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  • Meritocratic hubris. This is the tendency of winners to inhale too deeply of their success.

  • To forget the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way. It's the smug conviction

  • of those who land on top that they deserve their fate. And, by implication, that those

  • on the bottom deserve theirs too. A lively sense of the contingency of our lot

  • conduces to a certain humility. The idea that 'there but for the grace of God or the accident

  • of fortune, go I'. But a perfect meritocracy banishes all sense of gift or grace or luck;

  • it diminishes our capacity to see ourselves as sharing a common fate. And so, it leaves

  • little room for the solidarity that can arise when we reflect on the contingency of our

  • talents and fortunes. This is what makes merit a kind of tyranny.

  • Now, seen from below, the hubris of elites is galling. No one likes to be looked down

  • upon. But the meritocratic faith adds insult to injury. The notion that your fate is in

  • your hands - that you can 'make it if you try' - is a double-edged sword, inspiring

  • in one way, but invidious in another. It congratulates the winners but denigrates the losers - even

  • in their own eyes. For those who can't find work or make ends meet, it's hard to escape

  • the demoralizing thought that their failure is their own doing - that they simply lack

  • the talent and drive to succeed. This gives rise to a politics of humiliation. It combines

  • resentment of the winners with nagging self-doubt. It's a potent ingredient in the volatile brew

  • of anger and resentment that fuels populist protest.

  • To reinvigorate democratic politics, we need to find our way to a morally more robust public

  • discourse; one that takes seriously the corrosive effect of meritocratic striving on the social

  • bonds that constitute our common life. Disentangling the intolerant aspects of populist protest

  • from its legitimate grievances is no easy matter. But it is important to try. Understanding

  • these grievances -and creating a politics that can respond to them - is the most pressing

  • political challenge of our time.

Meritocratic hubris. This is the tendency of winners to inhale too deeply of their success.

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