The End of American Meritocracy

文/愛德華·盧斯 譯/陳巖

What is in a word? When it is packed with1be packed with擠滿，富含。as much moral zeal as “meritocracy”, the answer is a lot.A meritocrat owes his success to effort and talent. Luck has nothing to do with it—or so he tells himself. He shares his view with everyone else, including those too slow or indolent to follow his example. Things only go wrong when the others dispute it.

[2] Now magnify that to a nation of 320m people—one that prides itself on being a meritocracy. Imagine that between a half and two-thirds of its people, depending on how the question is framed, disagree. They believe the system’s divisions are self-perpetuating.They used not to think that way.

[3] Imagine, also, that the meritocrats are too enamoured of their just rewards to see it. The fact that they are split—one group calling itself Democratic, the other Republican—is detail. They are two sides of a debased coin. Sooner or later something will give.

一個詞能有多少含義？若是像“精英體制”一樣道德色彩濃厚，答案則是“很多”。精英把成功歸因于努力與天分。他的成功與運氣沒有任何關系，或者說他是這么告訴自己的。他同所有人分享這個觀點，其中有些人太笨、太懶，根本無法以他為榜樣。只有當其他人對此產生質疑時，事情才會變糟。

[2]現在將情況放大到一個有著3.2億人口、以精英體制為傲的國家。想象一下，有二分之一到三分之二的人（取決于問題怎么表述）持不同意見。他們認為體制的分歧是永恒存在的。過去他們不這么想。

[3]再想象一下，精英們沉醉于自己應得的回報中而看不到這些。他們分裂的事實很清楚，一派自稱為民主黨，另一派為共和黨。他們是一枚劣幣的兩面，遲早會露餡。

[4] Since the late 1960s both parties, in different ways, have turned a blind eye to the economic interests of the middle class. In 1972 the McGovern-Fraser Commission revamped the Democratic party’s rules for selecting its nominee after the disastrous 1968 convention2這次黨代會時值越戰期間，黨內總統提名人的角逐非常激烈，進而導致爭議，觸發了暴力示威。in Chicago. The overhaul changed the party’s course. It included obligatory seats for women, ethnic minorities and young people—but left out3leave out忽略，沒有考慮。working males altogether. “We aren’t going to let these Camelot Harvard-Berkeley types take over our party,” said the head of the AFL-CIO, the largest American union federation. That is precisely what happened. Democrats cemented the shift from a class-based party to an ethnic coalition by enshrining affirmative action for non-whites. Getting a leg up to university, the ultimate meritocratic vehicle,was based on your skin colour rather than your economic situation.

[5] Unsurprisingly, swaths4swath長而寬的一條或一行。of the white middle class turned Republican.Forty years on, many Democrats, not least Bernie Sanders’ supporters, are suffering buyer’s remorse. Before he became president, Barack Obama argued it would be fairer to base af firmative action on income not colour. “My daughters should probably be treated by any admissions of ficer as folks who are pretty advantaged,” he said.

[4]自從20世紀60年代后期，兩黨便開始以不同方式忽視中產階級的經濟利益。1968年在芝加哥召開的民主黨黨代會像一場災難，之后，1972年麥戈文-弗雷澤委員會便修訂了民主黨候選人推選規則。這次修改改變了民主黨的道路，規定必須給婦女、少數族裔和年輕人留有席位，卻把男性勞動者整體忽略了。“我們不會讓這些高高在上的哈佛人、伯克利人掌控我們的政黨?！泵绹畲蟮墓M織勞聯-產聯主席這么說。而這確實發生了。民主黨把推動有色人口平權法案作為宗旨，強化了從一個基于階級的政黨向族裔聯盟的轉變。能否一只腳踏進大學，搭上精英教育的終極快車，基于膚色而不是經濟水平。

[5]毫無意外，大量的白人中產階級轉向了共和黨。40年后，很多民主黨人，尤其是伯尼·桑德斯的支持者們，都嘗到了“買家懊悔”的滋味。巴拉克·奧巴馬成為總統之前，曾呼吁平權運動應該基于收入而不是膚色才更公平?！叭魏握猩俣紤摪盐业呐畠寒斪鲀瀯萑后w來對待?！彼f。

[6] Last week it was announced that Malia Obama had been accepted into Harvard, her father’s alma mater. About a third of legacy applicants, those whose parent attended, are accepted into Harvard. No one suggests she is not deserving of her place. However, there are plenty of lower-income black and white children who do not bene fit from the advantages Malia Obama or Chelsea Clinton (Stanford and Oxford) had from birth.

[7] The US labour market remains impressively meritocratic. But what happens to a worker in the 25 years before he or she enters it is anything but.Hence the term “hereditary meritocracy”. Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution calls them “dream hoarders”.

[8] Judged by aptitude, almost half those in America’s top two-fifths income bracket are there because of the luck of family background. Think of the value of those unpaid internships. A big share of those in the bottom fifth would be in the top if they had the same life chances.

[9] Middle-class whites derived no greater benefit from voting Republican.For years strategists such as Karl Rove played on cultural fears—often stoking racial resentment—to galvanise the vote.

[10] Once in of fice, Republicans pursued tax cuts for the rich. Ignored by both parties and disproportionately hit by the downsides of globalisation, bluecollar whites fell into depression. For the first time, life expectancy among American whites is falling.

[6]上周有消息稱瑪利亞·奧巴馬已經被她父親的母校哈佛大學錄取。父母曾是哈佛校友的申請者有大約三分之一會被哈佛錄取。并不是說瑪利亞·奧巴馬不夠格被錄取，然而有太多低收入家庭的孩子，白人也好黑人也罷，從未享受過她或切爾西·克林頓（曾就讀斯坦福和牛津）生來就擁有的這些優勢。

[7]美國勞動力市場的精英化特征仍舊十分明顯。但是勞動者進入勞動力市場之前的25年里，經歷的卻并非如此。這樣便有了“世襲精英制”這么個詞。布魯金斯學會的理查德·里夫斯將他們稱為“囤夢者”。

[8]論天資，收入排在全美前五分之二的人中，有近一半是因為家庭背景帶來的運氣。想想那些沒有酬勞的實習機會吧。如果擁有同樣的人生機遇，收入處在底層五分之一的人里有很多都能進入頂層。

[9]中產階級白人沒能因為支持共和黨而多獲益。多年來，諸如卡爾·羅夫這樣的戰略家為了刺激投票，常常煽動種族仇恨，拿文化擔憂做文章。

[10]共和黨人一旦上臺就會為富人謀求減稅政策。被兩黨忽略的白人藍領群體，受到全球化負面影響的劇烈沖擊，生活陷入苦悶。美國白人的預期壽命首次下降。

[11] To add insult to injury, poor whites alone are still fair game for ridicule. They are excluded from the rules of political correctness. This is the demographic that eats itself into obesity in front of bad TV reality shows such as The Apprentice, which brought Mr Trump into their lives. Here was a man who spoke his mind and fired people.He may have been a schmuck but he was an open book. “I love the poorly educated,” he said after one primary victory. Mr Trump knows his market.

[12] Which brings us back to that supercharged word. Michael Young, the British sociologist who coined it in his 1958 book, The Rise of the Meritocracy,would feel vindicated. Though the term soon lost its irony, Young meant it as a satire on the imagined ruling classes of the future. Meritocratic elites “can be insufferably smug”, he said in a 2001 critique of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s misuse of the word. The rest, meanwhile, “can easily become demoralised by being looked down on so woundingly by people who have done well for themselves”. ■

[12]雪上加霜的是，只有貧困的白人群體仍是被嘲笑的對象。他們被排除在政治正確原則之外。這是一個看著無聊電視節目把自己吃成胖子的群體，節目就包括《學徒》這種把特朗普帶進他們生活的真人秀。這個人直言不諱，會炒人魷魚。他可能是個蠢貨，卻十分坦率?！拔覑勰切]怎么受過教育的人?！币淮纬踹x獲勝后他這么說。特朗普先生知道自己的市場所在。

[13]這又把我們帶回到那個感情色彩濃烈的詞語。邁克爾·揚在其1958年出版的《精英統治的崛起》一書中創造出這個詞，這位英國社會學家會覺得自己很有先見之明。盡管詞中的諷刺意味很快就消失了，揚的確是以此來諷刺想象中的未來統治階層。2001年，他在一篇批評英國時任首相托尼·布萊爾誤用該詞的文章中說，精英制下的精英“令人難以容忍的自大”，同時，其他人“很容易因為被成功人士輕視鄙夷，受到傷害而一蹶不振”。 □