Tales of Merit, Inequality and Hubris. Grigore Alexandrescu as a Critic of Meritocracy and the Enlightening Potential of the Fable in Populist Times
Tales of Merit, Inequality and Hubris. Grigore Alexandrescu as a Critic of Meritocracy and the Enlightening Potential of the Fable in Populist Times

Summary/Abstract: The present article opens with a brief remark on populism. And yet it is neither about populism nor about political events. It is simply about an important challenge that arises from populism – the need to bridge the gap between winners and losers in a meritocratic society. By using Michael Sandel’s critique of meritocratic pride (hubris) to interpret two representative fables of nineteenth‑century Romanian poet Grigore Alexandrescu (“The Ox and the Calf” and “The Dog and the Puppy”), I mainly seek to draw attention to Alexandrescu as a critic of meritocracy and to reassert the actuality of the fable, i.e. its utility in cultivating a strong sense of community from an early age, by drawing on German Enlightenment thinkers such as Johann Christoph Gottsched and Christian Wolff.

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