Blog #9

My argument for my paper is that because the Ivy Leagues define "success" by means of getting through school just to earn oneself a high paying job that in itself is what is negatively affecting America's theory of meritocracy and in essence threatening the good of society. This simple definition is causing so much harm and both elite institutions and society are at fault. Looking specifically at society, we value testocratic merit over democratic merit and that is the problem. Society has this unwavering belief that the only simple and accurate way to determine how intelligent one is, is through rounds of standardized test like the SATs or ACTs. This system however overlooks those who are at a disadvantage economically as they are unable to pay tutors to train them to take the SATs like the elite can. Democratic merit on the other hand takes these socioeconomic disadvantages into account when determine the intelligence of students. Most of society seems to think that the SATs are a great and keywords quick and simple way to determine and compare students' levels of intelligence. Using a democratic form of merit would be too costly, too time consuming and in general just too difficult as questions will arise like "where is the cutoff mark between someone at a disadvantage and someone who is not", "How do we weigh disadvantage X Y and Z". All logical reasons to disapprove democratic merit however even knowing that this will not be a simple and quick solution, for the good of society it is worth an effort.