A society that feels insecure, or believes that it lives on the edge of scarcity, values merit as the determinative factor of prosperity, even survival. For example, a tribe constantly threatened by its neighbors values warrior prowess above all. Pre-Industrial Revolution agrarian society, perennially vulnerable to failed harvests, valued strength and endurance to provide the margin of subsistence. Silicon Valley culture, where survival comes only with besting the competition, values brainpower and inventiveness above all.
But a society that believes it enjoys nearly infinite abundance can value merit below other virtues. For example, a university such as Harvard with a huge endowment might well consider racial justice a more desirable goal than creating competent graduates of merit because it does not feel that the institutions well-being depends upon its reputation for producing quality education.
A secondary school establishment that in the old days regarded its mission was to prepare students with the necessary skills, such as math and reading, to participate and contribute in a competitive, even Hobbesian world, took its responsibilities to their students more seriously than a secondary school establishment that today simply assumes that the government will compensate for inadequacies in training and competence of their students. That threat being solved by government largess, secondary schools become able to concentrate on other values such as gender misidentification.
For society to move from insecurity to assumptions of affluence requires a context of prosperity or security that makes the assumption rational. For generations the American federal government has conditioned the people to expect the government to provide security and prosperity. Time and again Keynesian economics enables politicians to intervene with federal funds and spare citizens the pain of crises. In recent years we have QE1, QE2 QE 3 and QE on into infinity. It is assumed that the government will care for us, at least financially, when we are sick, aged or out of work, or simply want to change our sex.
Our government can do this because of a combination of factors: first and most important is our income tax that funnels vast amounts of money to the federal government and puts it in the hands of politicians who will spend it avoid pain; second, our near infinite ability to borrow to the extent of incurring trillions in debt, means that the government has had the funds to spare us pain; finally, America's final position as a dominant military power coupled with the fact that the dollar is the world's reserve currency, means that the government can continue to borrow, continue to spend and continue to shield its citizens from the consequences normally due to a society that fails merit tests.
In recent years we have seen the frightening consequences of detaching merit from performance in the United States military. The Trump/Hegseth campaign to restore the warrior mentality is a heroic effort to redress that imbalance. Similarly, the administration is attempting to restore merit as the critical value in our industry to redress the damage caused by DE I.
Educational establishment is but one institution among many that has gone astray, actually indulged its predilections, because they can.
