I'm skeptical of Benno's claim that we should consider meritocracy "a dirty word" because "it's a lie". Certainly it is true that no community of practice achieves meritocracy, just as no polity achieves democracy — there are always some citizens with more influence than others, so it is always possible for the government to act against the interests and values of the majority of its population. Should we therefore consider democracy "a dirty word" because democracy "is a lie"? Perhaps it is better to consider it an ideal to which we aspire, without feigning to have achieved it.

Let's consider what alternative ideals are available in place of meritocracy for governing a community of intellectual practice.

We could strive for a democracy, in which the decisions are made by the majority — but the majority of whom? For this to meaningfully distinguish a community of intellectual practice from the surrounding community from which it arose, as a lotus blossom arises spotless from the swamp, a distinction must be made between voting members and outsiders. (Can you imagine a Linux User's Group where all the presentations are about Microsoft Windows, or a Python conference where all the talks are about Java?) But that is just a way of postponing the question of who the voters are.

We could strive for consensus, like the Quakers, in which any collective decision is postponed until every member agrees; but, like democracy, that demands gatekeeping that draws an ingroup/outgroup distinction, so it is not really an answer to the question of who governs, just how they govern.

We could strive for anarchy, in which all decisions are made individually, and there are thus no collective decisions to be made, whether by the meritorious or by anyone else. A variant of anarchy is "do-ocracy", where decisions are made by whoever shows up and makes the effort required to implement them.

We could strive for a gerontocracy, in which the oldest members — perhaps by length of membership rather than by physical age — make the collective decisions.

We could strive for a high-school clique, where the decisions are made by whoever is most popular.

We could strive for a plutocracy, where the decisions are made by whoever is wealthiest, or who donates the most.

Given these alternatives, it seems to me that when anarchy and consensus demand unacceptable tradeoffs, the least undesirable alternative is meritocracy. In meritocracy, the decisions are made by the best members of the group, according to some measure of merit that seems worthwhile to the group; in a community of intellectual practice, this usually amounts to some kind of knowledge and skill, seasoned with judgment and perhaps a guess about aptitude. If they are the wisest members, then they will make the best decisions. The greatest foolishness is to subject the wise to the government of the foolish. If some of the foolish and ignorant currently are so simply because they have not had the opportunity to learn, we can best remedy that by guiding them to learn from the wise, not by putting the foolish and ignorant in charge.

Of course, meritocracy as an ideal cannot be reached, only striven for; but it is a better ideal to strive for than a high-school clique, a gerontocracy, or a plutocracy.

Which of these are the campaigners against meritocracy hoping for?