RE: The dangerous fallacy of "You can do it."
September 7, 2020 at 4:42 am
(This post was last modified: September 7, 2020 at 4:52 am by The Grand Nudger.)
I think I can see Brians point. So long as success is measured in money or in rising up™ out of one's current job to some other thing deemed more worthy, it will remain a fact that most people don't achieve it.
It's probably not for lack of trying, or lack of personal attribute x, but down to how we've arranged society. Where the vast majority, regardless of their ability or drive, will be in the bottom portion of jobs on the worthiness scale as a consequence of our needs and demands. It becomes more and more pronounced as we automate out from the middle rather than up from bottom - specifically targeting those worthy jobs a step up from poverty precisely because of the labor savings.
Upward mobility is a dangerous myth in the us, especially when it's used to justify our treatment of the lower socioeconomic rungs. We imagine, in some sense, that people achieve the success they deserve - even as we know and gripe and grouse about that not being so. A poor socioeconomic state becomes the barometer for personal skill, education, and conviction.
Their poorness or their shitty job is on them, not our society, not us, not me. Anyone who tries hard can make it. These things are demonstrably untrue, and also demonstrably representative of what americans believe about the us...and, fwiw, it does kind of shit on the mass of bottom rung worthiness that all of modern civilization depends on. A doctor does less for the world's health than a garbageman, but which would we prefer to bring home to meet the parents? Service confers honor, repairing pavement doesn't. etc etc etc
It's probably not for lack of trying, or lack of personal attribute x, but down to how we've arranged society. Where the vast majority, regardless of their ability or drive, will be in the bottom portion of jobs on the worthiness scale as a consequence of our needs and demands. It becomes more and more pronounced as we automate out from the middle rather than up from bottom - specifically targeting those worthy jobs a step up from poverty precisely because of the labor savings.
Upward mobility is a dangerous myth in the us, especially when it's used to justify our treatment of the lower socioeconomic rungs. We imagine, in some sense, that people achieve the success they deserve - even as we know and gripe and grouse about that not being so. A poor socioeconomic state becomes the barometer for personal skill, education, and conviction.
Their poorness or their shitty job is on them, not our society, not us, not me. Anyone who tries hard can make it. These things are demonstrably untrue, and also demonstrably representative of what americans believe about the us...and, fwiw, it does kind of shit on the mass of bottom rung worthiness that all of modern civilization depends on. A doctor does less for the world's health than a garbageman, but which would we prefer to bring home to meet the parents? Service confers honor, repairing pavement doesn't. etc etc etc
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