Mediocracy (rule of mediocrity)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

With the term mediocracy developed by sociological elite research , derived from the Latin mediocris "mediocre" and the Greek κρατειν ( transcr . Kratein ) "rule", social scientists describe a hierarchical situation in which rather mediocre talented people hold the crucial points of a society and theirs Use power to prevent highly talented competitors from advancing. The term is particularly important in studies of the ruling class in politics and economics .  

Concept history

An alleged predominance of the mediocre in western society has already been criticized by the Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn . Since the beginning of the 21st century, the term has been taken up again by various authors. The Swiss creativity researcher Gottlieb Guntern used it to describe a creativity-inhibiting social environment in the area of corporate management . The German-British economist Fabian Tassano criticized the equalizing culture of postmodern society under the same slogan . The political scientists Andrea Mattozzi and Antonio Merlo used it for studies on the recruitment and (declining) quality of parliamentarians .

The term mediocracy is controversial as it can also be used as a fighting term in political disputes. In certain situations there may even be an overlap with the concept of mediocracy as media domination . The term mediocracy is therefore used particularly frequently as a catchphrase to describe the political situation in Italy, sometimes consciously accepting the ambivalent meaning in order to denounce both the incompetent political caste of the country and the media dictatorship of the long-time Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in one breath : " I call this new type of power mediocracy . What both media domination and domination of mediocrity can mean. "

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sergio Benvenuto, Brains in a Tank , in: Lettre International, No. 89, 2010. [1]

literature

  • Gottlieb Guntern: Mask dance of the mediocracy. Creative leadership versus mediocrity . Orell Füssli, Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-280-02648-2 .
  • Michael Hartmann : The myth of the performance elite . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main (inter alia) 2002, ISBN 3-593-37151-0 .
  • Albrecht Müller: Machtwahn: How a mediocre leadership elite destroys us . Droemer, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-426-27386-9 .
  • Fabian Tassano, Mediocracy: Inversions and Deceptions in an Egalitarian Culture , Oxford Forum 2006, ISBN 3-89669-213-5 .

Web links

See also