We are an extraordinary group of young people. We are! We all passed the 2-4% acceptance rate that New York University Abu Dhabi holds its standard at. We graduated high school best of our classes, and we moved away from our home countries to receive a great education, to achieve great things. We are quite extraordinary!

Yet, this achievement is possible only because of the factors that make up today’s society: meritocracy, high social mobility, and individualism. Reading Tyranny of the Merit by Michael J. Sandel gave me a new perspective on the aspirations of our society, the challenges we face as a global community, and an essentially personal, conscious change that would make the world a much better place. Here at NYU Abu Dhabi, where we aspire to be great contributors to our fields, I believe the question of how we conceptualize succeeding is an important one.

Michael J. Sandel is a political philosopher and Harvard University professor, known to some of you perhaps for “Justice” — the first free Harvard course available on YouTube. In his work, he criticizes the meritocracy we live in today, arguing that the many social challenges we are facing are partially due to this social structure.

Essentially, Sandel argues that the divide we are seeing all around the world, leading to an extreme increase in populism and radical politics, is due to our twisted perception of what it truly means to be successful. In a meritocratic world, the statement I began this essay with is the most normal, respectable, and even admirable thing to say. “Yes! Good job, indeed, you should be proud. Give yourself a pat on the shoulder,” one might respond. Being extraordinary and working hard at an exclusive university to make up the top percentage of the world, both skill- and income-wise, is an admirable thing to do. The storyline of struggling, making it due to talent and discipline, and achieving greatness is strongly idolized in our world.

We aspire to become the best of the best, we will be company owners, top consultants, revolutionary researchers, desired lawyers… There is nothing wrong with these aspirations, in fact, wanting to win is the most inherently human thing. However, as Michael J. Sandel notes, it is concerning how we, as a generation and society, feel about triumph and loss.

According to Sandel (and now, me), the tales of “Making it on your own” threaten our civilization in a far more critical way than we may notice. The fact is, we never do it all on our own. How many of us have mothers or fathers at home who worked hard to afford our education? How many teachers believed in us before we believed in ourselves? How many friends, family members, and mentors, pushed at us crucial moments when we were so close to giving up?

And we are only university students.

By the time we “make it”, there is a whole world to whom we owe gratitude. This gratitude that we owe and that we (not you and me, specifically, but we as humans today) voice much too seldom is to Sandel the key to a healthier society. By this, I do not mean to accuse you of not being grateful, but precisely, I want to question the ideals we have set for ourselves and the way we look at the success that we aim for.

The “Tyranny of the Merit” outlines in much more detail than I can afford in this text the formation of the meritocracy we live in today. It is quite a new sensation that we feel we can do everything we put our minds to if we work hard enough and are willing to sacrifice something (the American Dream). Meritocracy translates to “rule of talent”, and under it grows the notion that where we are in the social spectrum is our deserving place. Please take a moment to capture the severity of this. During times of aristocracy, those who were peasants were miserable being peasants, and those who were royals were happy to be royals, but both the elites and the lowest class knew that nothing they had done had brought them there, and nothing they would do would bring them somewhere else. As the concept of social mobility emerged, so did the notion of entitlement. Nowadays, both the elites and the poor feel they deserve their place in society, being raised with the notion of meritocracy. This causes a rift in local, national, and global communities and the community itself gets lost through it. Without idolizing the period of peasants and landowners, Sandel argues to critically examine the individualist notions of fulfillment that we work towards in this new world we have built. When we “make it”, as researchers, lawyers, engineers, consultants, politicians, writers, and actors, how will we feel about this victory?

Will we remain humble and conscious of all the effort it cost that was not ours to get us here? The well-wishes, systematic favors, care, and costs that brought us to a place where we can be admired and prideful?

As a generalized type, we will not, and Sandel argues that this is what is wrong with meritocracy. The righteousness that one feels for being above others, and in contrast, the accountability one feels for remaining below, causes extreme hate between these social classes, which, according to Sandel, is a reason for the strong anger at the elites, conspiracy theories, and social rifts that seem impossible to bridge. Through the mindset of meritocracy, the common good has been left to rot.

Interestingly, Sandel wrote this book in a much more secular environment than the one in which many of us grew up and where we are all studying today. Therefore, his essential argument - that we should strive for greatness while at the same time reshaping the ways we feel about those victories and learning to appreciate the role luck and community effort played in them - has a different significance to us as a university community.

The role of religion in social contexts is ocean-deep and the notion that I am suggesting, which is that the presence of individualism, the absence of religion in social contexts, and the rise of populism and other big issues, are all interrelated is a highly debated one in sociology and politics. What Sandel argues is that successful people (which I am hoping to count most of us as) must remain humble, and I am involving religion in this.

“Alhamdulillah,” and “Thank God,” are expressions that trace the days of many believers. Even if this has become a more subconscious habit, it remains a gesture towards something bigger than us and thereby offers the autonomy that liberalization has long fought for. However, it is important to note that I am not advocating for a certain religion here, nor suggesting religiousness, in general, is important in order to be a good person in Sandel’s terms. Rather what I am trying to get across is that it is good, and important, that we accredit the factors external to ourselves and our control to the success we will one day reach.

Essentially, this is an attempt to revive collectivism. Sandel calls it civic sentiment, and it revolves around the idea that we achieve things as a community, rather than as individuals. It further includes the dignity of work, whether it is with a university degree or without, since all work contributes to the wellbeing of society (political science students: the common good!) and shall therefore be appreciated.

So, yes, we are extraordinary people. But more importantly, we are part of an amazing community, here, at home, and wherever the future may take us, and the grand accomplishments that await us are as much a product of our hard work and dedication as of the efforts of a community that involves people much less fortunate than us and perhaps much more hard working. So, if any of us ever has to give a speech for receiving an award or something of that sort, remember on that day and every day the community that brought us where we are, and the community that we should essentially give back to, nourish and unite.