Tyranny of Merit - Michael Sandel

What if merit is something we may not want, even if we can have it? Come join Triangle Heterodox in November to discuss Michael Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit.

Michael Sandel is a Professor of Government Theory at Harvard Law School whose project is studying the relationship of the liberal form of government with the concept of justice.

Written in 2020, Sandel argues in this book that our political polarization is partly a response to the untenable valuing of merit, a value whose problems have been made more apparent with growing inequality.

This book will be a chance to explore a view that runs counter to some tendencies we may have as a club. It should be noted that the argument may not be what you think. Although arguments today about merit often come from critical theory lenses focused on historical failures to define merit in objective ways or claims of merit being used to support supposed power cleavages, Sandel doesn’t deny merit as a real or coherent concept - and directly argues that a focus on historical failures to achieve merit is not what is most interesting. Sandel’s argument instead goes even further, questioning instead whether merit is what we should actually want. As part of this, he considers how merit relates to how we define success and failure, our sense of “deservedness” for people’s station in life, and whether a good society is really one that only gives people what they deserve.

Discussion with Glenn Loury on Merit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__vU3BEAaE

Guardian Interview – “The populist backlash has been a revolt against the tyranny of merit”
[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/06/michael-sandel-the-populist-backlash-has-been-a-revolt-against-the-tyranny-of-merit ](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/06/michael-sandel-the-populist-backlash-has-been-a-revolt-against-the-tyranny-of-merit)

Excerpt from Book
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/01/the-myth-of-meritocracy-according-to-michael-sandel/