, and white.” These men had a smooth pathway to high-paying jobs, power, and even the White House. “People living according to this social ideal,” says Brooks, “valued not academic accomplishment but refined manners, prudent judgment, and the habit of command. This was the age of social privilege.” 

            Then a small group of college presidents, led by James Conant at Harvard, decided that if the U.S. was to prosper and lead in the 20th century, it could no longer be ruled by this narrow, inbred aristocracy. Instead, admission to elite universities should be based on intelligence, with the aim of creating a brainy elite drawn from across the nation. “At least half of higher education, I believe,” said Conant, “is a matter of selecting, sorting, and classifying students.” He and other educators trusted IQ tests to identify this cognitive elite. 

            When a few selective universities adopted this mindset, says Brooks, the effect was “transformative, as though someone had turned on a powerful magnet and filaments across wide swaths of the culture suddenly snapped to attention in the same direction. Status markers changed” – and so did family life. Many parents tried to raise children who could get into selective colleges, “ferrying their kids from one supervised skill-building, résumé-enhancing activity to another. It turns out that if you put parents in a highly competitive status race, they will go completely bonkers trying to hone their kids into little avatars of success.” Most working-class parents, on the other hand, let their kids be kids, free to wander and explore.

            K-12 schools changed as well, cutting down on recess, art, shop, and home economics and spending more time on testing and Advanced Placement classes. “The good test-takers,” says Brooks, “get funneled into the meritocratic pressure cooker; the bad test-takers learn, by about age 9 or 10, that society does not value them the same way.” The upper end of the job market followed suit; a 2024 study showed that 54 percent of high-achieving lawyers, artists, scientists, business and political leaders had attended the same 34 elite colleges. Recruiters across the board were obsessed with college prestige. In short, Conant’s dream of an aristocracy of intelligence became a reality.

            But do we have a better elite? The earlier WASP aristocracy “helped produce the Progressive Era, the New Deal, victory in World War II, the Marshall Plan, NATO, and the postwar Pax Americana,” says Brooks. “After the meritocrats took over in the 1960s, we got the quagmire of Vietnam and Afghanistan, needless carnage in Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis, the toxic rise of social media, and our current age of political dysfunction. Today, 59 percent of Americans believe that our country is in decline, 69 percent believe that the ‘political and economic elite don’t care about hard-working people,’ 63 percent think experts don’t understand their lives, and 66 percent believe that America ‘needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful.’”

            That’s the zeitgeist, and it’s difficult for parents to pull out of the rat race; their kids might get passed by the tiger mom’s kids next door. Teachers must teach to the tests, striving students focus on their GPAs instead of something they’re passionate about, and college admissions officers are prisoners of the U.S. News and World Report rankings. “In other words,” says Brooks, “we’re all trapped in a system that was built on a series of ideological assumptions that were accepted 70 or 80 years ago but that now look shaky or just plain wrong.”

            Here are what he considers the six deadly sins of the U.S. meritocratic ethos, each accompanied by a Brooks quote:

• It overrates intelligence. “If you rely on intelligence as the central proxy for ability, you will miss 70 percent of what you want to know about a person.”
• Success in school is not the same thing as success in life. “We train and segregate people by ability in one setting, and then launch them into very different settings.”
• The game is rigged. “As the meritocracy has matured, affluent parents have invested massively in their children so they can win in the college-admissions arms race.”
• The meritocracy has created an American caste system. “As in all caste societies, the inequalities involve inequalities not just of wealth but of status and respect.” There are troubling disparities in divorce, health, longevity, opioid addiction, and loneliness.
• The meritocracy has damaged the psyches of the American elite. “The system has become so instrumentalized – How can this help me succeed? – that deeper questions about meaning or purpose are off the table, questions like: How do I become a generous human being? How do I lead a life of meaning? How do I build good character?”
• All this has provoked a populist backlash that is tearing our society apart. “Many people who have lost the meritocratic race have developed contempt for the entire system, and for the people it elevates. This has reshaped national politics” – not just in the U.S. but in France, Turkey, Hungary, and Venezuela.

In short, says Brooks, “James Conant and his colleagues dreamed of building a world with a lot of class mixing and relative social comity; we ended up with a world of rigid caste lines and pervasive cultural and political war.”

            So what is to be done? Moving away from meritocracy is not going to happen, says Brooks; throughout human history, every society has been hierarchical. “What determines a society’s health,” he believes, “is not the existence of an elite, but the effectiveness of the elite, and whether the relationship between the elites and everybody else is mutually respectful… The challenge is not to end the meritocracy; it’s to humanize and improve it… The crucial first step is to change how we define merit… Having a fast mental processor upstairs is great, but other traits may do more to determine how much you are going to contribute to society.” Brooks would like us to focus more on four human qualities:

• Curiosity – Kids between 14 months and five years old make about 107 inquiries an hour, but schools tend to stamp out kids’ natural curiosity. Why? Brooks believes it’s because of standardized tests, which push teachers to march through a test-aligned curriculum. This narrow focus produces a lifelong disadvantage, he believes. We need to allow more play and ability for children to keep being curious and pursue their passions. 
• A sense of drive and mission – An important quality that needs to be uncovered and nurtured in the young is purpose beyond themselves. Perhaps that will be indignation at injustice, compassion for the disadvantaged, the pursuit of new knowledge, creating something beautiful. 
• Social intelligence – “In an effective meritocracy,” says Brooks “we’d want to find people who are fantastic team builders, who have excellent communication and bonding skills… players who have that ineffable ability to make a team greater than the sum of its parts.” These non-cognitive skills – listening, empathy, communication – are just as important as technical brilliance. 
• Agility – This is the ability to size up the different aspects of a situation, see the flow of events, and make good decisions about what to do next. High-IQ experts are seldom good at this, says Brooks, but agile thinkers “can switch among mindsets and riff through alternative perspectives until they find the one that best applies to a given situation.”

            In short, says Brooks, “If we can orient our meritocracy around a definition of human ability that takes more account of traits like motivation, generosity, sensitivity, and passion, then our schools, families, and workplaces will readjust in fundamental ways.” He admires schools like High Tech High where students are immersed in project-based learning, skilled teachers act more as coaches of learning than purveyors of knowledge, and achievement is measured by portfolios of students’ best work – papers, speeches, projects – defended in face-to-face presentations to a committee of adults and peers.               Brooks also wants us to redefine the nation’s “opportunity structure – the intersecting lattice of paths and hurdles that propel people toward one profession or way of life and away from others.” Right now, he says, our opportunity structure is too narrow, channeling kids through one bottleneck after another to achieve elite status: high grades, good test scores, college and graduate degrees. Better to have “opportunity pluralism,” where young people have a broader range of pathways and we have not a single pyramid but a mountain range with many possible peaks of achievement. Brooks suggests four ways to achieve this:

• Prioritize career and technical education – “Schools should prepare people to build things, not just to think things,” he says.
• Make national service a rite of passage after high school, which will build friendships across class lines as young people make real contributions to society.
• Invest more in local civic groups and community organizations where young people can serve others, lead meetings, rally neighbors for a cause.
• Support economic policies like the CHIPS and Science Act to boost the U.S. industrial sector and provide jobs for those who don’t want professional and office jobs.

            Brooks’s conclusion: “We want a society run by people who are smart, yes, but who are also wise, perceptive, curious, caring, resilient, and committed to the common good. If we can figure out how to select for people’s motivation to grow and learn across their whole lifespan, then we are sorting people by a quality that is more democratically distributed, a quality that people can control and develop, and we will end up with a fairer and more mobile society… We want a meritocracy that will help each person identify, nurture, and pursue the ruling passion of their soul.” 

“How the Ivy League Broke America” by David Brooks in The Atlantic, December 2024 (Vol. 334, #5, pp. 26-40); Brooks can be reached at dabrooks@nytimes.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1063 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

10 Suggestions for Living in a Complicated World

            In the epilogue of his book, Humankind: A Hopeful History, Rutger Bregman gives advice on how to apply his thesis – that humans are basically good – in a world that embraces the opposite view. “For ages,” he says, “we’ve assumed that people are selfish, that we’re beasts, or worse. For ages, we’ve believed civilization is a flimsy veneer that will crack at the merest provocation.” He argues that this is simply not true – including in a chapter on the true story that contradicts Lord of the Flies: when 14 teenage boys were stranded on an island in the middle of the Pacific, they cooperated, solved problems, and were healthy and happy when they were rescued 16 months later (see Memo 1034 for a summary of this chapter). Bregman’s advice for pushing back against the negative narrative: 

•  When in doubt, assume the best. Communication is tricky, he says. “You say something that gets taken the wrong way, or someone looks at you funny, or nasty comments get passed through the grapevine.” Negativity bias kicks in, and you assume the worst. Far better, says Bregman, and far more realistic, is to give people the benefit of the doubt. Most of the time, this pays off. 
• Think in win-win scenarios. Many companies, schools, and other institutions are organized around the idea that it’s in our nature to be locked in win-lose competition. “In truth,” says Bregman, “this works precisely the other way around. The best deals are those where everybody wins.” Doing good is not only good, but it feels good because of the way we’re built. 
• Ask more questions. The Golden Rule comes in two flavors, says Bregman: the positive injunction (Treat others as you wish to be treated) and the negative (Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you). But both versions fall short, he believes, because we’re not that skilled at empathy – sensing what other people want – and making assumptions robs others of their voice. It’s better to ask them, listen carefully, and be guided by what they say. 
• Temper your empathy, train your compassion. What Bregman calls the Platinum Rule calls for compassion versus empathy. What’s the difference? Empathy is feeling with people who are suffering – I feel your pain – putting yourself in their shoes. The problem is that it’s exhausting and unproductive. Compassion is feeling for others, recognizing their distress, and then deciding how to help. “Unlike empathy, compassion doesn’t sap our energy,” says Bregman. “That’s because compassion is simultaneously more controlled, remote, and constructive. It’s not about sharing another person’s distress, but it does help you to recognize it and then act.” 
• Try to understand the other, even if you don’t get where they’re coming from. “When we use our intellect to try to understand someone,” says Bregman, “this activates the prefrontal cortex, an area located just behind the forehead that’s exceptionally large in humans.” Yes, people have foibles and rational analysis doesn’t always work, especially when we don’t see eye to eye with someone. But using our intellect mostly works better than relying on our gut. “Understanding the other at a rational level is a skill,” he says. “It’s a muscle we can train.” 
• Love your own as others love their own. “Humans are limited creatures,” says Bregman. “We care more about those who are like us, who share the same language or appearance or background… Distance lets us rant at strangers on the Internet. Distance helps soldiers bypass their aversion to violence… As humans, we differentiate. We play favorites and care more about our own. That’s nothing to be ashamed of – it makes us human. But we must also understand that those others, those distant strangers, also have families they love. That they are every bit as human as we are.” • Avoid TV news and social media. They are the biggest sources of distance among people, says Bregman, skewing our view of the world by generalizing people into groups and zooming in on the bad apples with the media’s negativity bias and manipulative algorithms. His rule of thumb: steer clear of television news and push notifications and read a more-nuanced Sunday newspaper and in-depth feature writing. “Disengage from your screen and meet real people in the flesh,” he says. “Think as carefully about what information you feed your mind as you do about the food you feed your body.” 
• Don’t punch people you disagree with. It may feel good to lash out at bigotry, says Bregman, or lapse into cynicism: “What’s the point of recycling, paying taxes, and donating to charities when others shirk their duty? If you’re tempted by such thoughts, remember that cynicism is just another word for laziness. It’s an excuse not to take responsibility.” 
• Come out of the closet: don’t be ashamed to do good. “To extend that hand you need one thing above all,” says Bregman. “Courage. Because you may well be branded a bleeding heart or a show-off.” It feels safer to keep a low profile and make excuses or fabricate selfish motives: Just keeping busy. I didn’t need the money anyway. It will look good on my résumé. But this approach isn’t helpful, he believes: “When you disguise yourself as an egotist, you reinforce other people’s cynical assumptions about human nature. Worse, by cloaking your good deeds, you place them in quarantine, where they can’t serve as an example for others. 
• Be realistic. Bregman hopes his book has changed the meaning of that word. He believes a realistic view of humankind is that “people are deeply inclined to be good to one another.” His closing exhortation: “Be realistic. Be courageous. Be true to your nature and offer your trust. Do good in broad daylight, and don’t be ashamed of your generosity. You may be dismissed as gullible and naive at first. But remember, what’s naïve today may be common sense tomorrow. It’s time for a new realism. It’s time for a new view of humankind.” 

 “Ten Rules to Live By” in Humankind by Rutger Bregman (Little Brown, 2019)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1062 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

a poem for times such as these

It’s when the earth shakes

And foundations crumble

That our light is called

To rise up.

It’s when everything falls away

And shakes us to the core

And awakens all

Of our hidden ghosts

That we dig deeper to find

Once inaccessible strength.

It’s in times when division is fierce

That we must reach for each other

And hold each other much

Much tighter.

Do not fall away now.

This is the time to rise.

Your light is being summoned.

Your integrity is being tested

That it may stand more tall.

When everything collapses

We must find within us

That which is indomitable.

Rise, and find the strength in your heart.

Rise, and find the strength in each other

Burn through your devastation,

Make it your fuel.

Bring forth your light.

Now is not the time

To be afraid of the dark.

Poem by Chelan Harkin