The brightest and the best

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One of the developing fault lines in the Trump world is over the question of selective issue of visas for certain individuals regarded as being exceptional – the usual term used is ‘the brightest and the best’. The billionaires funding Trump, including the official First Buddy, Elon Musk, want to continue issuing such visas, whilst the MAGA purists want a complete halt to immigration and see every such visa as denying a job to an existing US citizen. At the moment, Trump seems to be siding with the billionaires (‘billionaire supports billionaires’ would hardly be a surprising headline), although history shows that he eventually falls out with everyone, and sooner rather than later in the case of anyone who might distract attention from himself.

There’s a similar, albeit not exactly parallel, debate here in the UK. By and large, businesses want more visas whilst politicians believe that the public wants fewer. Talk about attracting ‘the brightest and the best’ is the compromise adopted by those politicians who want to try and appeal to both sides of that debate, although they generally end up satisfying neither. But whether in the US or the UK that term, ‘brightest and best’, could do with more detailed scrutiny than it’s getting. Why are some people considered ‘brighter and better’ than others?

In the case of Musk and Trump, their position is clear and public – they genuinely believe that ability is first and foremost genetically determined. It’s a core belief which underpins what they believe is their inherent right to rule over the rest of us. Trump even seems to believe that his uncle’s career as a professor somehow shows that Trump himself is a genius. A stable one, of course. That belief in genetic pre-determination is less obvious in the UK, but it still underpins the argument. It’s a convenient – and ultimately lazy – belief, which saves its adherents from having to explain why one of the richest countries in the world, with one of the historically most well-regarded systems of higher education, is incapable of producing the same people, and needs, in effect, to outsource their production to others. Reluctant as I am to agree with the MAGA purists on anything, they may have a point here.

I’m not arguing that the people concerned should not be allowed to migrate to the UK (or the US, for that matter); on the contrary, at the level of principle, I believe that people should be able to choose freely where to pursue their lives and careers. But there’s something dishonest about an advanced country like the UK with its 67 million inhabitants (and even more so the US with its 335 million people) claiming that it is unable to train and educate people to the highest level and needs to attract them from elsewhere instead – unless they truly believe that nature (genetics) plays the key role and that nurture (environment, education etc.) is always secondary. The evidence to support such a categoric belief is noticeable primarily by its absence.