[BurningFrog]

I'm surprised to hear people think there is some conflict between being subjective and being meritocratic.

By that standard there is no meritocratic way choose the best musician, actor, chef.

And maybe that's how some people use the word. But to me it just means that you choose people based on their work, not on who they are or who they know.

Whether you evaluate the work subjectively or objectively is a whole separate matter to me.