Your comment reminds me of a story I heard on NPR a while back, about an effort to reclaim the word "jihad". Basically, jihad is a concept of struggling or striving for something worthwhile but most Americans only hear the word coming from the mouths of horrible people.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/268598-struggle-reclaim-word-jihad...

I think the word meritocracy is in a similar situation. It's an interesting and useful concept, but the word tends to get thrown around by people you probably don't want to get associated with or confused with, so if you want to be heard and understood maybe try a different word.