The book suggests that the time and place you are born have more to do with your success than how hard you work. Reading it makes bootstraps people seem like even bigger assholes for saying shit like this to the rest of us.

...who shakes up his students by reminding that their individual circumstances played a tremendous role in getting them into Harvard.

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/arts/television/26sandel.html?pagewanted=all[/url]

In class, affirmative action arouses the strongest feelings, Mr. Sandel said, because students, who have worked very hard to reach Harvard, believe their own merit is being rewarded. They are disquieted, he said, by the philosopher John Rawls’s idea that many of their advantages have nothing to do with merit: American citizenship, fortunate family circumstances, a society that values what they are good at, whether it is telling jokes or having a great jump shot.

He tells the class that many psychologists think that birth order makes a lot of difference in one’s work ethic and degree of striving, and then asks: “How many here are first in birth order?” There are gasps and laughter. About 80 percent in the auditorium raise their hands. “Is it your doing that you are first in birth order?,” he continues.

That moment, Mr. Sandel said, is often “a turning point” in getting students to question their own deeply held assumptions.

The dark side of American flexibility and openness and can-do spirit is the naive, simplistic, and/or judgmental belief that hard work overcomes all. It's possible some people think that way to salve their consciences or deal with an often cruel and arbitrary world.

“Outliers” is far more political. It is almost a manifesto. “We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that 13-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur,” he writes at the end. “But that’s the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one 13-year-old unlimited access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today?”

After a decade — and, really, a generation — in which this country has done fairly little to build up the institutions that can foster success, Gladwell is urging us to rethink. Once again, his timing may prove to be pretty good.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/books/review/Leonhardt-t.html?_r=1

it has been improperly perverted into its contrapositive: "if you didn't achieve everything, you didn't work hard." Of course, the reason for the perversion is that it provides a convenient rhetorical excuse for telling the 99% to fuck off, and not lift a finger to solve any macro-economic problems.

It also makes it really easy to demagogue. If you try to point out that this saying doesn't really constitute a reason for throwing the 99% under the bus, it's very easy to make lazy arguments like "What? you don't believe in hard work?" or "Why do you resent my success?"

It's going to be hard to deconstruct this framing, since we baked it into the American Mythology(tm), but deconstruct it we must.

Republicans usually only care about the 1%, many of whom never worked a day in their lives and had their wealth handed to him.. such as the Waltons. Those of us who DO work hard get thrown under the bus and ridiculed.

That, meaning, if he/she can be lucky enough to work hard and get success amid horrid conditions where 99% of people wouldn't be lucky enough to get through it, then so could you (if you are lucky enough.) It mocks and legitimizes the inhumanity and harsh treatment done to people "because if they can work hard and endure and turn lemons into lemonade, so can you." Society can't be kind if only 1% of people are successful and LUCKY enough to get out of harsh conditions while the 99% toil in the inhumane treatment of society. Society should help and protect ALL.

Despite what people think, success is not just hard work, but luck, because success is often many things coming together (including being at the right place at the right time, having the right talent, finding the right people, getting the right help, having the right advice, etc...), not just hard work.

and they have no one but themselves to blame for the aftermath. Of course they don't want to face what they did to our economy and our unions.

spent much of my childhood under his administration.. little did I know he was destroying the country my generation would grow up in, and make it much harder for us to succeed.

it is kind of related to their claim, that the rich get wealthy because of how hard working they are. I bet most of those CEOs who get tens of millions in salary don't ever work as hard as a nurse who is on their feet 16 hours a day working like a dog helping patients.

If you have nothing, you have not got much of a chance.

It's like when I lost my 44 year long career in 2008 and my family said "why don't you go back to school?"
At 62? Are they insane? I'd be on medicare when I graduated. Who would hire me?
They are for the most part repubics and nobody offered to mention where I might get the funds for said re-education.

Everyone over 50 has a very hard time getting a new job these days. It makes the Ryan "plan" all the more ridiculous.
Maybe the ACA ("obamacare&quot will help fix some of that, but basically, I really don't see the workers of this country making many breakout career moves.

I'm glad to hear you still have a job. Sorry to hear that you are stuck with low pay.

If that's so, being on Medicare might help. You can say to a prospective employer that you don't need the health insurance.

This might be the biggest good thing about Obamacare.

These are the kind of people who never change their mind until "it happens to them" - and sometimes even then that isn't enough! lol

nt

To the Single Mom: "Its your fault you got a baby, your paying the price for having sex / being promiscuous (and the father doesn't have any responsibility for raising the child)"

To the PTSD Vet: "You just weren't tough enough, toughen up!"

To the recent college grad: "It's your fault that you didn't choose your major well (and didn't predict the future that a massive financial crisis and outsourcing would take away your chance at having that job), and it was your choice to get the student loan!"

For all the Republicans who love blaming the victim: Life is unpredictable, and noone can always successfully predict what would happen from their decisions.

High-school dropout to graduating from law school in the same class with the FLOTUS. Bombed out at every high-level job I ever had as an attorney. Why? Well, I was dx'd Asperger's around eight years ago. Can't read people, can't understand or play office politics and always put people off in some subconscious way. At least that's what my best therapist - the one that dx'd me in the first place - told me.

Unemployed for more than four years between 1/1/06 and today. Lost my car and my house. Work a dead-end job doing legal research for a subsistence wage. I watched people with a fraction of my talent who were socially slick or had family connections zoomed up the ladder to riches and success.

IMHOs the Repukes can fornicate themselves with an iron stick for a century or so.

And they will say: "You having aspergers is a sign that God hasn't chosen you for salvation and the riches of many people (even if they are corrupt) are a sign that they have been chosen by God for salvation" according to protestant theology. Utterly moronic thinking but the reality of the thinking of cruel Republicans.

and that you are just too shy and too lazy to get a decent job. Of course if they had to walk a mile in your shoes they might feel differently.

I dislike it when anyone says it, singers, actors, athletes. Especially people who have family connections in a biz or field.

GW Bush is certainly the poster child for that sort of nonsense.

...which includes being in a movie with a good script, director, etc... and had to fit the role right, athletes had to have physical advantages / sports talent, find the right coach (and have the money to pay for them), have to live in the right place, etc....

You don't get successful on your own, you have to have the right ingredients and support around you to succeed. It's not just hard work.

for example, many millions of people can sing, many other variables come into play other than hard work.

hell, even people who go through the challenge of higher education are not assured of anything.

Well things aren't the same any more, due to their choices.

If you work hard you CAN achieve anything possible. It doesn't mean that you WILL however. Real life is full of earnest losers or getters-by.

But in all honesty I see the basic point misrepresented here too. People always focus on paid work, telling us that underpaid job X is physically more demanding than overpaid job Y. But we need to realize that working hard does not start with a paycheck. How many people could have had better academic qualifications had they worked harder in school? I could - and I'm a multiple-degreed professional already. How many could have avoided behavior that harmed their future prospects had they worked harder to avoid various temptations? Me again, and I'm pretty comfortable financially as it is. Was every manual worker an academically lazy hedonistic wastrel? Of course not, but neither was every CEO handed their job due to nepotism. Some got into the requisite management track job because of that pre-employment hard work.

I do know however that your chances of achieving socioeconomic success are much greater if you worked hard at school, went on through all the levels of education necessary to achieve a successful career, and put in the effort to defer gratification. Guaranteed? Obviously not. Exceptions? Millions. Correlation though? Significant. Just look at income/unemployment rate tables by education level, by criminal record or absence thereof, even by age at first having children. For those who want to maximize income (and that's by no means the only valid measure of success of course), the best path is no mystery at all and takes them through quite a bit of yes, hard work. Hard work that won't guarantee diddly, but will make your chances much greater.

I ask, with little hope, that people realize anecdotes do not refute generalizations. I hope I don't need to cite data, but can if asked.

or are born rich. It makes it a lot easier, I reckon. "Born Rich" is a pretty good documentary, one of the old money kids explains what he thinks about the typical conventional wisdom such as that republican meme in the OP.

But it's the one open to far more people than the others.

ANECDOTE ALERT

I was born into the middle lower class. My parents had consistent work, but of a menial low paid type.

I never moved in "better" circles.

Frankly I could have worked a damn sight harder than I did, in various ways.

The first two probably stopped me from being, say, an ambassador, sure. The latter however is why I am still a middling "success" socioeconomically despite being lucky enough to have a fairly capable intellect and acumen. It's not a complaint. I'm content and comfortable and well within the upper quintile in income, brushing the upper decile. No regrets there. But no self-exculpatory bullshit either - had I not gone after booze and women in my teens I would have likely made Cambridge as I was "supposed" to, not found myself quitting school at 17 and going back to a second/third tier university in my mid twenties. Had I not tossed around in dead end jobs because I fancied myself too iconoclastic to follow the normal path I'd have made the serious management track in my 20s not mid 30s, and so progressed further along it.

Could everybody do so well as I might have? Nope. Just like with all the commitment and hard work in the world I would never have made the NBA or the Metropolitan Opera - even the D League or Des Moines Opera. Heck not everybody could even achieve what I have done when it comes to that - I've seen plenty try hard at the corporate thing and flame out. But working harder earlier will always increase your chances of achieving your goals and give you more flexibility later. It's never a bad thing, and works more than anything else does.

it's the circle of life

They seem to believe that if everything turned out o.k. for them and because THEY don't need TANF, Food Stamps, Medicaid and can shell out huge amounts of money for their own medical care when they and/or their loved ones get deathly ill and have to go to the hospital and that they will have way more than enough to comfortably retire on even if they decide NOT to take Social Security and/or Medicare- everybody should be able to do the same no matter a person's individual circumstances are like.

needed to succeed in job he got success in, worked in the right place at the right time, paid tons of money for motivational seminars, found a mentor, and had an incredible passion for what he does. He makes well into the 6 figures in income.

I happened to find the right niche in a fast growing market, signing up with the right agency and doing something that I like and having strong talent in it. Plus, I have a business degree and am an independent and forward thinker.

How many people are as fortunate as this? I won't deny the role that hard work has, but the saying should not just be about working hard in general, in that hard work only works if the base and support system itself is strong, which could be said to be built through hard work (in terms of research, education, finding the right connections, etc...) And even then, talent and doing something that you like is luck as well, because not all people have talent in something that they can make a lot of money out of.

I want a unicorn that farts rainbows.
:ridicule:

Yes, they claim people who are wealthy are wealthy because "they earned it," meaning, "they worked hard and they were smarter than everybody else."
Such people, of course, are supposed to make decisions for how everybody else lives.

All of this could only happen because "it was part of God's plan."
(God meaning their vision of God.)

God intends for smart, hardworking people like them to be successful.
In other words, these people are DIVINELY ENTITLED.

If you are poor, it's because God doesn't believe you are worthy enough.

Every time I make the mistake of thinking I might be comfortable, something happens that quickly knocks me back down again.

I am currently bracing for the big knock down where my job could be gone in a couple of months. So much for the last 28 years of working hard.

The only people who can use that lie are those who were born into wealth.

Same goes for that fucking bootstraps bullshit.

Since there are quite a good number of poor people - middle and lower class people; as well as some ne'er-do-wells in the rePIGlican party - even though they hardly acknowledge such. These same poor and disadvantaged people join the charade of propagating this disdained rePIGlican meme - does that mean that these poor rePIGlicans are lazy and do not work hard? Or does it mean that they just started their "working hard" phase of their lives that will usher in the bounties of hard work?

"pulling facile assumptions out of my ass is a great way to communicate."