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A review by halthemonarch
The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? by Michael J. Sandel
4.0
I don’t ever think I’m going to feel like writing a fully fleshed review of this book, but I will say these things:
Michael J Sandel writes about the workings of a partially aristocratic meritocracy from Mount Olympus. He himself is a white philosopher teaching at Harvard University, and therefore one of the first voices the public are liable to listen to in the effort to level the playing field, so to speak. Sandel argues for something that resembles social/luck-based egalitarianism and I can definitely agree with some of his philosophies.
The feeling of being unheard and dismissed, disrespected and condescended to was a symptom of a wounded America that led to the Trump election after Obama’s eight years. Such feelings shouldn’t be so easily written off as ignorant, ignoring the data or on the wrong side of history, simply for not having the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions. Somewhere on the other side of this argument, Sandel asks us the reader to think about those who aren’t born particularly talented, or those who don’t have talents of value to society, and their subsequent right to exist and participate within that society.He also repeatedly asks one of my favorite philosophical questions of all: what do we owe to each other?
Michael J Sandel writes about the workings of a partially aristocratic meritocracy from Mount Olympus. He himself is a white philosopher teaching at Harvard University, and therefore one of the first voices the public are liable to listen to in the effort to level the playing field, so to speak. Sandel argues for something that resembles social/luck-based egalitarianism and I can definitely agree with some of his philosophies.
The feeling of being unheard and dismissed, disrespected and condescended to was a symptom of a wounded America that led to the Trump election after Obama’s eight years. Such feelings shouldn’t be so easily written off as ignorant, ignoring the data or on the wrong side of history, simply for not having the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions. Somewhere on the other side of this argument, Sandel asks us the reader to think about those who aren’t born particularly talented, or those who don’t have talents of value to society, and their subsequent right to exist and participate within that society.He also repeatedly asks one of my favorite philosophical questions of all: what do we owe to each other?