> It seems to me high time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. Other nations suffer terribly from the Mandarin disease.
Does anyone know what this use of "Mandarin" is supposed to suggest? It sounds like a sort of Orientalist fear of exotic diseases, but seems like it could refer to something more specific. Just curious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination
The comparison the article is making is that the selection process is entirely orthagonal to the job, and the hoops that needed to be jumped through precluded any actual study of the things that mattered.
This was regarded at the time of the article as a really bad idea both within and outside China, and ended two years later after 1,700 years of use.
The relevant definitions are
1. (in the Chinese Empire) a member of any of the nine ranks of public officials, each distinguished by a particular kind of button worn on the cap.
6. an influential or powerful government official or bureaucrat.
It connotes a kind of bureaucratic meritocracy.
Judging by the etymology presented here, meaning officials, "mandarin chinese" being then "chinese as spoken by officials", I would take it as simply a rewording of his condemnation of the tendency for admiration of title in place of admiration of the title holder, which he otherwise goes on about.
A disease of officiality.
I don't know if an overtone suggesting a cultural judgement over some perceived chinese tendency for admiration of title is intended or not.