Read the full page that you pulled that definition from.
www.britannica.com/topic/nepotism
“The opposite of nepotism, and of favouritism in general, is meritocracy, in which positions and rewards are granted to people based on their abilities.”
The entire point of nepotism is not that the relation “helped” but that it is the reason given without merit or without regard to the person’s abilities.
Lauchs@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I think you’re slightly misunderstanding.
Yes, the opposite of nepotism is reward based entirely on merit. But nepotism doesn’t mean that someone is entirely without merit. Consider the first example they give, legacy admissions. Nepotism can get you further than a better applicant but you still had to have some degree of merit to get into the school. Or the example of Murdoch’s daughter, who was overpaid for a tv channel but still had to have one etc.
dpkonofa@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m not misunderstanding. You dishonestly left out and ignored the last part of that example - “primarily on the basis of their family connections.” The entire point is that you don’t have to get the good grades and do the volunteering that everyone else does. You gain entry just by virtue of the family connections aka “legacy admissions”. And the Murdoch example is also disingenuous because her father owned the network the channel was on.
Lauchs@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Here’s the entire text of that example:
“In education, nepotism occurs when the children or relatives of wealthy or influential people are admitted to elite schools (known as “legacy admissions”). **It can also occur **when they receive better grades and more opportunities primarily on the basis of their family connections.”
Again, you are misunderstanding. Yes, nepotism can be made without any merit at all but that’s a rare case. More often they have merit but not as much as their peers. Look into legacy admissions, it doesn’t mean you can barely read and write and still go to Harvard, more that your grades don’t have to be at the same level.
It’s a classic “all” sort of error and totally understandable. Nepotism is advancing/promoting etc someone because of their connections rather than their merit but while someone can be advanced without any merit that’s not a requisite condition for nepotism. Does that make more sense?
dpkonofa@lemmy.world 9 months ago
No, it doesn’t. If two people are equally qualified (meaning that their level of qualification is irrelevant) and one person gets the job because of who their family is, that’s nepotism. If their family connection isn’t taken into account or is unknown, it’s not nepotism. Unless Jack Quaid got selected because of his family connection, it’s not nepotism even if his opportunities were greater in number because of his wealth or his exposure to those opportunities was greater because his family already worked in the industry. That’s privilege but it’s not nepotism unless the result is directly and primarily on the basis of those connections.