‘Miracle’ and the Myth of Meritocracy

We should be concerned not with having “the best” people, but the “right” people.

By guest contributor TJ Martinell.

A common statement made by civic nationalists is that America should be a meritocracy, i.e., an entity in which the best people are rewarded with roles, positions, and titles. Additionally, they think that this is how we should decide who is permitted to immigrate to America and/or become citizens.

On the surface, this seems like a fair and sensible approach to take. One can only observe from the wildfire currently ravaging Southern California the cost of handing authority and jobs over to people purely for ideological purposes.

It was a similar problem Stalin faced during the initial part of Operation Barbarossa in World War II, when the German armies swept through Russia in part thanks to the subpar yet politically correct commanders whose mediocrity had spared them during the Great Purge of the 1930s.

However, meritocracy is not desirable for a nation to look at itself or how it treats its citizens. There are different ways of examining its flaws from a nationalist perspective, but one of the more effective demonstrations of its imperfections is the 2004 film Miracle, depicting the formation, training, and Olympic Games of the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team coached by Herb Brooks.

The fundamental issue with meritocracy is that it is about “the best” person for a role. But what does “the best” mean, and who gets to decide what it means?

On paper, All-Star teams should be “the best,” because each person is “the best” at his position based on his stats. From a superficial mathematical viewpoint, combining “the best” into one team should make them better than any other team.

But in Miracle, Brooks points out why this approach led to the U.S. All-Star Hockey Team of professional players being crushed by the Soviets:

All-star teams fail because they rely solely on the individuals’ talent. The Soviets win because they take that talent and use it inside a system that’s designed for the betterment of the team. My goal is to beat ’em at their own game.

In a later scene, amateur hockey players from around the country have come to Minnesota to try out for the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team. Coach Craig Patrick finds Brooks working in the announcer’s booth and is perplexed by the men he’s chosen:

Patrick: You’re missing some of the best players.

Brooks: I’m not looking for the best players, Craig. I’m looking for the right ones.

Brooks is looking at the picture holistically. He is not concerned with finding the right player for a position. He’s asking himself, “Is this the best player for the team I’m putting together?”

He later defends his choices to one of the U.S. Olympic officials, who insists he hasn’t spent enough time with the players to know which ones to choose:

Walter Bush: How do you know your team? Those guys have been out there for only a few hours!

Brooks: Every single one of those players was chosen for a specific reason. I’ve seen them, I’ve watched them, and I coached a lot of them, and the ones I haven’t, I’ve spoken with their coaches and scouts in the area. I know who I need to compete, and the team I’ve chosen is it.

Ironically, Brooks would later have his own way of thinking employed against him right before the Olympic Games begin. As the team is traveling to compete around the country, Brooks has brought on an amateur player who, potentially, might replace one of the men on the roster. However, after one game, several players confront Brooks about the prospect of one of their own removed:

Jack O’Callahan: We just want it to be fair, Herb.

Brooks: Don’t try to tell me what’s fair. He was right back there with us in Colorado.

Mike Eruzione: That was six months ago!

Brooks: And you don’t think he’s been playing for the last six months?

Eruzione: Not with us, he hasn’t!

Brooks: So?

Eruzione: So there’s a difference!

Brooks: Like hell there is! All I know is that that kid can flat out play!

O’Callahan: What, and we can’t?

Brooks: He’s got great vision on the ice…

Rob McClanahan: That’s not the point!

Brooks: I’ll tell ya what else he’s got. He’s got the attitude I want on and off the ice. So somebody here better tell me why I shouldn’t be giving him a hell of a look!

Mark Johnson: Because we’re a family!

Brooks: What?

Johnson: We’re a family.

Johnson’s retort finally convinces Brooks to concede and agree to send the amateur player home. But it gets to an even deeper point than what Brooks had previously argued.

The hockey team was a family, and the bonds between them were not something that could be measured through statistics, metrics, or “performance.” The level of trust and communication could only be experienced, not transferred or replicated by swapping someone else out with another who has better individual talent. That potential player Brooks considered might have been “better” than some of them, but as Eruzione noted, his performance was based on playing with others, not with them.

This is one of the most devastating blows to the notion of a meritocracy. “The best” person for a role may also be the wrong person for a role. The only way to determine whether someone is “right” for a role is the discretion of the person in charge, in this case Herb Brooks. Because he was allowed to act on his own judgment and knew when to defer to that of others with the same goal, the U.S. Hockey Team went on to achieve one of the greatest underdog sports victories in history.

What gets left out of the discussions about meritocracy is that it is not explicitly concerned with the final outcome of the group. Others wanted “the best” players for the U.S. Hockey Team on an individual level, whereas Brooks approached it from wanting to beat the Soviets. That difference in mindset led to his choosing someone who was less “qualified” compared to others.

While DEI and other ideologue-driven forms of discrimination in hiring for jobs of one kind or another is harmful and destructive, we should be equally distrustful of meritocracy because, as DEI hires the most “diverse” person, meritocracy ultimately depends on who gets to decide what “the best” means; selecting the “right” person under such a system is seen as discriminatory.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that the Founding Fathers didn’t take a meritocratic approach when it came to immigration and citizenship. During the first Congress, they passed the Naturalization Act (1790) permitting foreign white people to become citizens who were “of good character.” Their wealth and abilities were not their primary concern.

They were, as we should be, concerned not with having “the best” people, but the “right” people in the country. As others have pointed out, the purpose of a system is what it does, and the truest purpose of a hockey team is to win the game by scoring more points than the opponent. In Miracle, Brooks adheres to that true purpose, rather than the alternative purpose of finding “the best” players to play.

While Brooks’s highest priority was winning the gold medal, our priority when it comes to either jobs or citizenship is ensuring the preservation of the American nation and its culture, traditions, customs, values, and liberties.

A meritocracy will ensure that the opposite will occur everywhere it is applied.