“…the root cause of which is precisely unworthy people in power”
Ihor Shevchenko, “a future politician of a new quality”, shevchenko.ua
When people say this, it’s immediately clear that all we really need is to elect good people and life will sort itself out! Until now we’ve been electing the wrong ones, but just elect decent, responsible patriots and everything will be hunky-dory!
The Meritocratic Party of Ukraine was officially registered by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine on April 12, 2011, under No. 192.
Meritocracy is the idea that the right social order is one where the state is run by the best people, the smartest and most worthy: the intellectual elite of the nation (“nation” is the conventional word; I’d rather not use it).
At first glance the idea is very good. I held it myself some time ago. How great it would be if power were held not by these greedy, selfish, dishonest and generally immoral politicians, but by altruistic, highly intellectual, selfless people who want to serve their Country and People.
The problem, in my view, isn’t who is in power. The problem is that we entrust anyone with that kind of power at all.
We’ve fallen into a trap: we think we need to replace the people in government to start living better. We invented elections to change them more often than once a generation… But changing rulers often doesn’t help, and even does the opposite…
All the modern “-cracies” differ only in whom, according to their supporters, we should put on the throne and how that should happen.
Why do so few people ask: why, exactly, put anyone on that throne at all?
Why do people believe someone absolutely must be put in charge, and want to feel the “strong hand” of a ruler on themselves and, especially, on their fellow citizens? I think the joke that only wankers need a strong hand is very much to the point here.
Maybe it comes from a lack of self-confidence, from the sense of imperfection every person feels and projects onto others. People are afraid of responsibility. People are afraid to make the decisions their lives, well-being, future and present depend on.
Why are they like this? Sorry, why are we like this?
If you’re responsible yourself, you can’t shift the blame onto damned bureaucrats, a tyrant tsar or greedy capitalists. You’ll have to answer for yourself and get what your brains, will and abilities were good for.
It may seem that I don’t like people, that I hold humanity in contempt and am pessimistic about its future. Not at all. Quite the opposite. It’s the supporters of meritocracy and the other -cracies who consider most people dumb cattle that must be led by the very best, that is, by them…
Fear of responsibility is normal. The sense of your own imperfection even more so. To my mind, these aren’t negative qualities, as it might seem. They’re properties, features (I don’t know the right word) of human nature. They’re part of the beautiful Human, often part of what makes us different from other animals.
Still, should fear of responsibility be laid into the foundation of society? Maybe it should rest on something else?
Where will a society end up in which you can shift responsibility onto others?