In the first part of my observations on the election of Barack Obama, I briefly commented on his speech, as well as the primary disagreements that I have with his positions, especially on social issues. In this short essay, I would like to offer a commentary on meritocracy.
I came to this country in 1996 and I dreamed about America for a long time, even before Bosnia was hit by the war. I thought that America was a land where you can achieve anything. Granted, I was in my teens when I had those dreams, but there was a certain element of truth in that statement. America certainly was unlike any other place in the world. I was seventeen years old and after I graduated from high school, I aimed for college and graduate school. I worked extremely hard, and although I understood that America was a tougher country than I had previously thought, my work was paying off. I was moving forward, working towards individual and ultimately collective good. America to me was like a tough mother—the one that loves you but also is not afraid to tell you that you messed up. Or like the rough patches of soil and land in Willa Cather’s novels (I’m primarily thinking of O Pioneers!), where the land itself is the character.
In the last few years, that has started to change. I’ve noticed that America I knew has started to become invisible or really tough to reach. America was becoming a land of political correctness, false victimhoods, self-pitying therapy, and conflicting ideologies. I also started to notice on myself that if I didn’t agree with a particular ideology, my hard work went unnoticed. Meritocracy, something that American society was based on and which does not discriminate, was starting to become an historical artifact.
Barack Obama and his followers are in the favor of diversity. Obama’s spokespeople are talking about a “diverse” cabinet, composed of many different people, etc. But, I ask, what of it? Why is diversity so important for the diversity’s sake? Are these people intelligent? Are they qualified? Are they educated? Frankly, I don’t care whether they are Hispanic, Black, Jewish, (you may keep naming the rest of the groups—the list I am sure is quite long) or anything else. To me, those are externals that are a great bonus and can be quite interesting (culturally!) but not the primary concern or substance. It seems then that these days people are getting ahead based on the their cultural background and the color of their skin but not according to their qualities, gifts, abilities, or education. This is alarming. We will (or we already are) become a nation of incompetent people in power, who only have the exterior to speak for themselves.
This is a false equality. Ideologies do not bring human equality; on the contrary, ideologies contribute to the decline of the society, whereby inequities are slowly and invisibly growing. The only way we can achieve unity is to remain strong in our own identity. We must see things as they are; we must live life in its full reality, and when the truth is distorted, it is our duty to restore it.
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