A Culture of Perfectionism
How neoliberal meritocracy is cultivating unrealistic expectations and perfectionism in the digital age…
Every major invention to date, from the steam engine to electricity to computers, was created with the intention to revolutionize our way of living. The internet (social media included) is no different. Technology is not inherently good or bad. How we use it is what makes it good or bad. Our access to information and communication channels is increasingly being capitalized by companies to sustain an attention economy. Being raised with meritocracy and having our attention exploited in the midst of a neoliberal world is changing the way we think, while also breeding an ugly byproduct in the younger generations: a culture of perfectionism.
The Neoliberal Revolution
Neoliberalism is an economic and social studies model that emerged in the 20th century industrialized world with roots in 19th century economic liberal principles and free-market capitalism. The neoliberal model elevates the market through market-oriented reform policies such as eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, lowering trade barriers and most importantly reducing the state influence through privatization and austerity.
The backbone of neoliberal governance is competition.
Neoliberalism creates a competitive environment where self-interested individuals, driven by competition and incentivized by privatization and limited state interference, can rise to the occasion and contribute to economic growth, technological innovation and profitability.
The Rise of Neoliberal Meritocracy
Over the past 60 years, neoliberalism has reshaped the cultural, political, and economic landscape. The most critical change, relevant to this article, was the encouragement of meritocracy that redefined the purpose of education.
Meritocracy is a political system where any person can attain the perfect life (with wealth, social status, comfort and all the other good things) through talent, effort and achievement. The system is based on performance which is measured through exams or demonstrated achievement.
What better way to promote competition in individuals than through a system that runs on high achievement?
And so, meritocracy gained popularity in the neoliberal world as it helped cultivate a competitive mindset in the young through the drive to achieve.
Pursuing good performance and high achievement can encourage an individual to better themselves and feel accomplished. But meritocracy doesn’t stop there.
Meritocracy ended up connecting educational and professional achievement, status, and wealth with innate personal value.
Education was always about gaining knowledge and skills. Neoliberal meritocracy added that education is meaningless if it can’t help you add economic value.
That doesn’t sound too good anymore does it?
Well, it isn’t. The expectations of schools, colleges and workplaces have become higher, thus placing a considerable amount of pressure on young adults to achieve more, compete more to meet these expectations if they are to ever have a chance of making it in the real world by incurring economic value.
The Grading System
Meritocracy was the concept.
The grading system is what helped materialize it.
The A-F grading system, the 4.0 scale and the 100 percent system became the globally accepted grading schemes around the 1940s. While initially, grading on the curve was seen as a way to minimize the subjective nature of grading, it in fact ended up increasing competition between students.
What a surprise.
Actually, it wasn’t. Schools with marking systems used to hide marks from students to discourage a competitive environment that could distract students from learning.
The grading system was made to streamline communication between academic institutions for the growing number of students. It failed to consider what actually mattered: improving student learning. The grade system motivates high achievement as it uses metrics and ranks, aiding meritocracy.
Grades had to be easy to understand by everyone across the world but learning is inherently complicated and messy. Standardization removes the focus from improving student learning.
Anyway, let’s get to what happens next.
An Increase in Unrealistic Expectations
In just 30 years, cohort data from United States shows an increase from 50% in 1976 to 80% in 2008, for students who are expected to get a college degree. And so between 1976 and 2000, the number of young people getting degrees doubled. The rise in expectations didn’t stop here though.
As the number of young people wanting to get degrees increased, so did the educational demands. Students have to go through excessive testing and stringent standardized tests to get into elite colleges that have created a competition out of admissions.
You’d think meeting these expectations would reap great benefits. In the last 20 years, the wage premium for an undergraduate degree has not changed much. This stagnation is a result of, you guessed it, a saturation of the graduate job market and that a lot of graduate students have taken jobs that do not require a degree.
So now, students not only have to get a college degree but also need to aim for postgraduate degrees if they want to be valuable, as is enforced by excessive requirements from workplaces.
As you can imagine, all this raises the bar of society’s expectations in terms of educational and professional achievements.
Parents too feel pressure as they not only have to survive in this current economic climate but also have to ensure their children achieve adequate qualifications to survive themselves. Parental behavior has changed in the recent decades as they encourage children to strive for perfection and adopt high expectations and may give harsh criticism if they fail to do so.
These are some expectations young people have to deal with in the educational, professional and domestic space.
Then came the rise of the digital age.
Perfectionism in the Digital Age
The internet has enabled countless businesses to flourish, connected the world, improved education and healthcare, aided in the development of new technologies, and given us access to unlimited information.
The internet enabled social media.
Social media was created to allow us to connect with people, share information and personal expression with the world.
But how are we using it?
Across social media platforms, we display our lives, mostly the good aspects though. We see others showing off their perfect lives online and we try to do the same even though their lives and our own might be far from so. It is our way of proving to the world that we are doing good and meeting expectations. My millennial generation, ages 24–39, have been easily lured by this social media culture. It comes from being raised with metrics in an educational atmosphere that instilled competitiveness in us along with the desire of the perfect self. The real cause of worry is the increasing exposure Gen Z and Gen Alpha are getting to this toxic culture in their early years that are critical for healthy mental development.
The effects of neoliberal meritocracy are seen in the way in which young people are constructing their sense of self and identity.
As users curate these perfect public images, an unhealthy environment is created especially for the young who are developing a tendency to make upward social comparisons. It makes them dissatisfied with who they are because they are constantly being exposed to other people’s perfect unrealistic self-representations within social media.
I myself have wasted time and effort sifting through countless pictures to find the perfect one to post. And I’m not the only one. Many of my friends put in a lot of effort to post the perfect thing as they fear criticism or simply seek self-validation. This may a misguided attempt to repair feelings of unworthiness through displays of unreal perfection or high achievement.
Unrealistic body representations are stirring and aggravating body image concerns along with social alienation.
According to Global Web Index, platforms like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram are occupying 2 out of every 5 min spent online. That’s quite a lot of time and it is predicted to increase.
Many leading technology companies are being accused of intentionally capitalizing on the addictive potential of the Internet to sustain an attention economy. They are doing so by studying, testing, and refining attention‐grabbing aspects of websites and applications to promote higher levels of engagement, without due concern for user well‐being. More time online means more exposure to self-portrayals favoring unrealistic goals.
Irrational ideals are systemically engrained within media, contemporary language patterns, social and civic institutions, encouraging behaviors associated with competition and the attainment of social standing in young people.
There is a fear of social rejection and criticism that is enforced by neoliberal meritocracy. At home, parents are striving for perfection themselves which further worsens the situation for the young as they are influenced by parental behavior.
Perfectionism is the strive for perfection, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations. Unrealistic achievement and goals are causing young people to develop perfectionism. While self-oriented perfectionism can encourage greater productivity, conscientiousness and career success, it can also cause stress, anxiety and depression if the goals are unrealistic and unattainable. Research shows that self-oriented perfectionism in college students and young people is positively associated with clinical depression, anorexia nervosa, and early death.
The reason we are seeing rising levels of perfectionism might be a coping mechanism being used as a tool to survive in the neoliberal world that favors competitive individualism.
What can we do?
At its core, meritocracy uses the reward system. If you achieve, then you are amazing and you may reap the rewards. If you fail to achieve, then you get nothing and are basically worthless. Poor achievement reflects inadequate personal abilities like skills, intelligence and efforts and being unworthy of success. But that simply isn’t true.
This is what tying achievement to personal value makes you think.
We need to sever this connection by promoting collectivism and striving for happiness instead of perfection.
We can create an inclusive culture at homes, schools and workplaces. Get people engaged in group activities that foster real connections. Combat social alienation with collectivism. Be there for each other. Showcase our failures along with our victories to break unrealistic perfect images. Practice self-compassion.
Normalize failure.
Normalize flaws.
Normalize imperfections.
Perfectionism isn’t a sustainable way of living. It can cause burnout and stand in the way of our happiness. Grades and achievements…they say nothing about who you are as a person, or your quality, or about your future. It’s just a point in time. It’ll pass. And then you can try again.
As for wealth and social standing, these things come and go. Health and happiness is where the focus should really be.
“Not meeting high standards all the time is okay. It isn’t the the end of the world. The end of the world is the end of the world.”
We can help create a healthier culture for future generations. Tech companies can be mindful of user well-being. Grading systems can be accompanied with individualized feedback to improve student learning. Companies can be realistic when setting job qualifications. Social media platforms can be used to create awareness and social inclusion.
A lot of “can bes” that we can definitely make “are beings”.
