Merit, duty, and finding softness inside a system built on proving yourself
why our origin stories still hurt
The Oxford Union debate on whether meritocracy is a myth went viral because it did something rare in public argument: it disturbed both sides.
On the proposition side was Daniel Markovits, a Yale law professor and author of The Meritocracy Trap. He didn’t say what people usually assume. He didn’t argue that talent is fake, or that effort is irrelevant, o…
