[National Review] Up From Cognitive Meritocracy

As Covid awoke us to the vital role of care and manual workers, it also exposed the one-sidedness of equating “merit” with cognitive ability. A new bestseller advocates a radical rebalancing of dignity and status.

Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century. By David Goodhart. Allen Lane; 368 pages; £20.00

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Never call a dead metaphor too soon. As a scholarly term of art, body politic went mainstream with modern political theory at a time when civic equality trumped entrenched power imbalances. Yet its older, figurative meaning may be coming alive anew, as recent trends in what 1950s sociologist Daniel Bell called the “techno-economic order” have helped turn status ever more hereditary — again.

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