16 best philosophy and ideas books 2021 | Culture – The Times

Whether it’s been Covid healthcare, the rise of AI and social media or the trans debate, we’ve all become philosophers in recent years. These choices cover all of these contemporary issues — and ask whether our incessant arguing is doing us any good…

The failure of meritocracy is one of the big underlying stories of the moment. The past few years have seen a remarkable intellectual assault on the idea, most notably by Daniel Markovits in The Meritocracy Trap and Michael Sandel in The Tyranny of Merit. In The Aristocracy of Talent, the Economist writer Adrian Wooldridge defends the meritocratic ideal. The book offers a sweeping account of the history of meritocracy, from the elaborate exams required to join the Chinese civil service