Liberty and Justice for All

David Brooks

In "David Brooks's Critique of Meritocracy," I echoed a recent op-ed piece by David Brooks of The New York Times. In in "The Strange Failure of the Educated Elite," Mr. Brooks argued that America is suffering from, among other ills, a "misplaced idolization of diversity":

... diversity is a midpoint, not an endpoint. Just as a mind has to be opened so that it can close on something, an organization has to be diverse so that different perspectives can serve some end. Diversity for its own sake, without a common telos, is infinitely centrifugal, and leads to social fragmentation.

I admit that this thought is a bit on the arcane and esoteric side. I agree with it, but here is (please scroll down) the reaction of Elizabeth Mazzola of Metuchen, N.J.:

David Brooks’s explanation for “The Strange Failure of the Educated Elite” is right about everything except the value of diversity, which he argues is a midpoint, not an endpoint, in establishing a more fair social system. But diversity is the loftiest of goals: Being able to understand someone radically different — and appreciate what you cannot know for yourself — is what art, philosophy and literature all help us do, sharpening our sensitivity to what is outside our own narrow experience.

Building a government that recognizes this diversity, an economy that rewards it, a politics that honors it and a justice system that guarantees it are equally (and still not impossible) lofty goals.

Is Ms. Mazzola wrong? Not necessarily. Her idea of diversity as the establishment of a "more fair social system" is well taken. The problem with it, though, has to do with a key phrase taken from our Pledge of Allegiance: "liberty and justice for all." Ms. Mazzola has her eyes on the prize of the latter goal, justice for all.

Mr. Brooks is talking, however, about the need to "reconfigure" our common goal of liberty for all. Our current meritocracy represents a misapplication of the notion of liberty. The people with the most liberty today are the ones who, supposedly out of individual merit, have "earned" it.

But that way of implementing "liberty" has tended to fragment America. It has led, perversely, to the presidency of Donald Trump. The result has been less justice, not more.