Jesus’ Gospel message continues to focus on communion, from which one of the founders of institutional christianity unfortunately diverges – Paul of Tarsus. Paul infamously states in today’s second reading, “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife.” “As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.”
Men like Paul devalue others, for example, women, from being human to being subordinate, satisfying useful roles such as wife. For millennia men have criminalized women’s human advancement; in education, property ownership, positional authority, et cetera. At the same time, men have claimed male meritocracy. Focusing on the U.S., meritocracy is white men’s assertion that they merit position because they earned it from effort and not because they control a system of white male values legalizing their rights to advancement in education, property ownership, positional authority, et cetera, while denying it to others. Nothing proves the falsehood of white male meritocracy quite like Donald Trump. He and other MAGA men are thus fond of projection. They erroneously assert that it is not white men who do not merit their position but women, especially women of color, for example, Kamala Harris. They assert she and others like her should not hold nor advance in positional authority because they do not merit it as they have not earned it. MAGA is claiming women of color are advancing through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives (DEI), which, being non-male and non-white centric, must lack merit. Legal DEI attempts originated in long sought after equal employment and affirmative action laws finally passed in the 1960s. DEI trainings were aimed at helping workers, primarily white men, value women and minority co-workers and bosses. But some white men and white organizations refused to adopt that value. They told a willful untruth that affirmative action rewarded race and/or gender over merit. But lack of merit, an unearned affirmative action, was the premise of the old way, sometimes called the old boy network. As Michelle Obama said this past week at the Democratic National Convention, “most of us… will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.” The old false meritocracy network demanded discriminatory ‘wealth only’ politics, discriminatory ‘men only’ offices, and discriminatory ‘whites only’ sports teams, schools, and neighborhoods. The people’s affirmative action in DEI required hiring based on merit and not on discrimination. Discrimination persisted though against women, ethnic minorities, people disabled, LGBTQ, Muslim, et cetera. If they got hired, they rarely advanced though because the discriminatory old boy network persisted as the means of advancement. DEI trainers shifted towards educating people on the benefits, especially financial, of diversity for their business. That truth, plus business’ increasingly global model with global social media accounts at the millennia, meant some business owners started valuing DEI and its trainers. DEI, however, continues to be devalued by the old white boy network targeting it with willful untruths.
Members of the old white boy network maintain willful ignorance about meritocracy. It is evident in Robert Barron who recently addressed DEI and the Olympics. Barron is a white male bishop in Catholicism’s discriminatory ‘male only’ priesthood who cluelessly asserted we all enjoy “equality of opportunity.” He falsely asserted DEI demands “equity of outcome” meaning unfair advantage to the unmerited; DEI is “not only unjust but it militates against the very excellence we’re celebrating” in the Olympics. But Barron should know equity of outcome is not in opposition to equality nor is it discriminating against the best so that the worst advance. Equity simply means concern for the particular person and their needs, like their health needs. The old meritocracy ethic is intrinsically untruthful but also unhealthy. Men, across society, regardless of their particular needs, desires, or skills are influenced to strive for unequaled pinnacled excellence. It is part of the ethic of the Olympics, specifically that part which glorifies the Gold Medal but not too much else. Women athletes are starting to question the unhealthy ethic of meritocracy in favor of the benefit of balanced health: physical and mental. Bishop Barron’s own Catholicism understands equality refers to the law while equity refers to love – meaning considerations beyond law that transform us. It is the transformation Jesus witnessed when he attached no merit to being wealthy or white or male or a priest when he gathered people in communion.
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, keep me healthy and in communion.
Question: How does my striving for unequalled excellence erode my own health and the health of the common good?
August 25, 2024 John 6:60-69 Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time