The Miami-Heat-ization of America

Tonight I played in a soccer game in which our team got our asses kicked.  This has been happening more and more lately.  I've gotten my ass kicked in soccer more times in the past two years than my first 28 years playing combined.  Part of me thinks I'm getting old, but part me also knows the Miami-Heat-ization of America is to blame.  I'll explain.

The league is an intermediate men's 7 v 7 league.  My team is on the border of being intermediate and advanced and we've gone back and forth between leagues.  One of the teams dropped out, so the organizer recruited a replacement team which was basically an All-Star team from my 11 v. 11 league.  These guys are mostly D1 and D2 players and some of them are really, really good.  And this has been the trend in my soccer league lately:  the best teams often merge with each other or recruit guys back and forth.  All Star teams play in other leagues together against better competition and those guys come back and want to play together.   Meanwhile, our team is how I think men's teams should be -- a bunch of dudes who like each other and like to play sports together.  Most guys played in college, but not all.  Mostly D3.  We try to marginally improve ourselves, but we never kick dedicated guys off the team.

And now we can't compete.  Our league has no parity.  How can it?  One year, the third best team fell apart and half their guys went to play on the best team and the other half went to the second best team.  At the time, we were in the middle of the pack and now we have fallen way - almost hopelessly - behind.  I keep thinking our team is on the brink of falling apart.  And the strange thing is - we're actually not that bad for a men's league team.  Today was weird.  Picture those first two awesome teams now combining into an All Star team of only 7 guys.  That's who were were playing.  It would be as if the Golden State Warriors were about to play the Spurs in the playoffs except that the Spurs merged with OKC Thunder.  Does that sound competitive?  Does that sound fun?

What is happening?

A couple of things:  overemphasis on winning.  The magnet effect of better players coming together.  But more broadly speaking, it is the ascension of meritocratic values in place of the values by the old WASP establishment.  The old WASPS had problems -- they were elitist, sexist, racist -- if not explicitly, they at least presided over institutions which were.  But there were other values, too.  Being a gentleman had meaning, honor, pride, patriotism, charity, a sense of justice, etc.  It was not a mistake that the WASP establishment eventually opened the doors to women and minorities over time.  Granted, it didn't happen all at once, but it did happen and without much of a fight.  (the fight came mostly from reactionary forces).

The meritocracy has different values:  achievement, intelligence, speed, superiority, competitiveness (at least to get in, but not once you're in).  Some of these elements are great and make for exceptional people.  But there are downsides as well:  selfishness, arrogance, entitlement, political-correctness, a lack of compassion.  Basically, we've swapped FDR for Tracey Flick.

I'm personally skeptical of the superiority of the meritocracy.  It's been taken as a given since I was young this system was better and more fair.  But more fair for who?  Only the most talented and gifted in society.  The Luddites might in some ways turn out to be correct 400 years later -- that technology will enable the super-talented to render the masses useless.  There simply might not be any jobs for the majority - or a vast minority - to do in the future.  Further, the meritocratic elite tend to cluster into the best colleges and jobs and industries and then mate together, breeding child super-achievers.  All of these developments, superficially seem to be fair and awesome for the talented and the promise is that the talented will develop all these things that are better for society as a whole.  I am skeptical about this as well.  The WASP establishment created the Constitution, fought the Civil War, and made American the most powerful and richest country on earth.  The meritocracy created Facebook (the biggest pyramid scheme in history) and Google (an online yellow pages with email).  Granted, they haven't had as much time, but still.  I am not convinced the meritocratic elite make society better as a whole and suspect overvalues things that people in the meritocracy happen to be good at like Standardized Tests and following rules.

Anyhow, that was a strange long rant.