In Bork's chapter on "The Passion for Equality," he uses German sociologist Karl Mannheim's concept in 1940, that all societies throughout history, have applied 3 principles in selecting their 'elite class'--blood, property, and finally, achievement.
Mannheim said:
"Aristocratic societies chose elites primarily on the blood principle; bourgeois society on the property principle; modern democracy has stressed the achievement principle...'The real threat of contemporary mass society [is]...that it has recently shown the tendency to renounce the principle of achievement as a factor in the struggle of certain groups for power, and has suddenly established blood and other criteria as the major factors to the far-reaching exclusion of the achievement principle."
Bork iterates:
"If we recognize reward according to race, ethnicity, and sex as aspects or analogues of the blood principle, it is obvious how far the achievement principle has been discarded in America today in the name of equality."
Freedom has always been synonymous with American values, but our obsession for complete equality is diminishing all American's options, and their freedom and ambition to achieve success in their lives because if they don't belong to some group of victims, the odds are stacked against them. When a candidate wins a presidency purely for the "historic aspect" of his race, we have totally thrown out any achievement principle. But I guess it makes all of his supporters feel nice inside, so ignore all his unfair, un-American policies and incompetent appointees right?
Happy Independence Day!
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