He That Increaseth Sorrow Increaseth Knowledge: Or, Notes on Meritocracy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is a great piece but I guess the reason the end disappointed me is that it turns out to be a sardonic, passive-aggressive (not that there's anything\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2016\/12\/increaseth-sorrow-increaseth-knowledge-notes-meritocracy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"He That Increaseth Sorrow Increaseth Knowledge: Or, Notes on Meritocracy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is a great piece but I guess the reason the end disappointed me is that it turns out to be a sardonic, passive-aggressive (not that there's anything\" \/>\n<meta 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{"id":10716,"date":"2016-12-30T19:34:55","date_gmt":"2016-12-30T23:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=10716"},"modified":"2016-12-30T19:34:55","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T23:34:55","slug":"increaseth-sorrow-increaseth-knowledge-notes-meritocracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2016\/12\/increaseth-sorrow-increaseth-knowledge-notes-meritocracy.html","title":{"rendered":"He That Increaseth Sorrow Increaseth Knowledge: Or, Notes on Meritocracy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This<\/a> is a great piece but I guess the reason the end disappointed me is that it turns out to be a sardonic, passive-aggressive (not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that) reaffirmation of the meritocratic winners\u2019 authority, when what I would rather read is somebody\u2019s portrait of alternative authorities. So sure, here\u2019s a list of reasons I\u2019ve seen real people be treated as authorities. Andrews\u2019s list would be different no doubt but that\u2019s precisely why I would have liked to read it\u2026.<\/p>\n

None of these are forms of power, I think (unlike e.g. intelligence, wealth, or acting\/rhetorical talent), and all of them are better than intelligence or education:<\/p>\n

# age<\/p>\n

# length of time living in one place (Andrews\u2019s point about the meritocracy\u2019s effect on where politicians come from was great) or doing one thing<\/p>\n

# having had a lot of babies<\/p>\n

# holiness. This can be cashed out as \u201cprayerfulness\u201d or \u201clove of God\u2019s poor\u201d or probably other things, but it doesn\u2019t seem to correlate at all with education or intelligence. (Maybe a negative correlation with intelligence?) I think I\u2019m talking about an ingenuous simplicity in one\u2019s faith. Some smart educated people have it but you find it basically everywhere.<\/p>\n

# willingness to do manual labor, \u201cpay your dues,\u201d spend your time making other people\u2019s lives easier at the expense of your own preference for non-boring labor.<\/p>\n

# actually producing a good thing, whether it\u2019s a novel or a lasagna<\/p>\n

# listening\u2013viewing others as authorities on their own lives, rather than explaining them through the lenses you already possess<\/p>\n

# having been, years ago, part of a group that won a great victory or made a serious sacrifice for others (or both, lots of things are both)<\/p>\n

# being willing to tell people hard home truths. This is also a super easy way to squander authority so you do need a certain ingenuousness\u2013people can\u2019t get the sense that you<\/em> think of yourself as someone who tells hard truths\u2013and the ability to laugh at yourself.<\/p>\n

Maybe we should seek these people out more.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"