If only literature, or anything in the world, can be judged by its merit rather than the ethnicity, culture and politics behind it. Yet, I don't think that world exists. Had we judged everything solely by its merit, there would definitely be biases, precisely because of the ethnicity, culture and politics. I fear a purely merit-based system would perpetuate the status quo.

I suppose in the Western literature, there are more works of merit by White than minority authors, simply because of history. In a purely merit-based system, the chance that a minority author is exposed to a student will be, statistically speaking, less than a White author. Although one can argue that merit in literature transcends an author's skin color, I protest that anything an author incorporates into his/her work derives from his/her upbringing, which unfortunately still has a lot to do with skin color. As a result, a minority student might not be as inspired by the merit of a White author as that of a minority author. Thus, will he/she be discouraged? Will he/she not pursue writing? And eventually, will that perpetuate the statistics of academically acclaimed White versus minority authors?

Another thing coming to my mind is the fight of Asian American community in California to strike down some version of the affirmative action in college admission. They argue that college admission should be merit-based. If the school lists requirements on SAT, social work, sports activity, etc., then students should be admitted based on a ranking of all these standards, regardless of ethnicity or cultural background. This is essentially a call for a purely merit-based admission system. Sounds fair? Well, if it is executed, the majority of the student body in the top Universities in California will be, unsurprisingly, Asians.

Is a purely merit-based admission system fair to all, or good for the well-being of the country in the long run? I think the same question can be thrown towards many other fields, including literature.