{"id":63,"date":"2018-02-11T17:20:30","date_gmt":"2018-02-11T22:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/?p=63"},"modified":"2018-02-12T11:43:02","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T16:43:02","slug":"meritocracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/uncategorized\/meritocracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Meritocracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this piece, Gatto claims that the educational system was created as a tool for social control of the masses. Accordingly, meritocracy is an extension of this means of control, separating the masses by their utility to the social machine. The point of grades and ranking in such a system are to facilitate this process of differentiation, elevating the few the system deems deserving to positions of power while consigning the rest to roles of subservient cogs in the machine. <\/span><\/p>\n

Considered in this light, institutions such as Williams are no more than an extension of this very system, perpetuating the existing power structure and magnifying the distinctions between the winners in this system and everyone else. Indeed a liberal arts education is a reflection of this elitist view of society. As quoted in the Gatto piece, Woodrow Wilson himself said <\/span>a liberal arts education was to be confined to a selected few while the rest “forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks\u201d (37). <\/span><\/p>\n

Williams goes so far as to active flaunt its role in this system, specifically culling \u00a0\u201cstudents of high academic ability and great personal promise\u201d in order to provide a \u201cprivilege that creates the opportunity and responsibility to serve society at large\u201d (Williams Mission Statement). That this purposeful segmentation of society to perpetual elite rule seems virtuous both on the part of the institutions as well as those subject to its practices reflects the extent to which this notion of meritocracy has permeated our modern condition. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this piece, Gatto claims that the educational system was created as a tool for social control of the masses. Accordingly, meritocracy is an extension of this means of control, separating the masses by their utility to the social machine. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-first-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}