What relationship exist between the God factor( grace) and Meritocracy? A Discussion of Chapter 2 of Michael Sandel's "The Tyrant of Merit"

TABLE OF CONTENT

Session

Introduction

Historical Overview: The Then and Now

The Biblical Perspective on Merit

Political Perspective on Merit

Conclusion

ABSTRACT

A society where power and goods are bestowed on people base on talent, effort and achievement rather than their wealth or social class is what we all want. This is the more reason why people tend to say meritocracy is the ultimate answer to injustice and a vindication of talent over prejudice, racism, and unequal opportunity. Interestingly,meritocratic conviction that people deserve whatever riches the market bestows on their talents makes solidarity an almost impossible project.Incidentally,in all our striving, we are not self-made and self­sufficient; finding ourselves in a society that prizes our talents is our good fortune not our due. In that, taking pride in our success explains why we deserve the rewards our achievements rightly bring us. Hence, it makes us view success in meritocracy as earned through our own effort and strife neglecting the matter of luck and grace.The disagreements about merit are not only about fairness, rather they are also about how society define success, failure and the attitudes the winners should hold toward those less successful. This paper will discuss the relationship existing between divine providence(grace) or the God factor, politics and meritocracy taking into consideration historical over view on merit, the biblical perspective on merit, and the politics of society.

Introduction

A society where power and goods are bestowed on people based on talent, effort and achievement rather than their wealth or social class is what we all want. This is the more reason why people tend to say meritocracy is the ultimate answer to injustice and a vindication of talent over prejudice, racism, and unequal opportunity. We can therefore say that a just society is a meritocratic one in which everyone has equal chances to rise as far as their talent or hard work will take them. Equality of opportunity is a morally necessary corrective to injustice but then, there’s the tyranny of merits. Most often we say merit matters for at least two reasons- efficiency and fairness. In trying to find the best person for a job, we are often better off with people who are capable of doing the job rightly than an incompetent one. If not for anything, a capable one will do your job just right for you and this is where efficiency comes in. Also, you would not go in for an incompetent person or reject a qualified one for the job simply because of racial, religious or sexist prejudice. As fairness should be at play here. Even if you willingly accept a shoddy work from an incompetent person on the basis of discrimination, it still would not be fair as the competent one feels cheated. We say that a society that rewards merit promotes efficiency as it renounces discrimination. The meritocratic conviction that people deserve whatever riches the market bestows on their talents makes solidarity an almost impossible project. It gives us an idea that our destiny is in our hands as our success will depend on our hard work and not our forces beyond our control. It tells us that we are masters of our own fate and we are free to rise as far as our efforts and talents will take us. For all our striving, we are not self-made and self-sufficient; finding ourselves in a society that prizes our talents is our good fortune not our due. In that, we can take pride in our success since we deserve the rewards our achievements rightly bring us. Hence, it makes us view success in meritocracy as earned through our own effort and strife neglecting the matter of luck and grace. Imagine staying up late for a college entrance exam to study and you pass with good marks, we assume our hard work and determination got us there. If merit is a good practice, why then the bad side and when does it really turn bad? In as much as meritocracy gives equal opportunities to all, the other side makes individuals feel they have the ability to control their destiny by a dint of hard work. The dark side of the meritocratic ideal is found in its tempting promise that is, the promise of mastery and self-making. It places emphasis on the notion of personal responsibility. How we act morally or being in charge of our lives wholly are assumed totally by us. Therefore if you succeed, it is by your effort and when you fail, it is by your own sloth. This tends to create tension in the society. The disagreements about merit are not only about fairness, rather they are also about how society define success, failure and the attitudes the winners should hold toward those less successful. This paper will discuss the relationship existing between divine providence(grace) or the God factor, politics and meritocracy taking into consideration the biblical perspective on merit, the historical overview and the political aspects.

Historical Overview: The Then and Now

Initially, for Luther, Calvin and the Puritans, debates about merit were about salvation. Do the chosen earn and deserve their election or is salvation a gift of grace beyond human control? Now and for us,debates about merit are about worldly success-do the successful earn and deserve their success or is prosperity due to factors beyond our control?.¹ Sandel postulate that the two debates may appear to have little in common as one appears religious and whereas the other worldly. Upon a closer look,you will realize that the meritocracy of our time stems from the theological contest with which it emerged. Then,there was a tense dialectic of grace and merit ,helplessness and self-help but merit drove out grace in the end. The ethic of mastery and self-making took over the ethic of gratitude and humility and working and striving became essential void of the Calvinist notion of predestination and an anxious search for a sign of salvation. In our time, mastery and self-making is triumphant as faith in God recedes, confidence in human agency gathers force; the more we conceive ourselves as self-made and self-sufficient, the less reason we have to feel indebted or grateful for our success.

In furtherance, the elected saw themselves deserving and the others as God’s enemy condemned to eternal damnation. Now, we equally have the conviction that those who succeed deserve their success and humiliation to the losers. This reflects a residual faith that persists in our secular societies although we have the notion that we are free human agents capable of rising and succeeding on our own which is an aspect of meritocracy. “The fortunate person is seldom satisfied with the fact of being fortunate”, Max Weber observed. This person wants to be convinced that he deserves it and also with that he deserves it in comparison with others.He or She therefore wishes to believe that the less fortunate is also experiencing their due one. This portrays the other side of meritocracy where the rich are rich because they are more deserving than the poor. Now,the successful do not owe their power or wealth to a divine intervention like then but they rise thanks to their own effort and hard work. And so the meritocracy of our time is without a God who intervenes in human affairs. It acknowledges that meritocracy heightens the moral stakes of economic competition sanctifying the winners and degrading the losers.²

The Biblical Perspective on Merit

The early debates about merit were not about income and jobs but God’s favor. Is it something we earn or receive? Our fate, fortune or wealth is determined by divine providence not our own effort that is why there is a limit to individual responsibility in meritocracy which we fail to see now. Biblical theology teaches that natural events happen for a reason just as Sodom and Gomorrah was completely wiped out because of the rise in wrongdoing. It reflects the belief that the moral universe is arranged in a way that aligns prosperity with merit and suffering with wrongdoing. This is quite similar to the contemporary view that wealth signifies great effort and hard work and poverty signifies indolence.

The biblical outlook on merit offers a familiar resemblance to contemporary meritocracy. According to Sandel contemporary meritocracy emphasizes human agency and will and the biblical version attributes all power to God.³ We say he distributes all punishments and rewards. Although God is the one who bestows the rewards and punishments, he does so according to people’s merits not arbitrarily. So, thus drawing a relationship, it can be said even in the presence of God, humans are seen to earn and therefore deserve their fate. Also, the meritocratic nature or way of thinking gives rise to harsh attitudes towards those who suffer misfortune. The more acute the suffering, the great a conviction that the victims have brought it on themselves and can be traced to various scenarios in the Christian Bible. In renouncing the idea that God presides over a cosmic meritocracy, he asserts his unbounded power.⁴ Faith in God means accepting the grandeur and mystery of creation, not expecting God to dispense rewards and punishments based on what each person merits or deserves. And so as this is discussed, merit as a human agency or as in God who bestows the rewards and punishments, the question of merit reappears in Christian debates about salvation. Sandel argue this on two grounds; Can the faithful earn salvation through good works and religious observance or God is entirely free to decide whom to save, regardless of how people live. Merit resurfaces here as we tend to say the first option is just as one who does the good works and observes the religion gets salvation. Therefore salvation becomes something we earn and deserve due to our good works and God is bound to recognize our merit. In this sense, salvation has become a matter of self-help. The second one which says God is entirely free to decide whom to save comes with a different problem. This affirms that God is responsible for all that happens in this world even the existence of evil. For example, the predicament of Job,where he lost his entire family as described in the holy bible can be attributed to the second question.⁵ Arguably, if God is just but evil exists, then it implies he is unjust. Theologians came to the resolution that God has attributed free will to human beings and therefore the responsibility of evil is shifted from God to man. This freedom to decide whether we do right or wrong is what determines whether good fortune or misfortune will fall on someone. Hence, the suffering is not evil but a punishment for the transgression. This proposition was by a fifth-century British monk named Pelagius. His proposition generated fierce opposition from formidable Christian Philosophers.⁶

To Augustine, attributing free will to man denies the omnipotence of God and undermines the significance of his ultimate gift that is, sacrificing his beloved son on the cross. To Sandel, if human beings are so self-sufficient that they can earn salvation on their own through good works and sacraments, then the incarnation becomes unnecessary. Despite Augustine’s insistence on salvation by grace alone, the practices of the church brought merit back in. Baptism, prayers, attending mass communion etc. prompted a sense of efficacy among the believers. Therefore, it is not easy to sustain the belief that good works or religious observance do not generate merit in God’s eyes. Martin Luther had a view of the Roman Church of his time. According to him, when faith is embodied in outward observance, mediated and reinforced by an array of church practices, the theology of gratitude and grace falls leading to a theology of pride and self-help. This was eleven centuries after Augustine had unveiled against salvation by merit. Just like Augustine, Martin Luther formed the Protestant Reformation as an argument against merit. His broader view following Augustine was that salvation is wholly a matter of God’s grace and cannot be influenced by any effort to win God’s favor whether through good works or religious observance.⁷ We cannot pray our way or buy our way into heaven like what the catholic church in his day indulged in where the rich tried to buy their way into salvation (making payment thought to expedite penance and shorten one’s stay in purgatory). “Seeking to improve our chances by taking communion or attending mass or persuading God of our merit is presumptuous to the point of blasphemy” Martin argued.⁸ Quite amusing, Luther’s doctrine of grace was resolutely anti-meritocratic. It rejected salvation by good works and left no room for human agency or self-making. Contrarily, the Protestant Reformation he formed led to a meritocratic work ethic the Puritans and the successors bring to America.⁹

Additionally, John Calvin, just like Luther, his theology inspired the Puritans. He held that salvation was a matter of God’s grace and not determined by human merit. He believes those to be saved and damned are predestined and is not subject to change no matter how you live out your life. This Calvinist belief made the question in your place in the afterlife more important than anything else in this world because you desperately want to know whether you are among the elect or the damned which God does not announce in advance. And as Max Weber indicate, the persistence and urgency of this question led Calvinists to a certain version of the work ethic. Since every person is called by God to work, working intensely in that calling is a sign of salvation. The point of this work although is not to make wealth but to glorify God. Weber points out that this disciplined approach to work-working hard but consuming less- yields the accumulation of wealth that fuels capitalism. The Calvinist notion of work in a calling evolved into the Puritan work ethic which was hard to resist its meritocratic implication- that salvation is earned and that work is a source not merely a sign of salvation. “In this practice, this means that God helps those who helps themselves”, Weber observes. But proving one’s state of grace through worldly activities brings meritocracy back in because with Calvinism, all Christians were called to work and to prove their faith in worldly activities. Confident of their election, this spiritual aristocracy of the elect looked down with disdain on the apparently destined for damnation. This to Weber is an early version of meritocratic hubris. “The consciousness of divine grace of the elect and holy accompanied by an attitude toward the sin of one’s neighbor, not sympathy but of hatred and contempt for him as an enemy of God bearing the signs of eternal damnation”42. This then does not only give rise to the spirit of capitalism but promotes an ethic of self-help and of responsibility for one’s fate quite in line with the meritocratic ways of thinking. Therefore, there is anxiety, strive for wealth and also the dark side of responsibility and self-making and then the belief in one’s own merit.

The Political Perspective

Majority of American Christians of our time believe that ‘God wants people to be prosperous by means of hard work -in striving and self-help while the few agree that ‘if you give money to God, God will bless you with more money’. Emphasis was therefore on individual responsibility for his or her own fate; Rewards and punishments were meted out in fortune or failure, riches or poverty. This gives people the confidence that, with sufficient effort and faith, they can achieve health and wealth which is the ultimate goal of every person which is relentlessly meritocratic. American politics have brought up arguments which are meritocratic in nature. If we consider Donald Trump and the Republicans in congress’s attempt to replace and repeal Obamacare, most people argued that their market-friendly alternative could increase competition and reduce costs, while protecting people with pre-existing conditions. Mo Brooks, a Republican congressman from Alabama argued differently. According to him, the Republican plan would require those with greater health needs to pay more. To them, this is morally justified since those who lead good lives are healthy as they have kept their bodies in good shape and the sick will have higher health care costs. The congressman’s case against Obamacare emphasizes the harsh meritocratic logic that runs from the puritans to the prosperity gospel: if prosperity is a sign of salvation, suffering then is a sign of sin. This ethic attributes to human beings is a thorough going responsibility of their fate.

In Sandel’s notion, viewing health and wealth as matters of praise and blame is a meritocratic way of thinking.¹⁰ Everything that happens is a reward or punishment for the choice we make and for the way we live. This way of thinking celebrates mastery and control and gives rise to meritocratic hubris. This hubris prompts the successful to believe that they are doing god’s work and to look down on victims of misfortune as blameworthy for their condition. It is also a prominent feature of liberal and progressive politics. In explaining America’s power and prosperity as a consequence of its divinely ordained or righteous status, Hilary Clinton in 2016 proclaimed “In the end, it comes down to what Donald Trump doesn’t get: America is great because America is good”. There is actually no necessary connection between being good and being great. The phrase ‘America is great because America is good’ echoes the long standing conviction that America has a divinely inspired mission in the world; a manifest destiny to conquer a continent or to make the world safe for democracy. But even as the sense of divine mandate recedes, Politicians reiterate the charm that our greatness derives from our goodness. Subsequent American Republican Presidents used the slogan “All our natural wealth and all our influence have been built on our faith in God and the bedrock values that follow from faith. The great French Philosopher Alexis De Tocqueville 150 years ago is said to have observed that America is great because America is good. And if she ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.

Politicians of recent decades accept the meritocratic ways of thinking abroad and at home by accepting debates about solidarity, responsibility and conservative critique of the welfare state although they did not go far as to attribute all health and wealth to virtuous behavior. Politicians such as Bill Clinton in the U.S and Tony Blair in Britain sought to the welfare eligibility more closely to the personal responsibility and deservingness of the recipients. The providential aspects of the contemporary liberalism can also be glimpsed at in a rhetorical turn that touches both the foreign the domestic policy. This is the habit of defending one’s policies or political allies as being on ‘the right side of history’ or ‘the wrong side of history’. The right side or the wrong side of history would have been at their high points during the cold war when communists and anti-communist powers faced off. These phrases became a political rhetoric for U.S Presidents such as George W. Bush told U.S Army Soldiers in 2005 that the middle east terrorists were losing the battle because ‘they were on the wrong side of history’. Richard Cheney in defending the Iraq war assured the U.S troops that ‘Our cause is necessary, our cause is just, and we are on the right side of history’. Barack Obama in describing Islamic terrorism said ’Al Qaida and its affiliates are small men on the wrong side of history’ and in addressing the U.S Air Force Academy said that ‘ISIL terrorists will never be strong enough to destroy Americans or our way of life because we are on the right side of history’. In this same vain, one will ask, why are some countries more developed than others? Most especially,the so called developing countries with the most of natural resources do not have the best of their communities living in a safer situation. Security, health, education, transportation and many others are under questioning. Are these a result of leaders own action or inaction or a moment of lack of grace?. Then come the argument of merit and grace. Here, does political leadership require grace to succeed or they will cause a change to their society base on their own effort or leadership style? Does meritocracy count in refining natural resources to the benefit of all or grace does most of it?. In other words, the arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice but God helps those who help themselves.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I have analyzed meritocracy with reference to biblical theologies, history and its politics. In all that, the balance between meritocracy and grace cannot be easily sustained although in several instances, there is an interplay of both in situations of life, society and politics. It has actually become a part and parcel of our daily lives. We hope to achieve success because we deserve it. In education, we hope to pass out in flying colors simply because we studied hard as we burned the mid-night candle therefore our effort should pay. We believe God should forgive us our sins since we pay tithes to him, we offer monies for church projects and give donations hence we are entitled to salvation. Politically, we think that if a nation puts its people’s welfare first and stands for justice at all times then they should be great and powerful since they are good. This tend to give rise to the thought that if a student fails their exam, then they did not study hard or were loitering about. Also, a businessman who goes bankrupt might be said to not be virtuous and that is his reward. If a believer dies or is incapacitated, then they have committed a grave sin against God. This side of meritocracy is what many frown upon but then we cannot live without a pinch of the meritocratic nature of thinking in our lives. As we celebrate our works because of our effort and strive, we should not forget luck and grace too. We should therefore empathize with people who are unfortunate as the misfortune was by something beyond their control and stop viewing ourselves as more fortunate than others. I believe that by putting ourselves in others shoes, we will be able to realize how logical this is.

Reference

Sandel, M. J. (2013) ‘The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?’, Journal of ChemicalInformation and Modeling, 53(9), pp. 1689-1699.

[...]

¹ Sandel, 2013 p.43

² Sandel,2013 p.37

³ Sandel, 2013 p.37

⁴ "The notion that our fate reflects our merit runs deep in the moral intuitions of Western culture. Biblical theology teaches that natural events happen fora reason. Favorable weather and a bountiful harvest are divine rewards for good behavior; drought and pestilence are punishments for sin’.p.37

⁵ Job Chap.1 vrs 13-22, The Holy Bible.

⁶ Sandel, 2013 p.39

⁷ Sandel, 2013 p.40

⁸ Sandel, 2013 p.40

⁹ Sandel, 2013 p.40

¹⁰ Sandel, 2013 p.50