Literary Review #3

Citation: Newfield, Christopher. "The Battle for Meritocracy." Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-year Assault on the Middle Class. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2008. 92-106. Print.

Summary: This chapter discusses the issues surrounding meritocracy in the Untied States, focusing specifically on meritocracy as it pertains to higher education. The chapter focuses a great deal on the three different types of meritocracy Newfield defined, that is meritocracy, meritocracy II and meritocracy I+. Meritocracy I is the very basic and traditional sense of the word, the idea that meritocracy is a strict hierarchy, one shows their natural intelligence by performing well on SATs for example. This definition is far to basic for the complex society we live in and meritocracy II soon overshadowed  Meritocracy II demonstrates the principle of meriocracy I where individual effort is rewarded and in addition society takes into account those who do not have as many opportunities as others, those who are intelligent but cannot excel due to economic disadvantages and things of that nature. Finally what Newfield explains as todays concept of meritocracy is what he calls meritocracy I+. Not as debilitiating to those who struggle as they did in the meritocracy I era  but also not as fair as meritocracy II is, more or less a happy medium.

Author: Christopher Newfield graduated from Cornell University with a PhD in 1988 and is now a literature professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Most of his research has dealt with higher education and how different levels of education shape the American economy.

Key Terms:

            The three types of meritocracies that I explained in the summary

           

            “Democratization of intelligence” – a term coined by Christopher Lasch, expresses the idea that intelligence in America is not constricted to certain types of societies/groups but rather a widespread trait, some just have the ability to use their intelligence more than others, typically referring to wealth.

           

Quotes:

            “Meritocracy was torn between two major meanings—an established, dominant meaning, and a second, emergent one. Culture-wars rhetoric discredited affirmative action by blocking the emergence of a broader meritocracy and insisting on an older, narrower meaning" (Newfield, 95).

            “It’s core features can be listed as follows: first, a vision of the “democratization of intelligence”; second, a determintation to develop that broadly distributed intellectual capcity with an inclusive educational system; and third a belief that general development was better served by equality than by stratification” (Newfield 100).

            “American society resigned itself to meritocracy I while allowing admissions loophole language about hardship and non-racial exceptions, creating a kind of meritocracy I+” (Newfield, 105).

            “The attacks on affirmative action restored an older form of meritocracy that in turn sharply limited the range of options available for moving forward” (Newfield, 106)

           

           

Value: I find this to be a valuable source to my paper as it is one of the few yet significant sources I have that can further my discussion of meritocracy. Like success, there are many different definitions on meritocracy and it's hard to have a general understanding of the term. This can cause issues that Newfield has examined in his writing.