StickWithANose

One of the sadder realities of contemporary American society is the culture of hero worship that fills-up countless hours of television programming. Despite the exhortations of public intellectuals [who are themselves the object of hero worship] decrying the un-American “liberalism” being propagated by the “celebrity culture” of Hollywood, the thimble-deep discourse that dominates much of our cultural production provides us with some of the best examples on how meritocratic ideology is re-produced.

This is a point that has more general ideological significance. It’s an article of faith in this country that rich people are rich primarily because they work harder than other people. This is the kind of belief that can and is maintained in the face of all evidence to the contrary, because people want to believe it — just as they want to believe that being the best golfer or shortstop in the world is primarily a matter of working harder at golf or baseball than everybody else.

Another parallel is that a lot of people believe that a high batting average and a high marginal tax bracket are both good proxies for moral election. This is one of those ideas that is sufficiently idiotic that it usually won’t be said in so many words — hardly anyone, after all, will actually say “I think the fact that Derek Jeter is a great baseball player indicates he’s a morally admirable person,” but anyone who has ever been stuck in a conversation with an Ayn Rand fan knows this line of thinking can be found well beyond the world of sports.