On Merit

Many have pointed out that there are certain words which seem to by-pass the higher, more reasoning centres of the brain and seem to go straight for those areas which exist beneath the filters of dissection and analysis. There are many biasing tendencies which we humans have and we are often cautioned in childhood to be wary of them, as others will try to use them to their advantage on a fairly frequent basis as we get older.

The words frequently given as examples of 'power words' are things like "freedom" and "justice". Everyone is broadly in favour of freedom and justice but nobody seems to be able to articulate precisely what those words actually mean. lm wrote a comment recently (holed, hence gone) in which he quite rightly pointed out that Rand, Marx, Mill, Locke and Thatcher all hold / held freedom as being equally sacred; that their disagreement as to the constitution of freedom is the cause of any collision and inconsistency between their viewpoints.

Tautologically: "Justice" means to you whatever it means to you. Ditto for me. When the politician who professes an undying belief in "justice" shows his or her face, unless we are careful we read into the word whatever its meaning signifies for us individually. But it needn't mean anything of the kind to the utterer, or even any other. Is there a politician who doesn't believe in freedom and justice? That would be a novelty.

These words have become ciphers; boxes which need to be ticked because everyone else is ticking them. They are like "the irrelevant feature"; the functionality that nobody will use and no one is asking for but which must be included lest you give competitors a stick with which to beat you around the head. But you know this already, so why go through it yet again?

There is another political use of language which has become common currency in certain circles within the last eighteen months or so. "Dog-whistling", or dog whistle politics is the idea that you frame and phrase an issue in such a way that you communicate appealing messages to those listeners wishing to hear them but which sound fairly innocuous to those who don't. The term dog-whistling is said to have been imported from Australia and the often-heard example is that of the Conservative strategy on immigration at the time of the 2005 election. I've also seen accusations of faith-oriented dog-whistling aimed at President Bush.

The interesting thing about dog-whistling is that it attempts to filter the delivery of a message according to the listener's existing predilections. It's a highly targeted marketing strategy and represents a step-up in the sophistication with which politics is being overtly practised.

These kinds of intentional ambiguity are not really new, of course; comedians and power-brokers have relied on them for years. You can see parallels in the cautionary advice to unskilled poker players ("If you look around the table and can't figure out who the mug is; it's you") and the guerrilla comedy tactics used by contrarians such as Chris Morris ("Are you a genius?", "Ermm, I'd say that I will become a genius", "And maybe, just maybe, you were born with a few more genes than the rest of us", "Maybe"). Some people understood exactly what Morris, a zoology graduate, called Babylon Zoo's Jas Mann, and some (including Mr. Mann) did not.

The difference between these types of self-limiting revelation and the dog-whistling-style market strategies is that the comedian hopes as many people understand the implication as possible — having the targets themselves appreciate the true meaning is rarely a genuine problem — whereas the strategist hopes that only those targeted by the whistle hear it. In fact, it's slightly more subtle still in that it can be regarded as an issue of hoping the recipient perceives whistles where there may not be any intended. It is here that these marketing techniques overlap to some extent with the deployment of the "power words" mentioned earlier. As a "pusher" of some kind, you simply want the listener to invest as much of himself or herself into the text as is feasible, without the text becoming too saddled by any kind of specificity in the process.

Which brings us to meritocracy.

Much has been written about meritocracy, both in favour and against. I'm less concerned with the basic premise, however, than I am with the concept that the entire edifice is constructed on top of a 'power word'. What is merit? What the hell is merit?

Merit depends almost entirely upon the perceiver to invest it with significance, and perhaps with an arbitrary lock to which it is the key. In certain circles, the love and possession of wealth and stature may be regarded as merit (entry into a business organisation etc.), in certain others the "class" or lineage of a person may confer merit. The politician wishes for the listener to comprehend the word as meaning "to each according to their ability". But ability to what, exactly? Work? Achieve? Love? ... Pay?

It only struck me recently that "meritocracy" had much in common with dog-whistling and power words. It's a particularly insidious example, though. Unlike 'justice' or 'freedom' (which simply hold a mirror up to the perceiver's desires and emotions) and dog-whistling (phrases which mean something to one person but not to another) 'meritocracy' speaks of different things to different types of people, but in a more structured and organised way, such that it says different things to different groups of people and leaves few ignorant of a potential message.

To the poor, it says that 'your background is irrelevant'; "In our system, you will succeed based purely upon your application and aptitude"; no discrimination etc. To the rich, it sounds as if their inherent merit is being recognised and ratified; they must have merit, after all, they're at the top of the pile, as their offspring will likely be. To the so-called "middle class", it acts as a pat on the back; "See? you've made it; the meritocracy in action; shouldn't all people enjoy such aspiration?".

Perhaps more nefariously, in a meritocracy a Government can always find some definition of merit which would justify any action they might care to take in a given instance.

I don't really know what these types of word are; they seem to warrant a new designation. They are not strictly power words as they are more than just hollow ciphers; they are not strictly dog-whistling as all hear the signal but distill distinct and self-flattering meanings from it. They need a name.

Convolution?
Multi-spectral words?
Robust words?
Liberal words?
Effective words?
Agile words?
Meritocratic words?

Perhaps simply "bullshit words"?

Pick one. Whichever you like the best.

Mountain of the Week #1

Yesterday, I challenged you to identify this mountain [range] (unfortunately, it already has a name and objects to being called 'Geoffrey'):

The range is the Cordillera Huayhuash; a sub-range within the Peruvian Andes. It is approximately here [zoomed-in satellite view roughly matching image] [Local Map].

The highest mountain in the range is Yerupaja (6635 m). Yerupaja is a huge blade of a mountain with two summits, a precarious arrete peak and numerous infamous faces. I've never seen a bad picture of Yerupaja and I love the name (South American mountains often have awesome names). Also in the range are Jirishanca and Siula (made infamous by 'Touching the Void' and also having a notorious West Face). See what I mean about the names?

The closest guesses were Greener's (Huascarán, Peru) and TurboThy's (Aconcagua). Huascarán is the only Peruvian mountain taller than Yerupaja and is only about 150km (93 miles) away to the North-by-West.

There was a slight piece of misdirection involved as, by all accounts (well, my geologist contact anyway), the circular arrangement of the highly elevated points is not apparently caused by the existence of a volcanic caldera or an impact crater (when coloured differently it can be hard even to see), but purely by a confluence of rock types, glaciation and rain erosion. Googling 'volcano' would not have helped.