Letters
Letters I seldom write editors concerning articles in their publications except by way of a response often, I fear, vitriolic in tone. It is such a pleasure to write and commend you and its...
...I understand that some magazines pay their writers 5 cents a word and maybe that’s what Mr...
...In such judgments there is cruelty, but they seem to me far kinder than the current “meritocratic” system...
...ERNEST ROSS1 Portage, Michigan The author replies: My objection is not to judgments about performance -d ra wing distinct ions between good and bad writing, for example-but to a “merit” system in which those judgments play too small a part...
...But I read pretty good and after reading Thomas Massey’s “The American Class System and How to End It”1 see again that you don’t like meritocracy...
...Massey’s suggested solution to the American class system impossible to implement except during periods of national emergency, such as war...
...DERRICK A. BELL, JR...
...But you seem to let people in your pages who don’t think good...
...As I say, I don’t write too good, but I know you will practice what you preach and let some of us poor writers into your magazine...
...Cambridge, Massachusetts Derrick A. Bell, Jr...
...In these competitive fields, it’s possible to tell a good job from a bad one...
...Maybe you do practice what you preach...
...By clinging to the myth of true competition, while giving advantages of birth and rearing such tremendous weight, the “meritocracy” gives us the worst of two kinds of cruelty...
...Imperfect and biased as their standards often are, such fields as sports, competitive small business, and, yes, writing come closer to measuring performance than does the general system of pay, status, and professional advancement in the United States...
...It is such a pleasure to write and commend you and its author, Mr...
...And then later he says that Performance is what counts and what we need is a true meritocracy in which all the really good people would be on the top and all thelazy and dumb people would be on the bottom...
...I always read The Washington Monthly from cover to cover and it’s pretty clear that you don’t like titles, or merit badges, as you call them, even though everyone of your stable of writers is called an “Editor...
...a worthy pedigree or a background full of promise will not long protect the person whose product costs too much, whose batting average is falling, who shows poor editorial judgment in putting out a magazine...
...Like Mr...
...At 5 cents a word, I figure you owe me $17.15 if you print this...
...I didn’t count this paragraph...
...To return to my sporting analogy, it is as if the crowd booed a batter for striking out, even though he never had a chance to come to the plate...
...This paragraph is free...
...is a professor at Harvard Law School...
...Good for us...
...At the same time, these fields more readily welcome a person who can perform, despite his spotty background or early failures, than does, say, the foreign service...
...Massey who tells us in the beginning what a bad world this would be if all the really good people would be on the top and all the lazy and dumb people would be on the bottom...
...Layers of well-insulated self-interests at the top, and a sense of defeatism and selfhate at the bottom will likely render Mr...
...Maybe one of us dumb guys got to be one of those many, many editors of The Washington Monthly...
...Or a good talker...
...I bet you do after all discriminate against people who don’t write good...
...Maybe you didn’t see this when you read the article...
...It’s just a business paragraph...
...And even though you say you don’t like meritocracy you don’t let any bad writing get into your magazine...
...That’s good because I hope you practice what you preach because I want you to print this letter even if it isn’t written too good...
...Thomas Massey, on the article in your February 1978 edition, “The American Class System and How to End It...
...But he has set forth in straightforward terms both the parameters and the seriousness of the problem...
...Massey was trying to do, pick up a nice piece of change with his long article by saying with his title an idea you like to hear even though he ends up rejecting it...
...I’m not a good writer...
...For that he deserves our thanks and the personal commitment of those of us who remain concerned about the injustice of class in a classless society...
Vol. 10 • May 1978 • No. 3
