Monica Bryant Visual Art

Interesting take on merit.

The problem with determining merit is that human beings are not machines and they have unconscious biases. Auditions for professional orchestras are now done behind a screen so the judges cannot see and can only hear the performers. Before they did that, orchestras were primarily white men. Once the screens were used, many more women and minorities were chosen.

This wasn’t because the judges were outright racists or sexists. They wouldn’t have told you that they only wanted white men in their orchestras. However, they unconsciously thought of white men as better and more capable than anyone else and rated the performances accordingly. Human beings can’t rate merit in a completely unbiased way because they are imperfect and have biases.