Skip to main content

Achieving Pinnacle

Interesting observation from the author of The Tyranny of Merit. Of the students he teaches at Harvard, the Sandel says:

..students have always voiced a wide range of moral and political views. I have not noticed any decisive trend, with one exception: Beginning in the 1990s and continuing to the present, more and more of my students seem drawn to the conviction that their success is their own doing, a product of their effort, something they have earned. Among the students I teach, this meritocratic faith has intensified.

He clarifies this is not unique to his students but there is a larger trend, in speaking of students he has encountered in Chinese universities he says:

.. these Chinese students, like my Harvard students, are the winners of a hyper-competitive admissions process that unfolds against the background of a hyper-competitive market society. It is no wonder that they resist the thought that we are indebted for our success and attracted to the idea that we earn, and therefore deserve, whatever rewards the system bestows on our efforts and talents.

Reading this made me think about what it was like to be a student in India in the 90s. Many of my peers were admitted to the top ranking colleges in the country. Two of the kids I grew up with, placed in the top fifty in the entrance exams. I recall the aura of invisibility that surrounded these folks - the awe they inspired among lesser mortals. There was not a shred of doubt in anyone's mind that they had attained such pinnacle of achievement on account of their innate talents and merits. 

The two kids that come to mind as I write this were not particularly arrogant, they both had the quiet confidence of people who know they are destined for greatness. Fast forward a few decades, that greatness has not yet been realized in material, tangible terms. Neither one of them is a household name or an industry captain. Back in the day, it was was a foregone conclusion that they would out our little town on the map. It makes you wonder if this presumption of meritocracy had something to do with that outcome. Maybe putting more stock into opportunities, support and other factors enable people to realize their full potential might have helped. 






Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...

Changing Pace

This blog has been a big part of my life for the last five years. Besides giving me the opportunity to connect with a number of interesting people and share my thoughts and ideas with them, it has been a form of daily meditation for me. No matter what the day threw my way, I made a very deliberate effort to find a little quiet time to write.The process of thinking about what to write and then the act of writing itself worked as an antidote to aggravations big and small. Five and half years ago, when I started Heartcrossings both my personal and professional lives left a lot to be desired for. The only real happiness I had was in being J's mother. While that was often enough to make me forget what I did not have, I sorely needed a third place to call my own and shape in the likeness of my dreams. This blog has been where there were no limits or constraints and that was absolutely exhilarating - it is the reason I have been able to nurture it for as long and as much as I have. A lot ...