This.

I've never worked at a place that could reasonably be broad-brushed as a meritocracy. Every company employs humans, and humans bring their humanness to their jobs.

Some places are closer to a real meritocracy than others, but ones that think they are tend to be further from it than ones that don't.

Not a meritocracy, no, but when you're dealing with an instrumented system you're better able to prove whether an idea is good or bad. Compared to e.g. a teacher, an engineer can prove the impact of a piece of work much faster. Engineers in practical fields also have the advantage of decades of safety culture and strong institutions that will protect them if they report a problem that will literally kill people.

I agree that an engineer is still trapped by social concerns, but not that they're as trapped as anyone else, because anyone who can easily demonstrate that they're right, even if they aren't listened to and even if they can only demonstrate it in some specific areas, has an advantage over someone who can't.

Furthermore: the MORE they ignore that reality, the more trapped they are.