I think there's a point I want to make, but I've got such disconnected thoughts floating through my head that I can't really get at it, so I'll just try blogging and see what comes out.
There are certain ideas that I've accepted at such a basic level that I don't even think about how to defend them. For example, that white supremacy is bad. That nepotism is bad. That meritocracy is good, if we actually had one. Though we probably should focus less on status and rewards and perks and more on what the jobs actually entail. (i.e. someone who is terrible at being a CEO or some other high status job will cling to it because they don't want to lose all the perks that come with it, even if they're actually terrible at their job. It makes them obstacles and hindrances... and I can't imagine they're actually happy with where they're at. People talk about how 'not everyone needs to go to college' and how trade schools are an excellent option. And I agree. But I don't think it'll matter so much until the wealthy and powerful show they're content to let their children go to a trade school rather than some Ivy League somewhere. Why isn't Ivanka Trump or Chelsea Clinton or Hunter Biden or the Bush twins becoming plumbers or electricians?)
So anyways, let me take this from the top.
First. Talent is everywhere.
I mean, it's hard to define 'talent' in the first place, and there's an element of access and development involved (i.e. someone who has never done gymnastics is not going to be the next Simone Biles, but they might have the capability to be that if they had the access and training.) But the potential can be anywhere, and in anybody.
In fact, for certain positions talent doesn't seem to be inherited at all. (Perhaps because the skills needed come more from life experience than genetics? And the life experiences are different enough that it doesn't pass on?)
For that statement, I'm mostly just going on the disparity in skill between one king or queen and their heirs. If being a good ruler was truly a genetic trait, then we wouldn't see a competent king or queen so often followed by a complete disaster of their own flesh and blood.
And we wouldn't have seen so much talent show every time someone cleared the way of obstacles. (like Napolean and the "baton in every knapsack".)
The military in particular highlights this, as the stresses of war tend to really show who's competent and who isn't. (and who's lucky vs unlucky. There's definitely an element of chance at play, too.)
Talent is everywhere, but the potential to develop those talents is often limited. (Unfairly, too. I do not think the world would be worse off for more Einsteins or Marie Curies, and the fact that there are probably people just as smart who never get the chance to shine is... sad.)
That means that life is all too often like the caterpillar pillar in Hope for the Flowers. That is, we're dealing with scarcity, and people are competing for it... and they get so sucked into the fight, and pushing and climbing their way to the top, that they generally just become part of the system and don't really change anything.
And maybe they get close to the top, and realize how much the people at the very top are blocking them... and maybe they have a little revolution and get rid of the obstacles.. only for them to now be at the top, an obstacle for those below... and realize there's really nothing there at all. (Like, seriously. Let's all learn how to build our cocoons, turn into butterflies, and fly off rather than fighting to be king of the hill.)
Actually, that gets closer to what I wanted to point out.
Another reason I'm not exactly keen on a revolution is that it won't necessarily change anything.
That is, say you push out the entitled, arrogant assholes hogging all the resources? It's probably not going to be more than a generation or two until it's your own children or grandchildren who turn into the exact same sort of entitled, arrogant, asshole.
It's not that the people on top are inherently bad, they're just reacting to the same systemic pressures that make the same thing happen over and over and over again.
The real question is 'why do people raised with privilege and wealth so consistently become arrogant and entitled?
This is part of why I harp on the elite so much. Because one of the things that's supposed to distinguish them as 'worthy' and deserving of all their privilege is that they're supposed to be better than that.
If the average person tends to let power go to their head, the 'elite' (if they're truly to be worthy of that title) should be able to handle it without doing so.
That if an ordinary person might feel threatened by a particularly smart underling, a true 'elite' would realize that enabling that talent will make their company/organization/nation better and will try to develop it. A truly elite leader would enable the sort of meritocracy too many give lip service to, rather than drawing on the same 'who you know' networks to fight over the same group of well-connected individuals.
A truly elite person would be able to accept criticism and use it to improve their organization, not take it as a threat and a challenge.
A truly elite person would do their best to get past their own biases and misconceptions, even knowing that such a task is probably doomed to failure.
And in the process, they would separate out their own self-interest from what's best for the larger group as a whole. Which is why a truly elite person wouldn't let their biases make them ignore all the evidence for climate change, nor let their self-interest keep them from supporting realistic policies for combatting it.
In other words, truly elite people would act nothing like the arrogant, entitled, and selfish powers-that-be who have brought us to our current state of affairs.
I don't exactly hate them, since they're just being... human. I just don't like them thinking they're all that special when they're showing again and again that they're just... human.
I kind of wish they were as good as they seem to think they are. Maybe we could actually stop the cycle.
I'm not sure that really got at what I wanted to say, but it seems like a good stopping point.
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