Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


1 posted on 08/15/2005 7:34:38 AM PDT by Molly Pitcher
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies ]


To: Molly Pitcher
Meritocracy may leave people with no one to blame for failure. But, as Herrnstein and Murray argued, almost all Americans have the ability "to find valued places in society."

Actually, IIRC H/M said that Americans might be able to find valued places in society, but not as long as there is a massive centralized welfare state working against the purposes of local community. It's been awhile since I read their book, but they were gloomy about the ability of a highly meritocratic society to get along unless significant changes were made in that society.

2 posted on 08/15/2005 7:41:55 AM PDT by untenured (http://futureuncertain.blogspot.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher

My wife was surprised, when she immigrated here, at how hard Americans have to work for everything.

I explained to her that America doesn't promise to make anyone rich. What you get is opportunity.

Not everyone makes the most of it, and alot of folks fail. But they get the chance, and that's a damn sight more than most places offer.


3 posted on 08/15/2005 7:43:56 AM PDT by Gefreiter ("Are you drinking 1% because you think you're fat?")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher
Meritocracy may mean less mobility, but that is bearable if, as Brooks says, "America is becoming more virtuous."


4 posted on 08/15/2005 7:44:28 AM PDT by Paul Ross (Definition of strict constructionist: someone who DOESN'T hallucinate when reading the Constitution)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher
Meritocracy may leave people with no one to blame for failure.

Never under-estimate Jesse Jackson.

5 posted on 08/15/2005 7:45:08 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher
"As college education becomes open to all with the requisite intelligence, graduates will tend to marry graduates and produce children with similar intelligence, while others will tend to produce children without it...

Does Mr. Parket suggest that George Washington Carver was some kind of an intellectual fluke? That the children of crop dusters will produce only cropdusters? What a Darwinian crock!

Has anyone noticed that the systematic dumbing-down of our "educational" system is producing endless crops of spiritually crippled Elitist parrots without a shred of critical-thinking ability?

Those "tests" that are ostensibly devised to measure this ever increasing superiority have been modified to the point of banality for the purpose of turning out intellectually fatuous and morally vacant corporatites.

I thoroughly disagree and object to the tone and conclusions of this pathetic analysis.

6 posted on 08/15/2005 7:45:19 AM PDT by steenkeenbadges
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher

Since there will ALWAYS be some people with nothing... as a society becomes richer... isn't it inevitable that the gap between the rich and poor will grow?


8 posted on 08/15/2005 7:49:46 AM PDT by Texas_Conservative2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher
"America," concludes Parker, "is becoming a stratified society based on education: a meritocracy."

And that's fine. The only thing we need to guarantee is that:

1) Anyone who is sufficiently self-motivated can educate him or herself at a reasonable cost through Internet courses and self-study options.

2) "Based on education" doesn't translate to "based on graduating from a select list of twenty schools."

9 posted on 08/15/2005 7:50:38 AM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ("Feelings are not a tool of cognition, therefore they are not a criterion of morality." -- Ayn Rand)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher

Lower class emulates upper class -- empire is rising.

Upper class emulates lower class -- empire is declining.


Considering that the media and certain rich kids believe it's both cool and fun to be impoverished crime-ridden inner city minorities, the current state of "class" indicates we a nation in free-fall.


10 posted on 08/15/2005 7:52:11 AM PDT by SteveMcKing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher

I've read the Bell Curve...liberals should be very afraid.


15 posted on 08/15/2005 8:04:12 AM PDT by Tulane
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher
This was the conclusion, as well, of a recent series of articles in The New York Times -- although, as the Times and Parker both note, polls show that Americans think their chances of moving up are better than a generation ago. Statistics tell a different story: There is a higher correlation today between parents' and children's income than in the 1980s, and the income gap between college graduates and non-graduated doubled between 1979 and 1997.

This is not surprising. The universal availability of college education was first available to our parent's generation. So the smart ones, even from working class backgrounds, went to college.

Thus, my grandfather was a migrant farm worker and a hard rock miner. He was plenty smart but the result of being the child of very poor Italian immigrants in the 1890's--they didn't go to college. But my father was a rocket scientist. I'm a professional. High correlation between my father's income and mine. Low correlation between my grandfather and my father. High correlation between by grandfather and my great-grandfather.

Smart parents tend to have smart kids. Once the class barrier to college education was broken, the decorrelation between generations will last for about one generation and then reassert itself. It's not a sign of anything other than the fact that the effect of universal college education has now worked it's way thru the system.

The only way in which this may truly have changed is that with smarter boys and girs going to college, I suspect that smart boys and smart girls are more likely to end up married to each other and that the kids may be supersmart, on average. So in that sense, there is probably a larger class of very smart folks than existed before.

19 posted on 08/15/2005 8:08:38 AM PDT by ModelBreaker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher
This he partly blames on the abolition by equality-minded Laborites years ago of the academically demanding grammar schools that were the routes out of the working class for so many Labor politicians themselves.

Which means the public schools are not educating kids.

24 posted on 08/15/2005 8:16:43 AM PDT by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher

When did 'class' ever leave?


25 posted on 08/15/2005 8:16:47 AM PDT by cyborg (I'm having the best day ever.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." - Calvin Coolidge

Regards, Ivan

26 posted on 08/15/2005 8:16:53 AM PDT by MadIvan (You underestimate the power of the Dark Side - http://www.sithorder.com/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher

Success like failure is mostly self selected.


27 posted on 08/15/2005 8:20:02 AM PDT by TASMANIANRED (Conservatives are from Earth. Liberals are from Uranus.(c))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher
"America," concludes Parker, "is becoming a stratified society based on education: a meritocracy."

I would use the term "credentiocracy" and otherwise wholeheartedly agree. It totally sucks.

30 posted on 08/15/2005 8:32:50 AM PDT by the invisib1e hand (see my FR page for a link to the tribute to Terri Schaivo, a short video presentation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Molly Pitcher
Yep,.....Al-Qaeda's........U.N. Workers of the World Unite,.....

.....Fritz Lange's,.....Al-Qaeda Canadian... "Metropolis"...at the U.S.A. gas pump....

/9-11 ...$$$$$....victory?

34 posted on 08/15/2005 8:45:59 AM PDT by maestro
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

later read.


41 posted on 08/15/2005 9:02:09 AM PDT by little jeremiah (A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, are incompatible with freedom. P. Henry)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson