The ideology of individual meritocracy

In my article on the Left Behind books, I argued that neoliberalism--a feverish dependence on markets across a variety of social and political contexts--shaped the books' worldview more than either hardcore fundamentalist Christianity or conspiracy theories. Part of neoliberalism, as I defined it using models from Wendy Brown and Lisa Duggan, means reiterating meritocracy as a overriding logic of social promotion; one of the shocking things about the Antichrist, I noted, is that he hires Christians, but only because such Christians are the best-qualified candidates for the position--a logic that the books naturalize. This logic is likely encoded into the cult of the expert, a sense that someone out there Knows, someone out there is amazingly qualified. Though of course, as Ulrich Beck observes in The Risk Society, the need for experts is less cultish and more a function of the complicated systems that surround late capitalist subjects. Moreover, the whole point of a meritocracy is that it supposedly judges people only on their qualifications, without regard to social connections, race, gender, age, region, ethnicity, and so on.

Arguably, a steadfast belief in meritocracy underscores all sorts of conservative talking points, but particularly the "colorblind" logic of anti-affirmative action. "I judge a man by what he shows me on the field of battle, Sargent," the lightly anti-Semitic Captain Barret tells the Jewish Nathan Marx in Philip Roth's 1959 "Defender of the Faith."Such sentiments (do they originate in the armed forces?) have dominated a certain "post"-racist discourse ever since. At this point in history, meritocracy seems so ingrained into the social that it's hard to remember that such discourses once competed with genuinely racist ideas--of biological superiority--for dominance. This is the exact breakdown that historian Matthew Lassiter identifies at work in the postwar New South (a region whose politics Lassiter views as emblematic for the country as whole). Throughout The Silent Majority, Lassiter demonstrates how fully blinding a belief in meritocracy can be. Lassiter argues that a Sunbelt moderation of segregation was accomplished “only by replacing the civil rights agenda of social justice with an ostensibly race-neutral discourse of regional progress and individual meritocracy liberated from history itself, the latest and most resilient version of the New South mythology” (30). It's not much of a stretch, then, to argue that, at least in Lassiter's view, meritocracy forms a pillar of the current dominant ideology.

When conspiracy theory is read juxtaposed with such meritocracy, a mixed set of ideas emerge: at first glance, conspiracy theory would seem to undercut meritocracy, because meritocracy must be apparent on the surface, and conspiracy theory's back-room dealing would seem obscene to the meritocratic order. In fact, it's arguable that this is one of the things that fires up Glenn Beck and his audience--that their meritocratic rights are being undermined by a stealthy liberal conspiracy. On the other hand, conspiracy theorists resolutely affirm a belief in hierarchy: the very fact that the conspirators are in place affirms the existence of hierarchical social relations; the Antichrist, after all, still follows good market logic, despite his overwhelming evil. It's more likely, though, that the world of meritocracy--a sunny world where no effort goes unrewarded--in fact forms the obverse of conspiracy theory, the bright, efficient world that's left once the conspiracy theorists win and the conspirators get their grubby hands off America. The conspiracy theorists are the ones "playing by the rules" in a meritocracy. Where, then, does the ressentiment, the conspiracy theorist's envy, desire to occupy the place of the conspirators, play in this framework? Well, first, conspiracy theories provide, of course, a way to account for one's failings in the meritocratic world; I would have been a contender, if not for those conspirators. Second, is it possible that what men want, in a homosocial, envious mode, is to take the shortcuts themselves, to transcend their frustrated lives into the uber-successful world of the conspiracy?