Need for new paradigms on meritocracy, pluralistic ways that resist polarizing tendencies: Renowned philosopher Prof Michael Sandel tells Times Now

The interview will be aired on Times Now at 2.30pm on Sunday on Times Now

New Delhi, 24th February 2024: World-renowned political philosopher Prof Michael Sandel has said that there is a need to shift the political discourse away from arming people from meritocratic competition, to being more inclusive and more attentive to inequalities of social recognition and esteem. Outlining how this “tyranny of merit” or the widening divide between winners and losers over the last four decades has, in general, impacted and “poisoned” politics, Prof Sandel stressed that the solution lies in politically putting greater emphasis on the dignity of work and an alternative way of thinking about success.

In an exclusive interview here today to Madhavdas Gopalakrishnan, Executive Editor, Times Now under the “Bennett University Thought Leaders Series”, Prof Sandel also posited the possibility of pluralistic ways of allowing communities to give expression to their history, traditions and identities that resist polarizing tendencies. “I find the civilizational turn of public discourse in India fascinating and wonder whether a purely secular political project can sustain itself without finding a way to tap into the rooted traditions of a culture and of a civilization”, he added, even as he flagged the dangers including communal conflicts.

Dwelling on the debate of hypernationalism versus Liberals, the philosopher known with the global profile of a “rock star” also pointed out that “fundamentalists and hyper nationalists rush in to fill a void where liberals fear to tread, where there is such a thoroughly emptied public space that it creates a backlash,” pointing out that this was why he felt it was necessary to find ways to bring into public discourse, “in a healthy, pluralistic way, expressions of identities and traditions and moral and religious convictions… because otherwise, the backlash will come with a kind of insistence that can lead to intolerance and that can lead to the majority imposing on the minority.”

Expanding on how the current version of market-driven meritocracy has produced a kind of hubris among the winners, Prof Sandel pointed out that “In the American context, the sense among many working people that elites look down on them, has fueled the backlash against elites that we saw with the election of Donald Trump in 2016”. He added that this “politics of grievance speaks to people’s sense, especially working people’s sense, that credentialed meritocratic elites are looking down on them –and that’s why I think it’s important to diagnose the dark side of meritocracy, its corrosive effect on solidarity in the common good, along with the very important advantages of meritocracy.”

He also weighed in on the individual rights vs greater good debate saying: “I’ve argued that we can’t detach our reasoning about justice and rights from the traditions, the conceptions of the good life that all of us care about, even though we may disagree one community to the next. …Rather than set aside and ignore the various moral and religious convictions that citizens bring to public life, I think we should engage with them directly”, he said and added that it was imperative to create conditions for reasoned public discourse across differences.

Prof Sandel also advocated economic class based affirmative action in education as the best way forward to bring communities that have been historically disadvantaged, particularly in the field of education. Responding to a question on the controversy surrounding legislation on economic class-based reservation here in India he said that universities should take into account economic background as well as underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities but hoped that “we can give greater attention to disadvantages that flow from class inequalities.”