David Brooks, The Onion, and The American Angst
Most American intellectuals are struggling to understand why Donald Trump, a convicted felon, had such a massive countrywide victory in the presidential election. Instead of going to jail, he is going to the White House.
David Brooks, a brilliant journalist, and a perceptive social commentator, argues in the article "How the Ivy League Broke America" published in The Atlantic that America's meritocratic system, which was pioneered at Harvard by President James Conant in the early part of the 20th century and soon took over the entire academia, is the culprit: It led to significant societal divides. Brooks suggests that the Ivy League's emphasis on cognitive elites has created a system where trust in institutions has plummeted, and many Americans feel alienated by the political and economic elite. This has resulted in a rise of populist leaders and a deep educational divide in politics.
But then David Brooks takes a speculative leap, and makes an atrocious claim: “After the meritocrats took over in the 1960s, we got quagmires in Vietnam and Afghanistan, needless carnage in Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis, the toxic rise of social media, and our current age of political dysfunction.” (Emphasis added)
In the pre-meritocracy era, he argues, government, civic life, the media, and high finance worked better, adding nostalgically, “We can scorn the smug WASP blue bloods from Groton and Choate—and certainly their era’s retrograde views of race and gender—but their leadership helped produce the Progressive movement, the New Deal, victory in World War II, the Marshall Plan, NATO, and the postwar Pax Americana.”
Meritocracy created a caste system that gave rise to Donald Trump. Really? Brook says, “James Conant (at Harvard) and his colleagues dreamed of building a world with a lot of class-mixing and relative social comity; we ended up with a world of rigid caste lines and pervasive cultural and political war. Conant dreamed of a nation ruled by brilliant leaders. We ended up with President Trump.” (Emphasis added)
Should we give up meritocracy? Not so soon. Like most Americans, Brooks too is obsessed with the rise of China. He hastens to add, “If the American meritocracy fails to identify the greatest young geniuses and educate them at places such as Caltech and MIT, China—whose meritocracy has for thousands of years been using standardized tests to cull the brightest of the bright—could outpace us in chip manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and military technology, among other fields.”
What do we do? Brooks calls for a redefinition of meritocracy, emphasizing the need to value noncognitive traits like kindness and creativity over standardized test scores and GPAs. He believes that the current system stifles curiosity and exploration and that a more humanized approach to merit could help bridge the societal gaps. But would it end the caste system In America and rejuvenate liberal democracy in America?
David Brooks is not as pessimistic as The Onion is funny and sarcastic. In “Lessons Democrats Can Learn From The 2024 Election,” the Onion says:
“The soul of America is a black expanse, and from it seeps a substance darker than night.” (Emphasis added)
But on a lighter side, Why Are Americans So Unhappy?
Maybe because we have so much, we’ve lost track of what we need. We’re over-stimulated, over-caffeinated, and over it. We have more than enough of everything—except for the stuff that matters—real connections, genuine purpose, a sense of meaning. And hey, if Donald Trump stays, once more, in the White House for four years, would it be such a great tragedy? Would this be the end of America?
Listen to the podcast:
WE ARE RICH AND GREAT YET SO UNHAPPY