THESIS: As a product of society’s “equal” meritocracy, we must find a scale for our actions by comparing our successes and failures to others, creating status anxiety, resulting in our idea of success being relative to our peer’s success. We base our own self worth and value too much on the outside influences and how others view us. We can no longer look in the mirror and see ourselves as we are, we unconsciously compare ourselves to what is “perfect” is based on ideals from our friends, family, and the media. We are constantly being presented with the image of perfection and the steps and rules needed to achieve it. Success has become relative. When we initially do something that we believe is a success and the public deems it unspectacular, we no longer feel pride and instead feel that we are adequate. America’s social system is loosely based on a meritocracy, with its central idea being that if everyone is presented with the same opportunities to succeed, than everything is equal and fair. If we cannot succeed, it is only our own incompetence that we can …show more content…
The denotation and connotation of “average” are contradictory. Meritocracy would seem to help, assuring us that we all have our place based off of our own strengths and weaknesses, but now we compare everything trying to find a scale from others we interact with. In How To Land Your Kid in Therapy by Lori Gottlieb, Lizzie is introduced to the reader as a successful writer with a picture-perfect life. She appears to have everything and more, but she doesn’t feel as happy as she says she should. When we are indoctrinated with the idea of all of our work being perfect, it becomes so ingrained that we can no longer function without the constant adulations. We lose our internal sense of happiness, and even if we achieve success or accomplish a goal, we don’t feel fulfilled. When we leave our parents, any success we feel is mitigated by the lack of
The book Outliers, written by Malcolm Gladwell, never defines the word "success," a concept explored in its entirety throughout the book. Rather, the term Outlier is defined as “something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body,” and “a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample,” which relates to the popular view of success. Conversely, Gladwell’s theory of success is that the outliers could not have achieved success without both the opportunity to achieve success, and the hard work to make use of the opportunity. Following this principle, I have related my own successes to this theory. The first opportunity for success came from my parents wealth
Malcolm Gladwell, in his national bestseller, Outliers the Story of Success, attempts to redefine the age old formula of success. Gladwell argues that, “there is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success” (Gladwell 18). While avoiding clichés, Outliers successfully redefines the pseudoscience of success into stone cold reality. Gladwell champions his argument by introducing and breaking down his ideas meaningful counterarguments.
After describing universities like Duke, Stanford and other Ivie schools as elite private universities, Cathy Davidson in her essay “project Classroom Makeover” gives the implication that what is elite is what is considered excelling in surpassing the standards and having more power than others. This description, however, is only a snippet of how Davison views elite organizations and how those standards that qualify or nullify institutions are not as effective as they should be. Defining elite will yield two different definitions depending on the person who is defining it. Organizations, people, and even countries can be categorized as elites however, themselves may categorize others higher up as elites.
Think of success like watching a tree grow the branches split into different paths one can take each split is another opportunity to prosper and grow beautiful leaves like trophies. An uncommon belief is that the process of becoming successful is like a tree branch, if one starts off strong, more paths appear growing from the sturdy branch, and achieving goals lead to leaves growing to show wealth. “It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success,” (Gladwell 30). Author of nonfiction book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell, agrees with this uncommon belief, in his book he argues that success does not come from intelligence or passion
All of those who succeed are held to a higher standard than most other people. This appreciation in success is deeply rooted in the great American dream. The American dream is what makes up America since the beginning of independence. Many people flocked to the United States because the pull and appeal of freedom and the American dream. In reality, many were faced with horrible working conditions and poverty, such as in The
A person shouldn’t measure their success based on what they own, but based on their accomplishments. Those who never truly succeed, take pride in what they own, rather than what they’ve done. Emily Dickinson wrote in Success is Counted Sweetest, “Success is counted sweetest, by those who never succeed.” In this poem Dickinson describes what success really is, and those why are proud of their success, never truly achieved it. Today, success doesn’t matter at all.
Summary of “The Basic Problem: ‘Mine is Better’” by Vicent Ryan Ruggiero In “The Basic Problem: ‘Mine is Better’,” Vicent Ryan Ruggiero argues that even though it is natural to think “mine is better,” we need to govern this mindset because it can hinder our ability to become effective critical thinkers. Ruggerio outlines the natural progression of “mine is better” expressions from childhood claims, to teenage bragging, to the often internal boasting of an adult. While most of us realize we are not the only ones who think like this, Ruggerio points out that there are some types of people, egocentric and ethnocentric, who believe “mine is better” is a “special, higher truth about their particular situation,” and this way of thinking can become
If someone is deemed above average, they are brought to a similar fate as George Bergeron; “George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times.” (Vonnegut 1). They are brought unwillingly down to a similar level of potential in life as everyone else. People are not meant to succeed beyond others, they are simply forced to be able to perform a job in a somewhat robotic fashion of exactly the same as everyone else.
What makes people unequal to others in their mind? Many think others are unequal because they are simply different from them. The possibilities on being different from another person are almost infinite, but most often, and not limited to, are race, religion, gender, sexuality, or just being an outcast. Looking at just the United States, it is a huge melting pot based on immigration throughout history. Being an immense melting pot is a blessing and a curse; while it creates cultural diversity, it also creates discrimination, which America is notoriously known for.
Due to society, success is mostly viewed as a physical accomplishment. Ivan Chino, National Guard Soldier/NIU graduate, is not only a successful person because of his accomplishments, but more over his work ethic. When asked what makes a person successful, Chino replied, “The road with reaching success comes with many obstacles, but it also involves setting a new bar to achieve a higher form of success.” Clearly, Chino’s view of success is to constantly set high goals, despite the obstacles that come along with them. The reason being is to never settle and strive for a higher level.
Privilege is a word thrown around by many individuals, wither they are talking about key issues or laughing at such an idea that we would have something such as privilege in America. I have heard numerus people in my family exclaim that there is no such thing because they, too, a white, middle class American, have faced hardship. Though it seems that if you have face hardship and destitute you have no privilege, which is simply not the situation. Privilege impacts every individual differently, and even I, someone in a minority group, have many privileges over my brothers and sisters who are a part of the same oppressed group. Why does this all matter though?
Wealth and Inequality in America Inequality The inequality in America has increased over time; the gap between the rich and the poor has become a problem that many Americans don’t see. Inequality is the extent of income which is distributed unequally among the citizenry. The inequality of the United has a large gap between the poor and the rich making it unfair to the population, the rich are becoming wealthier and the poor remain poor. The article “Of the 1%, By the 1%, For the 1%”, authored by Joseph E. Stiglitz describes that there is a 1 percent amount of American’s who are consuming about a quarter of the United States income in a year.
A wise man named Samuel Butler once said ,``The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance. Does having too much pride trap or serve us? Some believe that having a healthy self-worth means taking pride in the achievements we make. But if value is linked to our self-image or accomplishments then it is built on a tenuous foundation. Pride is a characteristic proven to prevent us from acknowledging our vulnerabilities as a human.
“That as a matter of natural right all human beings have been born free” (Justinian). This essay will discuss four areas of discrimination: The concept of discrimination, the law of equality in Ireland, philosophical principals underpinning equality and three sociological theories of inequality. There are four main legal documents/legislations that deal with equality in Irish law, the Irish constitution, Equal status act + Equality act, Employment equality legislation, there is also the EU law on discrimination and several international documents that refer to equality. The Employment equality legislation (1998-2008) prohibits discriminatory acts in relation to and within employment.
One of the biggest problem of every country or society is that most of the rulers cares only about themselves or even though they act for the community people are unsatisfied with the results. This situation can happen because of minority government, corruption, self interest but the result is the same, what has been said during the elections by politicians has not become reality because of one or more of these accidents. Of course, as the actions of a general influence the entire army in the same way people are conditioned by their politicians ' choices and people are not happy to work for a country that does not improve or even worse does not recognize their importance as workers and contributors. What is the point of paying taxes and work hard if the state does not give something in return