Is Meritocracy a "white cultural" idea? And Should it be Challenged?

White Fragility, Meritocracy, and Cultural Worldviews

Quote, our white perspective has never been challenged. Instead, every aspect of our culture has reinforced our worldview. So when presented with an idea or a personal experience from someone that contradicts the narrative we have developed about ourselves and our world, we often feel unbalanced or even threatened.

You mean the idea that whiteness is a culture is challenging to white people. The reality is, however, we do view the world through a cultural lens just as all people.

Do.

While understanding one's culture is a complex study, there are some major areas of white culture that are challenged when race and inequality are discussed. Things white people often take for granted and assume are the norm are actual ideas into which we were socialized.

Such ideas that we are to challenge here. The idea of the US as a meritocracy. What you have is based on how hard you worked and nothing else. Of individualism versus group identity. Each individual is their own person and should not be lumped in with others and we should avoid good, bad, or neutral generalizations.

Binary thinking. People or ideas are either good or bad, right or wrong. All of these ideas shape how we interact with the concept of race. When the way we view the world is challenged, our worldview is shaken and we feel personally attacked.

This response is white fragility at work. Recognizing and fighting our fragility is an essential first step in walking towards God's vision in Revelation 7. End quote. Page 15. Yes, by all means, let's challenge these, but what do I challenge them with?

A BIPOC's view on them? An anti-racist view of these philosophies? I am willing to hear what anyone has to say about them, but what ultimately will be my authority is scripture and any Christian's authority or self-proclaimed Christian should say that scripture is their authority as well.

A Christian should not want to challenge their culture's ideas just because someone says they are unjust, but we should want to compare them to scripture. As a follower of Christ, it is his word that Christians are to abide in.

It is his word that sanctifies us. So we should not be concerned with how certain American cultural ideas affect how we interact with race. I am, however, concerned with how we, as Christians, sinners as we are, interact with other sinners and what ideals and worldviews line up with God's revealed truth.

Western Culture, Pragmatism, and Postmodern Thought

Race for me is just not in the equation. And by no means am I saying that Western culture is better than another culture. Western culture does have its problems. The ever-growing ideas of pragmatism and postmodern thought are some of the problems I see coming out of our culture today, but there are certain beliefs within Western thought that actually would find their roots from the Judeo-Christian worldview and the philosophy ideas that Be the Bridge mentions.

Specifically here that we should challenge are just some of them. Meritocracy, for example. This is a good ideal to strive for, though what Be the Bridge claims meritocracy is is not really what meritocracy is.

Meritocracy as a political ideology is the notion of a political system in which economic goods or powers are vested in individual people based on ability and talent rather than wealth or social class, and I would even say ideology.

Advancement in such a system is based on performance as measured through examination or demonstrated achievement. Now, our whole democratic republic was built on voting for representatives who showed themselves approved for the task.

Where that system is at now, well, that's a separate issue to tackle. But meritocracy as a philosophy applied to a governmental system along with checks and balances from legislation and law has given the Western people freedom and the most affluent, comfortable lifestyles for the vast majority of its citizens.

I recently watched a YouTube documentary about a Russian scientist named Trofim Lysenko who was hired as the head of Soviet agriculture to help with production of food through Stalin's five-year plan to industrialize Russia and collectivize the farms.

He was chosen for this role not based on talent, study, or ability, but because he adhered to the Russian communist ideology and narrative of the time. Instead of granting power over the development of food based on meritocracy, where regardless of beliefs, someone studied and understood plant biology and food production and was given the ability to exercise their hard work in this area.

In collectivizing the farms, Stalin put ideologues in charge of them. Lysenko was one of them. He applied the terrible idea of genetic Lamarckianism, which taught that physical changes in organisms during their lifetime can be transmitted to their offspring through education.

An example of this would be to place seeds in freezing water so they would evolve physical traits that would weather the freezing temperatures. This evolutionary ideology applied to food production in the Soviet Union caused the famine in 1932, resulting in the mass deaths of starvation.

And another thing I thought about is that there were centuries where the European world was not built on meritocracy. Think of feudalism, where your resources, power, and privilege were inherited regardless of talent, interest, ability, or hard work.

Someone would be born as a noble in charge of vast communities. If you happened to be born a peasant, which most people were, you were destined for life to be a peasant. Now do we really want to go into these types of realms?

Do we want to cast off meritocracy? Societies should be built on people who have demonstrated that they have studied and worked hard in their god-given talents and abilities. There's a difference between claiming that the US is a meritocracy versus claiming the US should be a meritocracy.

In our simple world, it may not always work out that way, but it certainly has helped Western societies to be some of the freest societies in the world. But it's not just governmental systems that adopt meritocracy as a way to structure community.

Meritocracy, Hiring, and the Church

Businesses and educational institutions are hired based off of experience and demonstrated achievement. Companies should want to hire based off of education, experience, ability, and talent. Though we see a drastic change in this with DEI philosophies being pushed in companies.

And the same goes for churches. God calls pastors and elders in the leadership to study to show themselves approved. Second Timothy 2 .15. Again, DEI hiring practices come into the church, reject altogether the meritocratic idea and adopting practices that satisfy anti-racist outcome of diversity of power in hopes of bringing in diversity of people.

This is your multicultural church growth movement at its finest, replacing substance for outcome.