- Joined
- Feb 6, 2010
- Messages
- 3,779
- Reaction score
- 1,079
- Location
- California
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
This is something I've been turning over for a while.
We seem to have a set up in the US where failure, of any kind for any reason, is not tolerated. We respect success and we scorn failure.
For example, if you have a job that you are subsequently fired from, there are people who will say you were fired because you were lazy or didnt follow directions. If you protest and say you DID work hard and follow directions, you'll be accused of making excuses or trying to avoid responsibility. If you admit that yes you were lazy and didnt follow directions and that you have a problem with that, others will accuse you of being self-defeatist and that's why you were fired or of trying to solicit pity from others.
No matter what, the fact that you did not succeed in keeping a job will come down to "you failed" and there is little or nothing you can do at that point. You will be reminded of your failure constantly and regardless of the circumstances, you will be blamed.
Similarly, we rarely ever truly question success. If someone is successful in life, we take that as a mark of achievement without really stopping to examine why. Did they get there honestly? Is it TRULY success or are they just acting? Did they get lucky? Did they have help?
We seem to want to put ALL of the credit or punishment onto a person's shoulders and completely ignore any externalities and we never let you forget your failures and we never let others forget your successes.
If we talk to someone who is very successful and we ask them how they became so lucky, if they respond that they were simply lucky, we may dismiss that as being overly-modest. Similarly, if we talk to someone who was very poor and they attribute their situation to bad luck, we'd think they were trying to absolve responsibility and similarly dismiss it. We seem determined to push aside any explanation other than personal fault for failure and attribute success more to deserving it and working hard for it, even if neither is the case.
The dichotomy here is...interesting.
We seem to have a set up in the US where failure, of any kind for any reason, is not tolerated. We respect success and we scorn failure.
For example, if you have a job that you are subsequently fired from, there are people who will say you were fired because you were lazy or didnt follow directions. If you protest and say you DID work hard and follow directions, you'll be accused of making excuses or trying to avoid responsibility. If you admit that yes you were lazy and didnt follow directions and that you have a problem with that, others will accuse you of being self-defeatist and that's why you were fired or of trying to solicit pity from others.
No matter what, the fact that you did not succeed in keeping a job will come down to "you failed" and there is little or nothing you can do at that point. You will be reminded of your failure constantly and regardless of the circumstances, you will be blamed.
Similarly, we rarely ever truly question success. If someone is successful in life, we take that as a mark of achievement without really stopping to examine why. Did they get there honestly? Is it TRULY success or are they just acting? Did they get lucky? Did they have help?
We seem to want to put ALL of the credit or punishment onto a person's shoulders and completely ignore any externalities and we never let you forget your failures and we never let others forget your successes.
If we talk to someone who is very successful and we ask them how they became so lucky, if they respond that they were simply lucky, we may dismiss that as being overly-modest. Similarly, if we talk to someone who was very poor and they attribute their situation to bad luck, we'd think they were trying to absolve responsibility and similarly dismiss it. We seem determined to push aside any explanation other than personal fault for failure and attribute success more to deserving it and working hard for it, even if neither is the case.
The dichotomy here is...interesting.
Last edited:
