This a brilliant <i>Zusammenfassung</i>. It does leave one bewildered about how any large human society can successfully organize itself to produce a capable elite class. The obvious lesson of WWI was that an elite derived from inherited wealth and titles would eventually degrade to the level of dilettantism that brought us the most destructive war in human history to that point. Replacing those elites with self proclaimed tribunes of the common people then brought us WWII, even worse. So clearly meritocracy based primarily on academic (and partly athletic) prowess is the answer. Of course the meritocracy notoriously flubbed Vietnam, brought us the financial crisis of 2008, the badly managed Iraq and Afghan occupations, and, as Philip O’Brien just pointed out in The Atlantic, has pursued a pusillanimous strategy of crisis management in Ukraine that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary Ukrainian (and Russian) deaths. We have also never, as a society, really seemed to agree on an objective definition of merit - which means that underrepresented groups will naturally always claim the definitions aren’t really measuring „merit” at all.
So meritocracy isn’t perfect. But now we seem to have decided that extremely rich people, whose chief qualifications other than money are their conspicuous absence of any expertise in economics, science, diplomacy or foreign policy, can provide the best defense for the common people against the foolish arrogant decisions of the meritocracy. That seems a highly dubious proposition.
As poorly as the meritocracy combined with liberal democracy has performed, I suppose as Churchill said it is still preferable to any of the alternatives.
Non-scholar-me learned a lot about life of civilians prior to outbreak from H.G. Wells novel
"Mr. Britling sees it through"
Especially the first part tells how all talk was about news about the Irish crisis and totally none about the Balkans
A magician couldn't have come up with a better PR-campaign
I remain very impressed by Churchill's WW2 (unabridged) esp bc of his honestly admitted horror at discovering what war at the Western front was like compared to his experience at the Afghan Border and Sudan.
Given that he seemed to be very up to date about how machine guns may have "improved" since the US war this shows a lack of imagination that somehow doesn't fit or hints that his fight against the Mahdi kept him from connecting the dots.
Btw as best I remember his memoirs his formal education was comparatively negligible😉
Just another reminder of the incompetence of government.
Does anybody think that Sullivan or Blinken are more competent than the 1914 predecessors?
And after the war starts, they will as Churchill said: "Sell their lives dearly".
This a brilliant <i>Zusammenfassung</i>. It does leave one bewildered about how any large human society can successfully organize itself to produce a capable elite class. The obvious lesson of WWI was that an elite derived from inherited wealth and titles would eventually degrade to the level of dilettantism that brought us the most destructive war in human history to that point. Replacing those elites with self proclaimed tribunes of the common people then brought us WWII, even worse. So clearly meritocracy based primarily on academic (and partly athletic) prowess is the answer. Of course the meritocracy notoriously flubbed Vietnam, brought us the financial crisis of 2008, the badly managed Iraq and Afghan occupations, and, as Philip O’Brien just pointed out in The Atlantic, has pursued a pusillanimous strategy of crisis management in Ukraine that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary Ukrainian (and Russian) deaths. We have also never, as a society, really seemed to agree on an objective definition of merit - which means that underrepresented groups will naturally always claim the definitions aren’t really measuring „merit” at all.
So meritocracy isn’t perfect. But now we seem to have decided that extremely rich people, whose chief qualifications other than money are their conspicuous absence of any expertise in economics, science, diplomacy or foreign policy, can provide the best defense for the common people against the foolish arrogant decisions of the meritocracy. That seems a highly dubious proposition.
As poorly as the meritocracy combined with liberal democracy has performed, I suppose as Churchill said it is still preferable to any of the alternatives.
My father wanted me to thank you for a particularly insightful comment. He wishes he'd thought to raise these points.
Non-scholar-me learned a lot about life of civilians prior to outbreak from H.G. Wells novel
"Mr. Britling sees it through"
Especially the first part tells how all talk was about news about the Irish crisis and totally none about the Balkans
A magician couldn't have come up with a better PR-campaign
I remain very impressed by Churchill's WW2 (unabridged) esp bc of his honestly admitted horror at discovering what war at the Western front was like compared to his experience at the Afghan Border and Sudan.
Given that he seemed to be very up to date about how machine guns may have "improved" since the US war this shows a lack of imagination that somehow doesn't fit or hints that his fight against the Mahdi kept him from connecting the dots.
Btw as best I remember his memoirs his formal education was comparatively negligible😉