Hitchens on the death of meritocracy | SpectatorTV 

It's not even a hierarchy of real virtue; it's a hierarchy of false virtue which is really self serving.

We have a stick insect as prime minister and a hawk faced turtle as chancellor. They control a pit of snakes with a few rabbits thrown in. Nature and natural selection favour meritocracy.

This was a good discussion based on what i heard from Wooldridge and the moderator's questions. Wish I could hear what Hitchen has to say.

If only we had ever had real meritocracy. That would have been nice .

Don't think I agree with the claim here of what woke is, or what it's trying to be. Two old white right-wing males discuss, with no counter argument offered, the essence of the source of their latest pearl-clutching. Sounds like a strawman and leaves itself open to that criticism, so is it dishonest, or just providing an echo chamber for the usual audience? Could it be that 'woke' has as many different nuanced meanings as Brexit, and those presented here are none of them? If I wanted to know about the problems encountered by a person who lived in a jungle I'd seek a jungle dweller, not ask these two, then maybe an exchange could commence about what they had revealed, with Peter and Adrian joining in at that stage.

Can you ask Hitchens to speak up! Or maybe he"s too unsure unlike his brother who was magnificent.

Something that never really existed can't die.

Imagine an outsider now getting employment at the BBC on ability.

Keep exposing the dross. Thank you.

I can assure you the fighter pilot business was merit based. The alternative is a smoking hole in the ground.

'the old system of meritocracy' ended when they invented GCSE coursework.

Perhaps we can all agree that, since 1945, Britain has hardly scaled the heights. On virtually every indicator, we have one of the most abysmal, sclerotic school systems anywhere. Europe, China, Asia, make us look remedial.

Spain ignores the talented.

Unfortunately Hitchins is right, but we can't just lie back and get completely rolled over

Equity is a weird woke concept. All things can never be equal, some people are smarter, some better looking etc. Should we have equity in music so someone who cannot play violin be in the orchestra for equity sake.

Hitchens (Eeyore)... "Moan. Complain. Nobody cares about me. Things ain't what they used to be. What's the point? Doom and gloom. No one listens to me. I've been saying this for years..." 💤💤💤💤

I work in recruitment in the engineering sector, HR talk about DIE but the realisation hits when we can’t find female civil engineers

Yay nihilists are our judges of value! What can go wrong?

Some groups it's culture, some groups it's genetics Constant cousin on cousin action does yield problems which are quite well documented in the medical field

I studied Photography at LCP in 1986 and I was subjected to "Woke" radical feminist ideas from tutors who had studied at the Polytechnic of Central London under the tutelage of Victor Burgin and were heavily influenced by his book "Thinking Photography".The "Woke" in the Universities in the U.K I suspect are the children of the generation I attended college with.The visual Arts and "Media studies" ( terrible term) is saturated with "Woke" ideas.

Race has been thrown into this equation because in the UK we have allowed uncontrolled immigration that has in turn allowed separate societies to form. I'm in favour of immigration as long as the immigrants accept the society they come into. Sadly, that's not happening.

Always good to see PH.

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Peter Hitchens is always so contrary with anyone he debates most of the time it’s because he has this very high opinion of himself I mean obviously when you are debating you will not agree on everything but he never seems to be able to find that ground, on which he can agree with anyone on anything, he mumbles his way through the conversation so it’s difficult enough hearing what he is saying, he is just an annoying pompous bloke , and another thing mr Hitchens please don’t compare yourself to Jordan Peterson he would run rings around you in a debate

Interesting discussion. Unfortunately I think Hitchens is correct, conservatives have lost and there is likely no coming back. The people called "conservatives" haven't conserved anything, they've just been the last adapters of social change and the most reluctant to make the next leftward move - but they've made the leftward moves. The Jacksonian populist right here in the US is populist, it is not conservative. American "conservatives" maintain a belief in a "silent majority", a belief now borrowed by Trump's sycophants, but in reality the country is not conservative and there is no serious conservative voice. The battle now is between "progressive" leftism and pragmatism. Americans are fundamentally pragmatic people and if the new "progressive" hierarchy is to be toppled it will be from pragmatism, not conservatism.

First time I've heard the Brexit vote described in any real way. Adrian Wooldridge states that it was a vote of anger, I and many who voted with me to leave were making a 'protest vote' against the poverty trap. Not as has been described by the remainers a racist vote demanding all people of colour to leave our country!! Thank you for this intelligent conversation.

11:55 - I agree 100%

Stein's Law, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." - Fear not current problems. Yoda-ish haha

Peter Hitchens : mumble mumble murmur LEFT mumble mumble mumble murmur JUSTICE, mumble mumble mumble murmur FOOLISHLY mumble murmur mumble ... I think I'll need to stick to reading his insights as my American brain cannot handle upper class British murmurings. Great discussion all the same.

Well said guys. The eyes of the Lord preserve knowledge and he overthrows the words of the transgressor. Pray to God that He will get rid of those reprobates that run the ECHR. Weird effects stem from weird causes.

I wonder how many of the Spectator's hacks got their sweet gigs via mommy and daddy's connections? If we really want to talk about "merit"......

Surely the other half of the meritocracy coin is wealth and ownership that is crowding out the best in society from making a meaningful impact? Much easier to go work for KPMG than change the world with new ideas.

Thankfully, there are pockets of civilisation still left in the world where one can flourish, irrespective of immutable phenotypical traits.

Hitchens - anything for attention.

This is nothing new, already F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about it in the Great Gatsby. We are ruled by boys clubs from public schools and preps, their only merit is that they are “sons of”. Communist and Socialist countries like China or Vietnam are not any better, only the sons of cadres get positions of power, the WEF global leaders only selects people who haven’t achieved anything in life but were born in privilege and Singapore and Japan are ruled like family businesses. The only way is to put restrictions on family, personal connections, even the amount of positions giving to particular schools, university.

As usual, Hitchens would be worth listening to except he is mostly inaudible through mumbling and slurring, punctuated periodically by an explosive consonant.

Pseudo Intellectual aristocracts lamenting the death of meritocracy is like watching Kenneth Williams perform in Carry on Sergeant, innit!

There is something immensely cute about that woman. I can’t explain it but she’s adorable

Humanity is being captured Capture :- v. take prisoner, gain control over No is a beautiful word 🙏

Presence does not equate to general shift in bigotry. You are not well-placed to make the determination that racism is over. You are not affected by the racism from which people of your class and less-melanated phenotype benefit.

Its sad to say that this is agreeable and why we are in such a mess.

Is this any different from conservatives telling you that plumbers and mechanics know best about everything?

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2:50 -- he needs to define virtue here. Woke virtue, does not mean the same thing as classical virtue.

Weren't you previously judged by merit *within one's group* ?

The guy with the specs mentioned Tony Blair?

Meritocracy is sadistic shit. As a quick visit to Britain amply demonstrates.

I hate these pointless aristocratic discussions about undefinably vague meaningless terms. Peter Hitchens has a great brain, and it seldom gets put to real positive use. The latest exception to that would be his discussions on Ukraine and Russia.

Is this the same Hitchens, P. who also supports the monarchy, yet argues in favour of merit? Just asking...

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Pound shop Ed Abbey

Quite an interesting discussion, but with the exception of some passing remarks Wooldridge made near the end it doesn't confront the handful of cogent arguments the left is making about success in meritocratic society. I take those arguments to be, first, that meritocracy is not inherently invalid but that it has succeeded so well that those who have benefited from it are now in a position to entrench themselves and their offspring through levering power and even genetics, thus subverting the aim of the meritocratic system; second, contra Hitchens, there is a pretty clear, if perhaps subliminal, and almost certainly wobbly, element of Christianity in the chosen method of "righting" things in a kind of handicapping exercise, namely statements of Jesus from Matt. 19 and 20 that "the first shall be last, and the last shall be first"; and third, the critique that if equality of opportunity were really on offer then you would expect comparable *proportions* of each social group to succeed, which has not been the case. Now, each of these critiques can and should be refuted (in some cases the analysis is wrong, in some cases the moral argument is wrong, and in some cases the problem is real but the solutions are wrong), but without sustained intellectual effort on the right the simple but wrong nostrums of the left will go unanswered. And if the battle really is lost, as HItchens has often proclaimed, why are we wasting out time talking about it?

14:06 Agreed, having lived it as a schoolboy in the early 1960s, it became baked in then, the cake being eaten now, and what a tummy ache there is.

Hitchens sounds like Putin to me. They'd probably get on very well together. I still haven't a clue as to what 'woke' means, though. Does anyone?

Great, but there's only one "Hitchens". Let's return to calling this fine gentleman "Peter Hitchens".

The French government very kindly put them on our phones as well 🤨 we should have a FOFF button

Merits and standards discriminate against blacks

Meritocracy is a flawed idea.

And the rise of mediocrity by design

Meritocracy is merely who merits the favor of the plutocrats by kissing their asses the best. This whole discussion is way out of line - but I do enjoy hearing Peter Hitchens' opinions about some things - for instance Ukraine. Not so much here, he is a defender of the status quo.

A throughly decent, interesting and knowledgeable well-moderated debate. (and normally I can't stand the woman....)

We have an Asian PM and now a Muslim in Scotland, before a woman, Truss, same with Scotland (Sturgon) we have an Asian London mayor, Black president before Trump, black people in both Labour and Tories, yet the media and society in the west, would make you'd believe we were all in the KKK.

Kate Andrews Is The Best

Thomas Sowell address all these issues and more. Culture, and within a particular group, there can be several subcultures, some healthy others destructive. youtube thomas sowell for interviews and discussion of his books, he written more than 3 dozen, all very well researched, empirically based, and very substantive.

I had to listen to This discussion 6 times before I could translate and comprehend Peter Hitchens contributions. When I realized he was a Columnist for his chosen niche to make his mark in this Career Field. Difficulty in linguistics and pronounced verbage really made me struggle to follow. Anyways, the area's where the American Experiment gives potential optimistic paths for Cutting Off and Getting the Locomotive back on the Rails without locking up the break's beyond a total rebuild. The wisdom contained within the Constitution by the Author's Will be Required to avoid an all out Destruction of Society as we know it on our side of the place pond. We have all the means, all the methods. I just Hope and Prey we have All The Will to Once Again Repeat the Process to Save America from Itself. Thank You So Much. Let's see if I can interpret the plan and put into action.

You can follow what Hitchens is mumbling in the rolling auto-transcript, assuming you can guess mis-transcriptions like “…half the problem with the supposed rice in this country…”

quick question - in the last hundred years, how many British prime ministers went to Eton? Was it the Left that got rid of meritocracy? Are these folks under the impression that white males were somehow reaching high positions based on merit? It's a strawman to claim the Left has abandoned meritocracy - as even Hitchens seems to recognise. But we know that our society has not allowed true meritocracy thanks to our history of misogyny and racism. Why do libertarians find it so hard to accept that there can be no actual meritocracy without an equalisation of the playing field. And there is also the question of representation. It seems to me that there is a certain sector of society that latches onto a 'defence' of meritocracy purely to attack the call for representation. They deny the structural bias in society and dare to claim that those who are at the top of this imbalanced society must have got there on merit - and not because of how much money, land and influence they have. They need to pretend meritocracy was real so they can claim the Left has killed it - it's the same old 'they're the real racists' schtick we hear from the Right so much these days. This whole 'death of meritocracy' is built on a couple of lies. Firstly, that there was ever a real meritocracy. Secondly, that diversity hires promote less capable people.

Interesting and parallels some of Alexander Dugin's thinking on this matter. Would be interested to see Hitchens and Dugin have a good chat now the world is where it is at.

Meritocracy hasnt even nearly been achieved in our country - what did the late duke of york say? The most reliable way to be rich in the UK is have a relative who was friends with William the Conqueror

Hierarchy of self-righteousness

So Adrian is quite right that "woke" (the term is extraordinarily objectionable to me) offers mistaken solutions to "very real problems". As a real leftist myself -- a conservative, in other words -- I couldn't be more in agreement with him. What a shame that these "very real problems" couldn't have been discussed, or even mentioned. That would be the realm of actual left-right debate. In a nutshell, "wokeness" as social conservatives (I'm trying to be nice) perceive it, has always existed within the value-free universe of classical liberalism, in theory at least. This world of atomized individuals, making rational decisions based solely on self interest, is exactly what Thatcher prescribed for us in post-modernity, and it has become the dominant (hidden) ideology everywhere in the developed world today. This system in which people are treated even more like things than before, is, as before, ruled by a crew of old, white, male, mostly Protestant reactionaries, through force of arms and according (as needed) to a self-serving edifice of law and government. In such a system, why shouldn't a lesbian woman of color be a nation's chief drone-strike coordinator? There never was any reason to exclude her, and every reason to bring her in -- the more solidly the better. In fact most of these "woke" people, if you question them, really do tend toward pre-liberal beliefs, or even worse. They are therefore in no sense leftists. They are products of the world we have made, driven mad perhaps by our true religion, consumerism, where anything can be a choice or preference, based on feelings that may not even be real. See them clamoring for war, clapping and shouting their Jingoism. Why not? It's just another preference, right? You've never had better subjects than these. What, then, are you complaining about? A faux religion to replace the old one, according to Peter, for the best of all intentions. According Adrian, an attempt to right something that really has gone wrong. What then really is the source of these misguided "woke" concerns? It's difficult to imagine that a thoughtful person on the right (as it once was perhaps) can't plainly see what has been going on, since the Industrial Revolution at least. The tragedy has been repeated endlessly, it tore the world into two and now has torn it into shreds. It was always horribly misguided to slather Christianity over a fundamentally anti-Christian way of life. If only capitalism had been amenable to some form of moral regulation (Smith's actual Invisible Hand). Disappointingly, to me at least, it is not. Not at scale, anyway. Let's face the awful truth, gentlemen! Anything to do with "woke" is probably more of a consequence than a cause of our wholesale abandonment of meritocracy. That happened when merit was reduced to profit -- profit by any means, with any consequence, meritorious or not -- profit at any cost. It's probable that many people have become idiots (in the original meaning) under these conditions, and not just the "woke".

What if the US government gave every American over 20 years old as many thousands per year and increasing $1,000 with every birthday? That way, someone who is 80 is guaranteed 80K per year when they need it most for healthcare, housing, etc. Perhaps eliminate those who make over a certain amount along with other restrictions. AND adults get birthday's back!! 🎂😃💸

How can you equate Woke with socialism? I must still find a Woker who can spell socialism let alone understand it!!

Politics isn’t about meritocracy or pursuing what is optimal for the country. It’s about about handing out favours for your friends and punishing your enemies. That is what power is. The right still thinks we are on this 19th century plateau that the people in politics have the same morals and values and that the countries interests and the moral and physical well-being of are the interests of those near the levers of power. Politics today isn’t an argument about the best way of achieving the same goal; politics today is a power struggle between chaos and order and the only two parties in power are left wing ones - both tending to more chaos. The Tories are a liberal party. Labour is a leftist party. If you are vaguely conservative you have no representation because what used to be the “right” gave so much ground in the last few decades the Overton window has shifted to such an extent that basic things like the definition of a woman; protecting children from predators; whether a foreign terrorist who’s murdered people and joined an organisation that is at war with this countries interests should be allowed back into the country; all these things have become difficult complex conundrums to consider. The world has indeed gone mad and you can see this by how progressively more depressed Peter Hitchens gets. But I don’t see any one of these pundits actually thinking solutions…

Peter Hitchens is the Poundland version of his sadly deceased better brother.

I’m not sure that identitarianism should be identified as a virtue system. Isn’t virtue typically associated with moral virtue, which ties in with meritocracy. The merit of right action? Maybe it’s an American/English language thing.

Shocking how different Peter is from his far more astute late brother Christopher.

Meritocracy is a construct of the Patriarchy.

awww the old man in the suspenders is up too late. time for bed, let the adults speak. sorry you are not paying attention to anything the conservatives have been doing except the ones that are doing nothing.

good segment... enjoyed mediator and both experts