Why the left could love Bush's "ownership society."

Don't Let Prince Charles See The Incredibles: Was Prince Charles being feudal or simply a good meritocrat when he wrote, of a secretary seeking a promotion:

What is wrong with people nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities. ... This is all to do with the learning culture in schools. It is a consequence of the child-centred system which admits no failure and tells people they can all be pop stars, High Court judges, brilliant TV presenters or even infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary effort or having abilities. It's social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially re-engineered to contradict the lessons of history.

Charles was accused of feudal leanings by the secretary in question, by much of the British press, and (implicitly) by Charles Clarke, the Labor education minister, who said

We can't all be born to be king but we can all have a position where we can really aspire, for ourselves and for our families, to do the very best they possibly can.

Technically Charles would appear to be off the hook--he doesn't say in his memo that no secretary can ever aspire to other achievements. He merely seems to be saying 1)this secretary doesn't have the chops, and 2) too many people think they can do things for which they don't have the chops. The first is a judgment non-feudal, fluid meritocracies have to make of everyone at some point (when they've done "the very best they possibly can"). The second is a complaint anybody who has to run such a meritocracy (and constantly tell people "no") might have, and isn't incompatible with believing that people who actually have ability and put in the effort should rise. (Issue 2 is ventilated in The Incredibles, which takes Charles' side. How'd Tierney miss that angle?)

Meritocracy, it's often noted, is the most vicious of hierarchies because it tells people not only that they have wound up at a certain level but that they deserve to be at that level. It may say something about the unwillingness of putative meritocrats (like Clarke) to face the harshness of their own system that they need to acccuse people like Charles, who make those harsh judgments explicit, of not being meritocrats but of really being aristos who don't want people to "rise above their station." ... P.S.: It's entirely possible, of course, that Charles is an inveterate feudal bigot in private. (If not him, who?) And it's too bad he didn't cut the condescending line in yesterday's self-defense that declared, "In my view it is just as great an achievement to be a plumber or a bricklayer as it is to be a lawyer or a doctor." Does anyone think he really thinks that? ... 11:18 P.M.

Saturday, November 20, 2004

Ex-President Bill Clinton, in an interview with Peter Jennings:

You know, my position on the Iraq War was different from almost everybody else's that I've heard talk. I supported giving the president the authority to take action against Saddam Hussein if he did not cooperate with the U.N. inspectors, or if he was found to have had weapons of mass destruction he wouldn't give up. I did believe that the administration made a mistake going to war when they did, and that's what alienated the world. Most Americans still haven't focused on this. [Emphasis added]

Wait. Wasn't that John Kerry's position on Iraq? It sounded like a flip-flop when Kerry said it! ... [But Kerry said he'd have supported giving the authority even if he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq--ed.  Staff error.] 8:59 P.M.