CHALLENGING THE DEI SCHOOL : 3/8: The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World, by Adrian Wooldridge
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.6 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2024
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Aristocracy-Talent-Meritocracy-Modern-World/dp/1510768610/ref=sr_1_2?qid=1658009977&refinements=p_27%3AAdrian+Wooldridge&s=books&sr=1-2
In The Aristocracy of Talent, the esteemed journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge traces the history of meritocracy forged by the politicians and officials who introduced the revolutionary principle of open competition, the psychologists who devised methods for measuring natural mental abilities, and the educationalists who built ladders of educational opportunity. He looks outside western cultures and shows what transformative effects it has had everywhere it has been adopted, especially once women were brought into the meritocratic system.
1967 New York Public Library
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. This is a |
| 0:21.0 | a B a Bachelor and Adrian Waldrich, who was badgered at the economist is the author |
| 0:29.7 | Adrian Waldrich of the aristocracy of talent, how meritocracy made the world. |
| 0:35.1 | And we've moved through 2,500 years of history right up to the 19th century now. |
| 0:40.6 | I do not want to leave out Plato, however however I didn't have a moment to include him but |
| 0:45.5 | Plato writes a republic and in the republic there are doubts about democracy |
| 0:50.8 | doubts about whether you can trust people to know what's best for them because after |
| 0:55.6 | all they're working very hard and they live short lives. Doubts also about |
| 1:00.0 | whether democracy chooses the best leader, doubts also about whether you're ever |
| 1:06.4 | going to follow a course of action that is rewarded anywhere in this lifetime. |
| 1:12.4 | That is in the minds of the men and women of the 19th century as we |
| 1:16.6 | come to not the French Revolution, but the British interpretation of the French Revolution and Adrian identifies two schools of |
| 1:25.3 | thought in Britain, in the United Kingdom, in the 19th century that are important to explore |
| 1:32.1 | because they inform how the United States |
| 1:34.0 | responds as well to the search for brains, for talent. |
| 1:39.0 | One is the school of utilitarian, the greatest number for the greatest good. The other is the school of |
| 1:44.6 | economists which is self-interest. Adrian I can't choose between them and I don't think |
| 1:51.6 | Britain did either is that correct? |
| 1:54.0 | Oh absolutely and in some ways they sort of supplement each other because the people |
| 1:58.7 | like Adam Smith and the great founders of modern economics are sort of utilitarian's and they're taking part of the utilitarian philosophy and using it to inform their arguments. |
| 2:12.0 | And of course the greatest utilitarian economists of |
| 2:15.1 | the of the 19th century John Stuart Mill is is you know a pure product of utilitarianism |
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