The downside of meritocracy

Ross Douthat explains the dangerous downside to America’s experiment in meritocracy:

For decades, the United States has been opening paths to privilege for its brightest and most determined young people, culling the best and the brightest from Illinois and Mississippi and Montana and placing them in positions of power in Manhattan and Washington. By elevating the children of farmers and janitors as well as lawyers and stockbrokers, we’ve created what seems like the most capable, hardworking, high-I.Q. elite in all of human history.

And for the last 10 years, we’ve watched this same elite lead us off a cliff — mostly by being too smart for its own good.

In hereditary aristocracies, debacles tend to flow from stupidity and pigheadedness: think of the Charge of the Light Brigade or the Battle of the Somme. In one-party states, they tend to flow from ideological mania: think of China’s Great Leap Forward, or Stalin’s experiment with “Lysenkoist” agriculture.

In meritocracies, though, it’s the very intelligence of our leaders that creates the worst disasters. Convinced that their own skills are equal to any task or challenge, meritocrats take risks that lower-wattage elites would never even contemplate, embark on more hubristic projects, and become infatuated with statistical models that hold out the promise of a perfectly rational and frictionless world. (Or as Calvin Trillin put it in these pages, quoting a tweedy WASP waxing nostalgic for the days when Wall Street was dominated by his fellow bluebloods: “Do you think our guys could have invented, say, credit default swaps? Give me a break! They couldn’t have done the math.”)

Hubris on the part of the highly intelligent is particularly stupid because it reflects both ignorance and a lack of self-awareness. For example, I am in the top one percent of the top one percent when it comes to intelligence, and yet I could provide you with an encyclopedia of my mistakes, failures, and errors in judgment. I doubt that I have made any fewer of them than the average individual, but they do tend to be of a different order.

For example, was it the right thing to write The War in Heaven instead of Blizzard’s first Starcraft novel? Almost surely not. As it turns out, creating your own intellectual property from the start is less effective than riding someone else’s media tie-in wave, building a following from it, and then publishing your own material. My decision certainly made sense and was intellectually defensible at the time, but in retrospect it was a serious blunder.

Douthat doesn’t have it quite right, however. The problem with the mistakes of the meritocratic elite isn’t that they are too smart for their own good, it is that they are too smart for everyone else’s good. This is why technocratic visions so often go so badly awry, and why the Socratic dream of a government of philosopher-kings has almost invariably proven to be worse than the variously flawed alternatives. The worst aspect of a meritocracy is its lack of respect for tradition. Meritocracy represents the ultimate triumph of theory and potential over experience and reliability, so it should come as little surprise that by historical standards, the new meritocratic societies appear to be destroying themselves in a remarkably short period of time.

In the end, however, Douthat misses the point. A society will benefit most from being ruled by its best, not its brightest. As one of this society’s brightest, I can attest that the members of a society’s intellectual elite are no more likely to merit being described as its best than the average individual and they possess no more intrinsic right to rule by virtue of their intelligence than the obese elite do by virtue of their weight.

We are… Ped State

Let’s face it, it was inevitable.  For crying out loud, Sandusky’s autobiography is entitled Touched.  You can’t tell me he wasn’t flipping off the entire world with a title like that.  Last year, before the NCAA football season started, a guy in the Nebraska football program contacted me and asked me to translate a few things into Italian for their pre-season team video.  I don’t know if he still reads this blog, but I shall be VERY surprised and a little disappointed if there aren’t a number of variations on this theme in the Cornhusker section at Saturday’s game.

The clueless Pedo State students who rioted over Joe Paterno’s dismissal obviously need to have their noses rubbed in the institutional shame, the full extent of which is not yet apparent, until they realize that Paterno is not the victim here.

Exit Perry

Somehow, I don’t think Ron Paul would have had any problem naming the agencies he would eliminate. Of course, this shouldn’t disqualify Perry as a potential president, considering that our current one believes there are 57 states.

Joe Paterno is no hero

On the other hand, he’s not a criminal either. It’s a sad ending to an epic career, but in the end, Joe Paterno definitely had to go. Now. The truly problematic thing isn’t that he only fulfilled his legal obligations in 2002 when a homosexual pedophile was raping boys in the Penn State football facilities, but that he didn’t demand an investigation of Sandusky back in 1998 when the police, the local media, and the Penn State administration all knew about his criminal proclivities. If you read between the lines of the former defensive coordinator’s retirement after the 1999 Alamo Bowl, it is clear that the Penn State hierarchy, including Paterno, knew there was something seriously wrong with Sandusky’s behavior. Regardless of who should have done what after the man was seen raping the boy in 2002, Sandusky should never have been in a position to do anything of the sort in the first place, given what was clearly already known about him.

However, I think it is incorrect to seriously condemn either Paterno or McQueary for failing to run to the police. They both did exactly what they were supposed to do, exactly what the law required them to do. Saying that they should have run to the police doesn’t even make any sense; the police are not some sort of magic panacea in this situation for the obvious reason that Penn State has its own police force. In a university town like Penn State, going to the university administration is going to the police. It’s rather like complaining someone reported a crime to the DA rather than the receptionist at the police station.

Now, should Paterno and McQueary have spoken out afterwards given the failure of the administration to do anything? Yes, I believe so. But a failure to do the optimal thing is not synonymous with doing the wrong thing. To compare them, as some have, to Sandusky himself, or even to the administrators responsible for taking action, is both unfair and incorrect. It would have been heroic for either man to speak out and confront both Sandusky and the Penn State administration, but the reality is that most men are not cut out for such heroism. However, Paterno’s fame, combined with his willingness to take on the university administration in his own interest – they wanted him to retire years ago – versus his unwillingness to do so on behalf of the boys being raped by his former assistant, is an indelible stain on both his reputation and his moral character.

I think it is totally irrelevant that Paterno didn’t go to the campus police because I see no reason to believe they would have investigated the manner any more seriously, or been less inclined to cover up the matter, than the Penn State administration. They report to the administration after all, and more importantly, they already knew about Sandusky. From CFT: “An extensive police report exists from as far back as 1998, documenting Sandusky inappropriately touching a young boy.” Moreover, consider the way police forces around the country cover up most of the crime, including rape, that occurs on college campuses. Still, if Paterno shouldn’t have gone to the Penn State police, he absolutely should have gone public and spoken to the media after it became clear that the university administration intended to sweep Sandusky under the carpet as they and the police had done previously. Paterno should have threatened to resign then, but failing that, he should have resigned immediately once the media storm began. In fact, I have some serious questions about this story erupting so soon after Paterno broke the all-time coaching wins record, as it appears someone with links to Penn State was waiting until that happened before going public about Sandusky. There will be more nasty revelations coming, that is almost guaranteed.

However, don’t kid yourself into thinking that the gay rape scandal at Penn State is the least bit unusual. Most, not many, but most, such offenses are swept under the table by organizations from the Roman Catholic Church to your local high school. The sub-optimal, self-interested behavior of men like McQueary and Paterno is the norm. And the police forces of the USA have swept far more wrongdoing under the carpet than most people would like to believe. There are very, very few individuals who are willing to risk their jobs and reputations when the organization decides to handle a crime of this sort “internally”.

I’m not saying this to defend Paterno or McQueary. If it is still deemed appropriate to fire men and women from their jobs for moral failings, then they should certainly be fired. However, I am not sure that this is presently the case in the modern USA, given that one cannot deny employment to a homosexual, an adulterer, or a murderer of unborn children for their proven moral failings. Regardless, it is wildly naive to pretend that most people would have behaved much differently when faced with that situation. Some would, but most demonstrably would not. If heroism and strong moral character are necessary aspects of retaining one’s job, the unemployment rate will soon be well north of 75 percent.

UPDATE – My suspicions were correct. “The VP who heard the grad assistant’s claim was in charge of the campus police. He did nothing. Paterno got the witness to the head of the campus law enforcement agency who was supposed to know that a crime was being reported to him.” In other words, Paterno did tell the police, who then did nothing.

UPDATE II – And the next phase of the scandal looks as if it will go well beyond the university’s football program:
“Madden stated that two “prominent columnists” are currently investigating a rumor that Jerry Sandusky’s Second Mile Foundation, a non-profit organization aimed to serve underprivileged youths, was “pimping out young boys to rich (Penn State) donors.” Madden went on to say that Jerry Sandusky was told by those running the show at Penn State football that Sandusky had to retire after allegations made in 1998 that the defensive coordinator was guilty of “improper conduct with an underage male.” Sandusky, thought by some to be Joe Paterno’s successor at the time, abruptly and somewhat shockingly retired from coaching in 1999. It actually gets worse. Madden went on to say “When Sandusky quit, everybody knew; not just at Penn State. It was a very poorly kept secret around college football, in general. That is why he never coached in college football again and retired at the relatively young age of 55, young for a coach.””

This scandal is going to end up being about a lot more than one record-setting football coach. And don’t imagine that Penn State is the only place where the gay mafia is doing this sort of thing; homosexual pedophiles are more than 14 times more likely to be caught abusing boys than heterosexual pedophiles are caught abusing girls. Watch for the predictable and nonsensical attempts to claim that men who like to rape boys are not homosexual.

Down to the wire

Some of my 2011 economic predictions are bang on the trend, but may not happen as described by the end of the year. Specifically 8 and 9.

8. There will be a serious Euro crisis, most likely brought about by a sovereign default or a nation announcing it will be leaving the Euro. Italy is the most likely candidate.

Political and economic crisis in Italy spurred fears of a split in the euro zone with borrowing costs for Europe’s third biggest economy near unsustainable levels and the bloc unable to afford a bailout.

Yeah, that doesn’t look too bad at the moment. Greek is already in technical default with the 2-year bond up to 108% and the one-year at 222%. Double your money! The big banks simply don’t want to call it that because doing so will trigger all the credit default swaps that are hanging over their heads. And Italy will pull out of the Euro sooner or later, but not necessarily by December 31st.

9. One U.S. state and at least three major cities (100k population plus) will attempt to file for bankruptcy or federal bailout. (It’s unclear if states can file for bankruptcy and public employee unions will oppose the city filings.)

Alabama’s Jefferson County filed for bankruptcy court protection on Wednesday in the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Commissioners for the county, which is home to Birmingham, the state’s biggest city and economic powerhouse, voted 4-1 to declare bankruptcy after meeting behind closed doors for two days in a last ditch-attempt to restructure its debt out of court.

Harrisburg also filed for bankruptcy this year and I thought it counted until I learned it’s only got a population of 50,000. You’d think I would have remembered that since I went to college about an hour away… of course, I never, ever went there, which probably should have been my first clue. I’d count Jefferson County and its 658,466 population but not Harrisburg. The big question, of course, is the state of Illinois. That’s the state I expect to declare bankruptcy first.

It does, however, look as if the blog will just barely make it to the predicted 2,750,000 for the year, up 16% from last year’s 2,370,028. On the other hand, the number of bank failures has decreased significantly in 2011, at this rate it may not even break 100.

The gang that can’t shoot straight

The Harassinator’s team raises more questions about his competence as an executive:

Based upon information available at the time of Mr. Block’s Tuesday night interview on Fox News, the campaign was led to believe that Mr. Josh Kraushaar, currently with the National Journal and a former employee of Politico, was the son of Karen Kraushaar. Mr. Josh Kraushaar is in fact, not related to Ms. Karen Kraushaar.

You’re already in a hole. You’ve already developed what is rapidly approaching a Clintonian reputation for playing fast and loose with the truth. So why not keep digging? Being a gunslinger really isn’t impressive when you keep shooting yourself in the foot.

The fearful foundations of the Fourth Reich

I wrote that a few years ago in a column about TARP. But things are arguably even worse in Europe, where the bankers have forced two non-democratic changes in government in Greece and Italy. But don’t think things can’t go from bad to worse; the normally sane Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is freaked out to the point that he is calling for diplomatic and economic war rather than simply allowing the whole debacle to collapse under its own weight.

In Italy they have already made matters worse. I doubt that much will change with “technocratic governments” in either Greece and Italy, yet immense damage has been done to democratic accountability. The EU Project has become both dangerous and insane….

You cannot allow the biggest bankruptcy in history to run its course – with calamitous domino implications – before all options have been exhausted.

One can only guess what is happening in the great global centres of power, but it would not surprise me if US President Barack Obama and China’s Hu Jintao start to intervene very soon, in unison and with massive diplomatic force. One can imagine joint telephone calls to Chancellor Angela Merkel more or less ordering her country to face up to the implications of the monetary union that Germany itself created and ran (badly).

Yes, this means mobilizing the full-firepower of the ECB – with a pledge to change EU Treaty law and the bank’s mandate – and perhaps some form of quantum leap towards a fiscal and debt union.

In other words, because the EU is an evil financial empire on the verge of collapse, the US and China should intervene, prop it up, and help it transform itself into the literal Fourth Reich. Since Evans-Pritchard has generally been an intelligent and reasonable observer of past EU antics, the hysterical nature of this column should suffice to demonstrate the extraordinarily dangerous nature of the situation.

And he’s wrong. The bankruptcy is going to happen no matter what measures are taken. The financial media has learned nothing from 2008. Desperately delaying the necessary surgery is not going to improve the chances that the patient will survive.

L’amara vita

Italians aren’t sweating this, but the European banks certainly are:

The Italian 5-year is yielding 6.87% while the 10 year is now 6.77%. The curve-inversion is very bad and is a stark warning: Get ready. This has not yet managed to get to the 2yr (6.38%) Pundits have opined that due to the relatively long duration of the bond portfolio outstanding it’s not a “big deal.” They’re wrong.

This is a very big deal. One year ago, the Italian 2-year was at 2.010 and the 10-year was at 3.924 The Italian 2-year is now rapidly approaching where the Portuguese 10-year was one year ago. What this indicates is that the end of the Euro and the end of the EU in its present form will likely take place within one year. Greece and Ireland were sideshows. Italy is the main event.

Teaching lawyers to lie

Granted it sounds rather like teaching fish to swim:

The University of Illinois acknowledged Monday that its law school reported and/or published inaccurate admissions data in six of the last 10 years. The university, in a prepared statement, said it had determined that Paul Pless, the law school’s former assistant dean for admissions and financial aid, who resigned last week, was solely responsible for the inaccuracies. It also found that the law school lacked adequate controls to prevent, deter and detect such actions, a situation that it said it is taking steps to correct….

The university’s investigation determined that the college reported and or published inaccurate LSAT and GPA data for the class of 2008 and for the classes of 2010 through 2014.

And they’re just heartsick about this ever so embarrassing rogue employee, gosh darn it! The truth is that ALL law schools blatantly lie about the employment prospects of their graduates. All of them. Every single one. And it would almost certainly be a major benefit to the economy and the nation if they were all shut down tomorrow.

Mailvox: is God on our side?

JH wonders:

I have read your coloumn faithfully for years, and have come to admire your level-headed and logical approach to the problems you present.

I have a question. Most social conservatives declare that life begins at conception, thus concluding that all abortions are murder. If you take this stand then you must conclude that America has the blood of 50 million innocent lives on her hands.

What right do we have then to drop bombs on ” ragheads and goat herders ‘ and the like if this is so, and how can we possibly think that God will bless our troops in foreign wars when we can’t possibly be on HIS side?

It is so. And America has no more right to bomb the goat herders of the Middle East than Rome had to invade Pontus, Armenia, and Parthia. Nor does America have any better reason to believe that God will bless their invading troops than the Romans or the National Socialist-era Germans did. Gott war nicht mit der Wehrmacht, their belt buckles notwithstanding, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that a nation whose government increasingly denies and rejects God, a nation that has slaughtered more of its own children behind closed clinic doors than the Moloch-worshipping Canaanites ever threw into the fires, enjoys divine favor.

America was founded on predominantly Christian principles, but she no longer lives by them. She is profligate, gluttonous, murderous, and repressive. She can no longer be reasonably described as either the land of the free or the home of the brave, but rather the land of the fat and the home of the indebted. I concluded some time ago that America was already finished in the historical sense, but it may take some time for most Americans to realize it or for America’s foreign policy to reflect that reality. This is entirely normal, few Britons understood that their empire was in decline until the sun had already set upon it.

It would, of course, be deeply ironic if the neocons were to get their way and America were to eventually learn of her loss of global superpower status not too terribly far from where Marcus Licinius Crassus lost his seven legions and met his death at the hands of the Parthians. Interestingly enough, Crassus, rather like Bush and Obama, failed to abide by the legal forms of making war before launching his ill-fated invasion.