We Should Stop Caring About Exam Scores. Here’s Why.
In the previous post on minimalism, I talked about the often overlooked essense of minimalism, which is to reflect on what is really important to us, aside from common social expectation. Here, the common social expectation includes something like “we should get a better score in exams,” “we should get into a prestigious university,” “we should get a job in a big company for a good salary.” Of course, these expectations are not bad by themselves. It makes us aspire to be a better self, work hard, and succeed. Sure.
But what if they are the reasons of a deeply inegalitarian and divided society?
This is a question that Michael Sandel, a well-known political philosopher, poses in his new book The Tyranny of Merit. The key theme in this book is the notion of the common good. This term can be understood as the idea of what we should strive for in a society, or what the good for all is. And there are two ways of understanding the common good. The first is called the consumerist notion of common good; in this view, the common good is “the sum of everyone’s preferences and interests,” and achieved “by maximizing consumer welfare, typically by maximizing economic growth (Sandel 2020, 194).”
It means that all of us should aim to maximize individual interests, whether it is salary, prestige, goods, and so on. Note that this notion of common good emphasizes the importance of individual interests; the common good, even though it includes the word “common,” is the sum of individual interests. The likes of environmental issues or social faireness, the real common good, are not on the table here.
Inspired by Hegel, Sandel also associates the notion of the common good with the dignity of work (although the previous article on the Hegelian notion of freedom did not include this, the dignity of work is discussed in the chapter of civil society in Philosophy of Rights, which I am planning to write more about in the future). For instance, in this consumerist notion of common good, the work that makes the most money is regarded as the work that made the biggest contribution to society. It makes sense, because the one who contributes most has the best skill, and the financial reward for the skill should be generous. Because of this strong association between salary, skill, and value (dignity), “unskilled” workers are not recognized as valuable as “skilled” workers.
As Sandel eloquently puts it, “[b]y valorizing the ‘brains’ it takes to score well on college admission tests, the sorting machine disparages those without meritocratic credentials. It tells them that the work they do, less valued by the market than the work of well-paid professionals, is a lesser contribution to the common good, and so less worthy of recognition and esteem. It legitimates the lavish rewards the market bestows on the winners and the meager pay it offers workers without a college degree (Sandel 2020, 185).”
Obviously, this implicit contempt for less skilled workers causes anger and rancour among them towards “educated” people. As many of you already know, and Sandel agrees that, this was the underlying dynamics behind the electoral victory of Donald Trump in 2016. Our notion of common good, the idea of what we should strive for in society, caused the divide which was dramatically exploited by Trump.
So, is there an alternative notion of the common good? Yes, according to Sandel, there is a civic notion of common good. In this view, the common good is about “reflecting critically on our preferences — ideally, elevating and improving them — so that we can live worthwhile and flourishing lives. … It requires deliberating with our fellow citizens about how to bring about a just and good society, one that cultivates civic virtue and enables us to reason together about the purposes worthy of our political community (Sandel 2020, 181).”
So far it may sounds ambiguous but it makes more sense once we find out what it means regarding the dignity of work. From the standpoint of the civic conception, Sandel argues, “[t]he value of our contribution depends instead on the moral and civic importance of the ends our efforts serve (Sandel 2020, 181).” In sum, what Sandel is trying to suggest here is to change our notion regarding what is good, or what is a meaningful contribution to our society. It is time to stop thinking that “those in the financial industry who engage in speculative activity that reaps enormous windfalls without contributing to the real economy (Sandel 2020, 206)” is more valuable than, for instance, school teachers based solely on how much money they make. If someone contributes to the society, then we should acknowledge and respect it regardless of numbers it entails.
That is what Sandel says. Shall we go a bit deeper before the conclusion? Throughout the book, he keeps dismissing the individualistic notion of common good, and individualistic behavior exemplified by those in the financial industry while he emphasizes the importance of the values of community, and the contribution to the community as a whole. This inclination toward community makes sense, because Michael Sandel is one of the leading advocates of communitarianism.
What is that? Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it as “the idea that human identities are largely shaped by different kinds of constitutive communities (or social relations) and that this conception of human nature should inform our moral and political judgements as well as policies and institutions.”
The strong connection between moral judgement, institutions and communities… Wait, we have already heard of a similar arguments.
Yes, it resonates with Hegel’s notion of “ethical life.”
In fact, Hegel is considered to be a pioneer of exploring the role of community in the formation of identity and normative foundation (Taylor 1975). This emphasis on community rather than individuals appeared in the modern political philosophy as a critique toward liberalism, exemplified by Rawls.
Here comes the dichotomy, the conflict between the two grand ideas on morality and society, which is not only the big theme running throughout this blog, but also has been the core of the debate in the entire history of political thought (am I too dramatic?).
In my view, the age of individualism, whether it will/should continue or not is going to be an important debate with the consequences of individualism, such as the environmental crisis, looming. Tyranny of Merit is arguing for putting an end to it.
What do you think?
Reference
Sandel, J. Michael. 2020. The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? UK. Penguin Random House.
Taylor, Charles. Hegel. 1975. London: Cambridge University Press.
