WASPs vs. Meritcrats

David Brooks on why our elites stink.

The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations. They cruelly ostracized people who did not live up to their codes of gentlemanly conduct and scrupulosity. They were insular and struggled with intimacy, but they did believe in restraint, reticence and service. 

Today’s elite is more talented and open but lacks a self-conscious leadership code. The language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous). Wall Street firms, for example, now hire on the basis of youth and brains, not experience and character. Most of their problems can be traced to this. 

If you read the e-mails from the Libor scandal you get the same sensation you get from reading the e-mails in so many recent scandals: these people are brats; they have no sense that they are guardians for an institution the world depends on; they have no consciousness of their larger social role.

I used to articulate this by saying our elites needed more of a sense of shame to self-regulate themselves.  But look, I'm part of my generation and interact with people who will become the elite (a bit young, yet), and yeah, I don't have a lot of confidence in people doing the right thing time and time again.  I do have confidence in lots of them "getting ahead."