the Atlantic
The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.
When universities like Harvard shifted their definition of ability, large segments of society adjusted to meet that definition. The effect was transformative. Universities should serve as society’s primary sorting system, segregating the smart from the not smart. Intelligence is randomly distributed across the population, so sorting by intelligence will yield a broad-based leadership class. Intelligence is innate, so rich families won’t be able to buy their kids higher grades.
The system is rigged: Students from families in the top 1 percent of earners were 77 times more likely to attend an Ivy League–level school than students from families making $30,000 a year or less. Many elite schools draw more students from the top 1 percent than the bottom 60.
If I were given the keys to the meritocracy, I’d redefine merit around four crucial qualities.
Curiosity. A sense of drive and mission. Social intelligence. Agility.
If we sort people only by superior intelligence, we’re sorting people by a quality few possess; we’re inevitably creating a stratified, elitist society. We want a society run by people who are smart, yes, but who are also wise, perceptive, curious, caring, resilient, and committed to the common good. If we can figure out how to select for people’s motivation to grow and learn across their whole lifespan, then we are sorting people by a quality that is more democratically distributed, a quality that people can control and develop, and we will end up with a fairer and more mobile society.
