The populist backlash has been a revolt against the tyranny of merit

&quot;There needs to be a redistribution of esteem as well as money, and more of it needs to go to the millions doing work that does not require a college degree.&quot;<p>I could not agree more with this statement. There are far too many people that believe they are better than other people because of their job title, education or wealth. Too many university educated people think that because they have a degree that they are smarter than everyone else and their opinion needs to be accepted as fact. I&#x27;m not sure if this is what is being taught in universities or if this is what society is telling them...but we would all be better off if we tried understanding other&#x27;s viewpoints.<p>No one lives without the contributions of others anymore...no one.

Much of it is a backlash against the conflation of anointment by organs of prestige with &quot;merit&quot;; at best, these prestige organs are very noisy proxies for some form of merit, and they get worse by the day.<p>(The article says as much, of course.)

The rise of populism is probably because nobody trusts established politicians, not some abstract reasoning around the left being meritorious.

Some of the HN crowd might be familiar with the academic Freddie deBoer, who just recently published a book on this very topic with some suggestions of how to address it, _The Cult of Smart_[1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;us.macmillan.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;9781250200389" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;us.macmillan.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;9781250200389</a>

The definition of &quot;success&quot; has been very narrowly construed, if it has measured against mere tangibles.

Highly, highly recommend The Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovitz [1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.themeritocracytrap.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.themeritocracytrap.com&#x2F;</a>

I was surprised he did not address the issues of loyalty and betrayal. To whom does the state owe its loyalty? To its own citizens first, or to everyone (i.e. no-one)? It&#x27;s no surprise people feel betrayed when the countries they and their ancestors helped build offer them no more than a level playing field on which they are to compete against the world. A world that seldom reciprocates those open and individualist attitudes, as it has not forgotten &quot;united we stand, divided we fall&quot;.<p>Of course this does not apply so much to major corporations, but that is a different matter.