Once again I’m convinced we need to destroy the myth that the way out for our country could be someone new coming to power: young, honest, conscientious and so on.
How many times have these “winter crops” fooled us already? How long, as they say, will this political trick keep working?
I’m publishing my comment on meritocracy from Facebook:
In my view, meritocracy is a beautiful and very harmful idea. It’s used to come to power and carry on the glorious deeds of the “shameless” predecessors. Has it still not become clear that it doesn’t matter who exactly is in power? Is it not clear that you simply shouldn’t give anyone that much power?
This is a very condensed version of my recent post on the subject (which now strikes me as too long-winded and vague, yes).
A few more remarks.
First. You want to elect the worthy? Who will identify them? With today’s media and political technology, it’s practically impossible to learn the truth, and telling PR from black PR is very hard even for those “in the know”. How, under these conditions, do you identify the worthy?
And where would they come from, these worthy ones? Everyone used to be unworthy, but now a new generation has grown up in a vacuum (in a test tube?) and it will be worthy?
Second. Why has someone decided that people always act the same way? Will someone who has behaved worthily so far necessarily behave the same way once in power?
Third. Imagine that some people came to power on the idea of building a meritocracy. How easy will it be for them to destroy all citizens’ freedoms under that flag? Under the sauce of “decisions of the best” you can serve the people anything: “they’re the flower of the nation, they know best!”
Inspiration: an article in Ukrainska Pravda, the online newspaper, “Meritocracy is the image of Ukraine’s future”.