alt Hacker NewsIt's obviously true that nobody achieves things in a vacuum, since we all have some level of "privilege" given to us by our economic circumstances, the level of education available to us, our luckier heritable traits, etc. But for every successful person, there are countless others born to a similar level of privilege who squandered it. The claim that everyone owes their successes to the group ignores this.
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Owing your success to the group does not imply that the success itself is a guarantee. Just that without the group, the odds are many many times worse.
I agree, but many will say that the ones who didn't squander it were simply lucky.
> for every successful person, there are countless others born to a similar level of privilege who squandered it.
Indeed.
> The claim that everyone owes their successes to the group ignores this.
This doesn't follow. Can you elaborate?
Disputing the notion of "self-made" is generally an attempt to deliberately misunderstand the point in order to derail the discussion, thus making discourse impossible.
No one who uses the term "self-made" literally believes that Howard Schultz never hired any employees at Starbucks, they mean to say that for someone who was born in the projects, he did very well for himself. Pointing out he hired employees adds no value to the discussion, so it's not why people point it out.
If you were to truly do a science of people would you not take into account all of the circumstances that person was in, in order to understand them?
You say: "One achieved it, but the other person in similar circumstances didn't achieve it"
Well how do their circumstances differ? Don't you think it's important how they differ? Actually, couldn't how they differ be the key?
Why, then, do you draw the line at an incomplete analysis? Maybe because it is convenient? Maybe because we'd rather not destroy our illusions of ourselves? Maybe its convenient not to understand others?
What is real in regards to ones self and others? There shouldn't be a loss of pride with understanding.
The degree to which an individual is responsible for his own success, and the degree to which fortune enables it, is as old as time. In ancient Greek philosophy (and poetry), a person's life is divided into soul, body, and fortune: one exerts control over one's soul and body, but not over one's fortune, the sum total of things external to him, such as his family and friends and money. Virtues reside in the soul, and external blessings like wealth and the support of others outside the body, and the ancient Greeks were clear in this distinction, of which both halves are necessary but insufficient to achieve great benefits for one's people. Hence the idea that happiness is the exercise of vital powers along lines of virtue within a life affording them scope: the "lines of virtue" are internal elements of character, but "a life affording them scope" is the external support necessary. A virtuous hermit living in poverty alone on an island and a ruinously depraved criminal in the midst of civilization, the one virtuous but lacking fortune and the other fortunate but lacking virtue, are equally ill-suited to achieving great benefits for mankind.