In Sunday's NY Times Magazine Kirn writes,

The reason that most thinking Americans consent to our modern procedures for advancement (and the reason some seek to correct their "cultural biases," in the words of Sotomayor, with policies like affirmative action) is that we esteem the ideal on which they're based, namely that of equal opportunity. [...] From the first time I raised my hand in kindergarten, eager to prove that I'd memorized my alphabet, to the day I sat down with three sharpened No. 2 pencils to demonstrate my mastery of analogies on the SAT, I held it as self-evident that being created equal was just Step 1 in the process of proving myself somewhat superior. I eagerly gave myself over to this program, because I believed that its principles were just and that any benefits it conferred on me would be deemed legitimate by all, and especially the students I'd surpassed.

Here he handily encapsulates the prevailing middle-class liberal attitude toward meritocracy — the secretly but deeply held idea that some people are always better than others, and what's important is finding a "fair" way of determining who's the best. As Kirn points out, the SAT certainly isn't it — the test would have ranked him above Sotomayor, even though she graduated from Princeton with the highest honors while he spent his time there practicing "shoddy, pretentious dodges."

The "cultural biases" Sotomayor mentions are well-documented. Black students, for instance, have historically performed worse on the SAT than white students, perhaps due to entrenched negative stereotypes about black achievement. A disturbing graphic related to this gap went up yesterday at Sociological Images (Gawker found it last year). The graph purports to show which books "make you dumb," by correlating favorite books listed by university students on Facebook with the average SAT scores of their universities. At the high end of the graph — books that purportedly make you smart — are Lolita, A Hundred Years of Solitude, and Crime and Punishment. At the low end are the Bible, Fahrenheit 451 (reading books about burning books make you dumber?) — and The Color Purple, True to the Game, Flyy Girl, The Coldest Winter Ever, and Their Eyes Were Watching God, all by black writers. The graph's methods are totally unscientific, and the readers of the books aren't differentiated by race, but "Books That Make You Dumb" does offer a crude graphical representation of a possible bias in the SAT: people who like books by black writers, whether these books are classics like The Color Purple or more contemporary "urban fiction," seem to do less well on the test.

This supports the notion that the SATs don't really test one's "aptitude" (which Kirn defines as "some quotient of promise and raw mental agility thought to be crucial to academic success and, by extension, success in general"), but rather one's comfort level with a certain dominant (read: white) culture. One solution to this is affirmative action, or, as Kirn states more broadly, periodicially "amending" our "systems that seek to rank human beings according to "merit.'" But maybe the problem is that we have such systems at all. Obviously not everyone should be a judge or a firefighter, and we need some way of making sure people are good at their jobs before we give them power over others' life and liberty. But do we really need a way of determining beforehand who will be good at the job of being a college student? Does our current admissions system, in which the best schools try to pick the best students, before most of them have even taken a college class, really make sense? What would happen if everyone got the same college education?

Of course, educational inequalities start long before college. My brother and I both graduated from the Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the most problem-plagued in the country, but we both got IQ tested at an early age (I was five) so that we could attend well-regarded "magnet" schools. I loved the schools I went to, and I've always assumed that I escaped a lot of nerd-shaming by being in classes with other nerds. But I also (and I'm far from alone in this) suspect that the schools I went to perpetuated existing class and race divisions in LA, and that kids in general might be better off if magnets didn't exist.

Segregating students by ability or by aptitude, at any level, not only presumes that it's possible to perform the segregation fairly, but that there is a reason to do it. Some people argue that the reason is to challenge smart students who might otherwise get bored and not achieve their potential, and this argument has a certain amount of value. But another argument, less often openly articulated but perhaps even more broadly believed, says that good education is a scarce resource, and that we should allocate it to "good" students — because they may make better use of it, but also because they may in some way deserve it more, as Kirn once believed he did. No one deserves better education than anyone else, though, and our methods for determining who will use their education the best are deeply flawed. Isn't it time not only to question how we're testing kids for "merit," but why we're testing them for this at all?

Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Aptitude [NYT]
"Dumb" Vs. "Smart" Books [Sociological Images]

Earlier: These Books Will Make You Dumb [Gawker]

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Merits

1. Dresses for breakfast Ha! I don't even dress for work. I'm in my pajamas right now. Fail.
2. Has meals on time Breakfast consisted of tunafish on crackers consumed with coffee at 11:30. Lunch will be sometime later. I'm having dinner with friends tonight, so I will be eating that one on time. Fail.
3. Can hold an interesting conversation Yeah, ok, I don't fail here. At least that's what I'm told.
4. Can play a musical instrument Violin and a little piano. Dammit, that's two points.
5. Personally puts children to bed Don't have any! The one time I dogsat, it was more of a matter of accepting that he wasn't going to get out of my bed. Fail.
6. Neat housekeeper - tidy and clean Epic fail. I vaccuumed last when my parents came to visit. In October. My shower curtain was so nasty my mom got me a new one for Christmas. I'm planning on hanging it in October when she comes to visit.
7. Good sense of humour, jolly and gay Well, I do have a good sense of humor, but I wouldn't call it "jolly and gay." Sarcastic and/or uncouth sure. I'll give myself a half point.
8. Never goes to bed angry, always makes up first (extra 5pts) If I never went to bed angry, I'd never go to bed. Since it doesn't ask if I sleep angry, I'm failing myself again.
9. Asks husband's opinions regarding important decisions and purchases If it's my money? Ha. Fail
10. Good hostess even to unexpected guests Aaaand, here my mother comes out. I found out last night that I am playing hostess tonight to a friend. Although I didn't vaccuum, I did find myself de-cluttering my entire place, washing dishes and, um, dusting after work last night. Pass.
11. Reacts with pleasure and delight to marital congress (extra 10pts) I do indeed enjoy sex, though not with married men.
12. Lets husband sleep late on Sunday and holidays Since the implication is "instead of making him do work," I'll give myself a half point since he would only be sleeping as late as me, and I sleep late.

Total merits: 14. Gah!

Demerits

1. Slow in coming to bed - delays until husband is almost asleep Unless we're having sex, I tend to be really uncomfortable with my restless legs syndrome and thus prefer to wait until the dude is asleep to fall asleep myself.
2. Doesn't like children (minus 5pts) I assume I'd like my own, but it's a rare kid that I'd offer to babysit unless I owed the parents a favor.
3. Fails to sew on buttons or darn socks Sadly, I have been known to do mending for my friends. I have a bag from my friend Molly right now.
4. Wears soiled or ragged dresses and aprons round the house I am currently wearing an old tank top and yoga pants, but the only apron I own comes from Jelly Belly and is indeed pretty stained.
5. Often late for appointments (minus 5 pts) I like to call it "on Megan time."
6. Is a backseat driver Goddamn my mother, but I do this too.
7. Seams in hose often crooked I've decided that this can also be interpreted as "bra straps often showing" and, yes, they are and, no, I don't care. Everyone knows I'm wearing one anyway.
8. Goes to bed with curlers in her hair or too much face cream Or, say, with a ponytail and zit cream?
9. Puts her cold feet on her husband at night to warm them And hands and occasionally ass. Actually, going on a low carb diet for a while strangely eliminated this issue, but I did it all the time before.
10. Wears red nail polish My nails are too short to bother, but my toes are purple-y black, so I think I get at least a demerit here.
11. Flirts with other men (minus 5pts) Yeah, I do this all the time. Me and R. Kelly.
12. Is suspicious and jealous (minus 5pts) I work really, really, really hard not to be this because, again, I know my mom is and it can be really unattractive. I'm gonna say I succeed and not deduct any points.

Total demerits: 22

So, what did we learn? On a scale of 0-25 of how good a housewife I am, I scored a -8. Dodai's was a -6, Maria's a -4 and Sadie's a zero (not that way, she's hot!). Moe, Tracie and Jessica rolled their collective eyes at our competition to be the least wifely Jezebel, but I don't know if that says anything other than they're too busy to care, which is probably the biggest sign of a bad housewife anyway.

How Modern Is Your Marriage? [The Mirror]