The Anglican archbishop of Dublin, Dr. John Neill has come out today to say that Ireland is increasingly becoming a society where the value system is focussed on wealth. He is, of course, correct in this assertion and it is good that he is talking about this. The message will go unnoticed because it is a clergyman that is speaking out, simply because this is what the clergy are expected to say. Therefore, Dr. Neill is probably going to be easily dismissed as being a right-thinking individual that is doing his job - he is supposed to say that kind of thing, so this is not really news.
It would be good for a change to hear this message from an unexpected source.
I am happy enough to see Ireland become a more prosperous country. Twenty years ago this was a pretty grey and dismal place with people emigrating and things like the people-in-need telethon happening every year to try to get some more money to those that were in most trouble. It seemed that everybody was either on the poverty line or near it and it was all a bit depressing for me growing up into that society.
So, today we have money (not everybody, mind you), but that is not an inherently bad thing. Where Dr. Neill has gotten it right is to say that we are now building a meritocracy where your position in society is governed by how much money you have.
Not how good a person you are.
Not how much skill you have at whatever you do.
Not how well you interact with other people.
Not how productive you are for society.
It is how wealthy you are and it doesn’t matter how you got that wealth, it is enough that you are wealthy and therefore you have value. If you don’t have money, then you are a loser.
That is a harsh world. A world of winners and losers, where you might be a winner one minute and a loser the next.
For me, the meritocracy has always been your qualities as an individual. How much effort you put into making the most with what you have. If you have money, then that is great. If you don’t then that is fine too.
3 users commented in " Money and merit. "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackHappy New Year, Doc.
Not to be contrary, but how can you build a society on your interpretation of a meritocracy?
How good a person you are, your worth to society and how well you interact with other people are all very subjective and not entirely quantifiable.
It is wrong that a person’s worth is measured by their wealth, but is this not the inevitable conclusion of a capitalist society?
Happy new year to you sw. I’m not sure that we need to judge people by their wallets and I would like to think that people would still place a high value on human qualities in others, not just monetary success. Maybe because money is quantifiable and measurable and we are all a bit competitive, there is that temptation to use it as a yardstick, however, I also think we have choices and there is no definite inevitability about how we would judge people. We do have a choice in how we do the judging.
Science pays. Happy New Year.