Isn’t most elitism manufactured and not meritocratic?

Everyone claims to be meritocratic, until the elite people who were actually really good are all competing with each other. At that point it’s almost better to not compete and make up this aura of superiority to maintain everyone’s positions. Why argue when you can get all these mid level decent people on board furthering your missions?

Even if legacy admissions were removed most people aren’t getting into Harvard. It will always be __intended__ for people who actually understand how to think and deduce shit. Admit a few legacy people and get more money for the endowment or some influence here and there.

Most people in the world just want to be told what to do. They freeze when the task is open ended and requires innovation. Very few people take genuine initiative to do anything novel. Fostering an elite atmosphere where the top people can further the mission while allowing arbitrary numbers of decent but not quite elite folks to come in secures that position. They put the rest to work.

I am probably wrong. But that’s how I’ve seen it play out irl.