Why smart kids know (or should know) that the world is not quite a meritocracy

I've been listening to Dar Williams all morning and for the last 3 or 4 days. I've been feeling really at peace, lately, with myself and my choices. I've matured and settled down quite a bit in the last year or so. And it occurred me, today, after watching Idiocracy for the third time (which you must see if you haven't) why smart kids know (or should know) that the world is not quite the meritocracy that we might wish it was.

Because Dar Williams and Mike Judge, the creator Idiocracy, are far smarter, far more idealistic, far more decent than Britney Spears and Eminen. And yet, Britney and Eminen cash in big at a younger time in their lives (who knows what the future will hold for both of them), while Dar and Mike make successful careers that are not quite so lucrative, at least up front.

Now Dar and Mike and I and most smart people are used to this, at this point in our lives. Because we're smart kids. We know what it's like not to be the most popular kids in school. And life is one long extension of school, in so many ways. Popularity rules far too often, no matter how foolish it is or foolish are the decisions that people will make to have it. And so often it confuses our judgment. We start to rationalize keeping up with it in the name of money or power or fame, all of which are acquired in liberal democracies by catering to mass appeal, even if average people may need to be challenged rather than catered to.

That is the difference between education, ideally, and politics or money or pop culture. Education challenges people. It needs to. Because people need to be challenged to learn. They also need to be appreciated and supported and are in need of far more patience than teachers and professors generally have to offer, which is one of the more important reasons why so many of them get frustrated with education and begin to give up on it, too often, in their hearts. Luckily for all of us, the rates of people getting higher levels of education is growing, largely out of the benefits, financial and otherwise, that people are beginning to recognize come with an investment in higher education and because of more flexible policies allowing and supporting more people to get more education. But more people are getting more education, which is good for them as individuals and their lives, no matter how much or how little money they make, and the culture benefits immensely from that. It becomes more liberal and democratic, long term (the current period being an exception to that trend, in many ways, as we seek to repress more liberal attitudes and openness and more authentic democratic engagement, and a confirmation of it, in other ways, as levels of engagements and disagreement and the diverse arrays of ideological and philosophical orientations engage the political and economic and cultural arenas, and as we become a more open culture, often and perhaps generally, despite political pressures to the contrary), and it becomes more sustainably so, where people internalize liberal democratic attitudes more reliably rather than having political groups attempt to impose that on the culture.

Pop and mass culture needs to be freely expressed and needs a much freedom as possible, I think. But the culture and all of us are in better shape the more that nobler values - which are not always or even often popular or appealing to the desire for immediate gratification that generally has more mass appeal, as Mike Judge's brilliant movie illustrates and critiques -lead us, individually and as a culture.

Smart kids learn this principle, intuitively, at a much earlier age. Because being smart and taking school seriously is generally not popular in school. Certainly not before college, where it is often seriously unpopular. So we are not as surprised with Britney Spears or Eminen get rewarded more than we do in a baser way, with money or fame. Or even why people with a dearth of serious intellectual credentials get rewarded in politics. Because power often works the same way, although democratic politics is an arena where people also often vote for their higher aspirations as much as their baser impulses. "I may not be smart, but I may vote for someone who is smarter," is more common in politics than in pop music.

But smarter folks are used to this at a much earlier age, is the truth. Because it's their lives, often. As they grow older, they either accept it or resign themselves to it and cater to it to make their fortunes. Or they try to make it better. Through education, through writing and talking, through non-profit work and, often, through politics (though apart from the on-going political discussions this is a much less effective way to lift peoples' horizons than routes that more directly support and challenge people to think better, do better, and be better).

And Dar Williams and Mike Judge and a million other folks embody this tendency for smarter folks and smarter ideas to be overlooked by popular trends.

We still have a long way to go to making America and the world a meritocracy. We will get better as we make more honest and better choices about the matter, I think. And as we create more room for engagement with one another to promote more honest and better choices.

But, in the meantime, smarter folks should know better that what is popular is not at all what is best. Mike Judge's Idiocracy is a brilliant illustration of this little bit of wisdom and many other great perspectives on the culture. I highly recommend it when you get a chance.

I've got grading and lesson plans and a paper and a behavior plan to work on. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Love,
Ben