Reflections on elite America.

Michael Gerson makes some of the same points about Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination that I earlier made. But Gerson more skillfully links Sotomayor’s thinking to the American meritocracy she represents:

In elite academic settings [Obama’s University of Chicago, Sotomayor’s Princeton--picture], it is commonly asserted that impartiality is not only a myth, but also a fraud perpetuated by the privileged. Since all legal standards, in this view, are subjective and culturally determined, the defenders of objectivity are merely disguising their exercise of power. And so the scales of justice -- really the scales of power -- need to be weighted by judges to favor the "weak" and the "powerless."

Sotomayor's decision in the case of Ricci v. DeStefano is disturbing because it seems to affirm this judicial philosophy. . . Because [the New Haven, Conn., firefighters] were not part of a group deemed "powerless," they were rendered powerless as individuals. Empathy turns out to be selective empathy—not for human beings, but for social groups. Just imagine the frustration and anger of standing before a federal judge who is predisposed against your claims for racial reasons of any sort.

The danger of first making all ideas relative, and second, molding the relative mush into a progressive weapon with which to beat up mindless reactionaries, is one I spotted in a discussion of the late Ivy League philosopher Richard Rorty.