{"id":50842,"date":"2021-08-17T18:10:34","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T17:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=50842"},"modified":"2021-08-17T18:10:34","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T17:10:34","slug":"nick-hopkinson-against-stupidity-and-the-tyranny-of-merit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/08\/17\/nick-hopkinson-against-stupidity-and-the-tyranny-of-merit\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Hopkinson: Against \u201cstupidity\u201d and the tyranny of merit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Albert Einstein\u2019s observation, \u201ctwo things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe,\u201d has been much cited since the emergence of covid-19. It\u2019s an amusing line and perhaps also an affirmation for those of us who might believe that we find ourselves on the smart side of humanity. In parallel, the terms \u201ccovidiocy\u201d and \u201ccovidiots\u201d have become a shorthand for people rejecting or ignoring the public health measures needed to control the spread of the virus. This framing is dangerous and unhelpful. The terms have an othering effect, but no one should be too comfortable. After all, much stupidity has been the stupidity of the political elite: delayed lockdowns, shambolic messaging, dodgy procurement, \u201clet the bodies pile high,\u201d incoherence about masks, the false dichotomy of health and economy, Rishi Sunak\u2019s \u201ceat out to help spread coronavirus\u201d campaign.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So called \u201ccovidiocy,\u201d like any belief system or behaviour, has causes. Some of these relate to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/oct\/18\/covid-herd-immunity-funding-bad-science-anti-lockdown\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">well funded<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">disinformation<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> campaigns promoting vaccine conspiracy theories and calamitous herd immunity through infection policies. Venting disapproval at \u201ccovidiot\u201d behaviour risks obscuring these structural issues. Considering much of the media, rather than Einstein, we need John Milton\u2019s \u201cthey who have put out the people\u2019s eyes reproach them of their blindness.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Elite stupidity is hardly unique to covid-19. As set out in Nathaniel Rich\u2019s <\/span><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.waterstones.com\/book\/losing-earth\/nathaniel-rich\/9781529015843\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate Change<\/span><\/a><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, an effect of atmospheric CO<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> on temperature was first posited by John Tyndall in 1859. [1] The possibility of a global impact from this was described by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, with global heating first confirmed by Guy Stewart Callendar\u2019s measurements in 1939. The Keeling curve, measuring CO<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> levels at Mauna Loa and risen 100ppm in my lifetime, was established in 1958. The problem was well understood in policy circles by the end of the 1970s. The climate disaster currently unfolding is the result of failure to address this existential threat to humanity, which elite policy makers and governments have known about for decades, and accelerated rather than prevented.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michael Sandel\u2019s recent book, <\/span><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.waterstones.com\/book\/the-tyranny-of-merit\/michael-j-sandel\/9780241407592\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Tyranny of Merit\u2014<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">what\u2019s become of the common good?<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0reveals some further hazards in branding groups of citizens as stupid. The idea of meritocracy was introduced as a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.waterstones.com\/book\/the-rise-of-the-meritocracy\/michael-young\/9781560007043\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">warning<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, not a proposal. If people were, or believed they were, genuinely stratified in society according to their \u201cmerit,\u201d the impact on the morale of those sorted to a lower position would be devastating.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sandel observes that in a system that was similarly unequal, but based on aristocracy, the lower orders would at least know that their betters are in their place because of an accident of birth, not because they were in any sense actually \u201cbetter.\u201d Indeed, it has been this sense of equal worth that has driven progressive social movements. Conversely, in a supposed meritocracy, those at the top succumb to hubris, believing they deserve their privilege. The privileged retreat from notions of the common good\u2014why should they share fortune with those less deserving? We should remember that our \u201clot\u201d in life has the same root as \u201clottery.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We live in nothing remotely resembling a meritocracy, and privilege is as ingrained as ever, but meritocratic thinking is commonplace. A major sorting system for human value currently is education and credentialism. In a hierarchy of education those without a degree can feel themselves to have been judged and condemned. Why should they engage with such a system? Talk of \u201csmart\u201d policy frequently disempowers ordinary citizens and \u201cdrains public discourse of substantive moral argument and treats ideologically contestable questions as if they were matters of economic efficiency, the province of experts,\u201d writes Sandal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sandel identifies a need instead for contributive justice, the opportunity to \u201cwin the social recognition and esteem that goes with producing what others need and value.\u201d Some sense of this should come from considering the key workers, typically poorly paid, actually keeping society afloat during the pandemic. Condemning swathes of people as stupid can only serve to alienate those labelled as such and has little prospect of changing anyone\u2019s mind about anything. It also distracts from the hard work needed to build shared understanding and a sense of mutual dependence and responsibility.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A final argument against accepting the \u201ccovidiot\u201d concept is futility. As Schiller noted, \u201cagainst stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>References<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[1] Nathaniel Rich. Losing Earth \u2013 the decade we could have stopped climate change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[2] Michael Sandel. The Tyranny of Merit \u2013 what\u2019s become of the common good?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Albert Einstein\u2019s observation, \u201ctwo things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe,\u201d has been much cited since the emergence of [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/08\/17\/nick-hopkinson-against-stupidity-and-the-tyranny-of-merit\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":46779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18889],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nick-hopkinson"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nick Hopkinson: Against \u201cstupidity\u201d and the tyranny of merit - 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