Standards Be Damned

Most people wouldn’t bother applying for a job if they’re not qualified. After all, it’s common sense to presume that the organization is looking for someone with a proven track record. There are necessary requirements and criteria for employment and if you lack the appropriate experience, then you understand that you probably won’t be invited for an interview… Unless you’re looking for a job with the federal government and happen to know the president. Now it seems that being underqualified is actually a selling point. The most recent example, Ms. Harriet Miers, was described as “the best person I could find,” by President Bush. Although cronyism has always been around, something is different now. The New Republic explains:

The Bush era has taken government out of the hands of the hyper-qualified and given it back to the common man. This new breed may not have what the credentialists sneeringly call “relevant experience.” Their alma maters may not always be “accredited.” But they have something the intellectual snobs of yore never had: loyalty. If not loyalty to country, then at least loyalty to party and to the guy who got them the job. And their loyalty has been rewarded: Even if they fail, they know they can move up the chain until they find a job they can succeed in or until a major American city is destroyed, whichever comes first.

But we’re not just removing the requisite standards for our elected and appointed leaders. Take the evolution vs. intelligent design debate. Unlike creationists of an earlier era, the ID camp seeks scientific credibility. As TNR writer Noam Scheiber has pointed out, “the only way to claim that something empirically false is scientifically true is to question science’s capacity for sorting out truth from falsehood..” In other words, if you can’t win on accepted standards and absolute truths, change how you’re measured. It’s a strangely postmodern, relativistic approach. Remove the standards. Then anything is possible.

October 5th, 2005