The problem with Meritocracy

My mother has always supported the idea of having a meritocracy to establish order. And that beyond any borders of race or class it is purely based on merit that individuals should be qualified to have their position in the world. At first i am tempted to agree. i find that in many cases the people who do certain jobs are terribly unqualified. But i have come to realize meritocracy leads to stagnation and homogenous thinking about problems. That simply by qualifying for the tests and getting the degrees may make you in theory smart enough but the problem is that this leads to consistent individuals taking up the positions of the past with perpetual rejuvination but leaves out any new thought or thinking about problems. that would be to say that if we could devise a test to fin the men who were most mentally like michelangelo within a certain limit and have them all be artists. the problem is that we wouldn't get very far from the sistine chapel in terms of art. What is necessary for one generation is not necessarily what qualifies the next. So the idea of meritocracy is preposterous.

Thus it is better to encourage diverse multi disciplined thought... creativity and imagination.