So a combination of reading this and that here and there, and self-examination or reflection (because that’s the season of my life right now) led me to this thought or question:
How much of the divisions in US Society, or, well any society really, I suppose, with the exception of purely materialistic ones (I have and you do not) are or can be, attributed to the the desire to rise above the anonymity of the group average?
My thinking is that this would be especially applicable to politics of all varieties, both subtle and in-your-face, where identity seems important.
How many people join a group just to rise, in whatever fashion they may, above the level of the mediocre that fate and statistics seem to have condemned the vast majority of us too?
Are you saying that people wanting to rise above average is a bad thing? You mention politics. How about in science, the arts, athletics, exploration - for that matter, any field of human endeavor?
No, I’m not saying that people wanting to rise above the average is bad.
I mentioned politics because it seemed like a low hanging fruit to use as an example. R or D. Prolife or Proabortion urban or rural? In between these groups are the people in the middle, faceless, the anonymous Center.
It could be any endeavor that lends itself to division into groups that have opposing, or maybe only differing views
Or are you conflating “average” and “mediocrity” with “indifference”?
There can be many and varied reasons why people feel strongly about any given issue: that they feel strongly enough to identify someone of an opposing view as an enemy to be feared and hated is not necessarily egotism or arrogance (though that might be a strong element in those who push themselves forward in the media as spokespeople).
Erm, not sure where you got indifference from, but no, not what I meant.
The rest, egotism, arrogance, feared, hated, enemy are terms that, while they may technically fit, are outside the realm of what I am asking. They skirt about the edges of it but properly belong at the extremes and the way you use them doesn’t really address the question I am asking.
There is an implied attribution of worth to any particular effort in your response, beyond a person being able to say “I was part of…” that I was deliberately trying to leave out of my question.
My question was meant to be taken at a more basic level of being that doesn’t address “right and wrong”. Hmmm, there could be an exception there for scientific debates on what is factual and provable and what isn’t. I guess I should have worded it that way.
You know, a great deal of needless anxiety and suffering is because of the strange American conviction that unless a thing is absolutely the best, it’s worthless.
Nobody wants a Silver Medal. Nobody remembers who came in second. These were actual motivational phrases a few years ago. A Boy Named Charlie Brown was based on this whole attitude.
Lots of people know how to be good losers but either they prefer to win and strive to eventually do so or they are perennial losers. There are lots of people who are happy going to their job where they are good enough not to get fired and coming home to their average track home with a family that does ok. Those people are all good losers, they’ve finished second at life and are ok with it and don’t resent the people who struck it big or the people who tripped on the first hurdle.
There are people who are driven nuts by that definition of normal and they want the best of everything and they are driven to either tell you about why whatever little they are able to accomplish is the best or they complain and whine when people are promoted above them or succeed where they didn’t. Those people are the sore losers and there are, unfortunately, lots of them too.
I’d try and answer the question in the OP but I’m not sure what it is.
You have made my point, but perhaps I should qualify it. Only in America do I sense this attitude that if you don’t eventually become the “best” (i.e. “win”) you become a perennial loser. I believe this is culturally ingrained by an overemphasis on sports, advertising, consumerism, and yes, that most American of traits, individualism.
This leads to untold needless suffering and self-loathing for the rest of us. I find this a disgusting attitude.:mad:
I apologize for the puzzlement my question has caused. Two Many Cats has perhaps come closest to the, spirit, thrust, my thinking? (And yet is still not quite hitting it)I’m not sure how to say it more clearly without getting excessively wordy and thus losing the question in the attempt to ask it.
I want to strangle people like that except that, uh, it seems like an awful lot of work. The Type As are a royal pain in the ass but we need their drive and their work ethic and their need for more. I propose we give them plenty of rope and then tax the living hell out of them so the rest of us can slack.
I understand what you’re saying and I think that it is certainly true to a certain extent. For myself I am very driven to be the best and I don’t like it when I fail so some of that slipped out in that post but there are hundreds of thousands of people who are quite content in their normal workaday lives.
While I will grant that America idealizes the winners and probably idolizes them as well, that isn’t the normal person. I just hired a guy who was tired of being his own boss and was ready to take a steady paycheck and focus on his family, that is normal America. No one looks down on him, he is the perfect example of your “good loser” not that he is a loser but he’s plus or minus given up the rat race. I think you’re correct that winners are looked up too and losers (homeless, criminals, drug addicts, etc.) are looked down on the majority are just there and quite content with it. There is a group of self loathers like I mentioned in my posts who’s mediocrity is always someone else’s fault they are viewed as annoying but are still part of the normal middle. They are an, unfortunately, large part of society but I think the only people who look down on them are themselves.
I don’t mean self-loathers who blame others for their misfortunes. I mean self-loathers who, as the term indicates, blame themselves for their perceived failure, when they haven’t actually failed at all. Yes, they are living an average life, but an average life is not failure.
I think this mindset is also part of the reason why America has not embraced sane social policies that every other civilized nation in the world has embraced. Responsible gun control, nationalized medicine, work-life balance, these are things that would benefit the whole of the population. But these things are seen as a threat because the mindset demands competition for everything in order to reward “winners” with tax breaks, and punish the “losers” by denying them basic human social service safety nets.
The reason why the average American doesn’t demand more taxes on the rich is because we have been conditioned to consider the rich “winners” who deserve special treatment that “loser” ordinary people don’t deserve.
That, and ordinary American people are working so hard to merely survive that they are too exhausted to demand anything. They don’t believe they can change anything. Because they’re convinced they will lose if they try.
Well, for what its worth, it’s good to know I’m not the only one.
And maybe that is the question I’m trying to ask.
How much of the various divisions in the US today, can be attributed to a desire to rise above the rat race? Not leave it behind in anyway, like oredigger’s new employee, which seems to me to be a high level of achievement in its own right, but to be recognized as excellent, or at least associated with excellent as part of a group.
I believe you’re speaking about ambition. The desire to achieve something better for yourself or for others.
Now, ambition can be caused by many things. Greed, insecurity, desire, ego or whatever. But one of the main causes of it is that someone wants to do something either different or better than someone or some group other than themselves. It’s that drive to succeed that causes it.
In my experience, in the business field there are plenty of people who have ambition but lack the talent or whatever to make it work. Also, the vast VAST majority of people would prefer to daydream about such things without ever actually wanting to do the things to make them happen. There’s nothing wrong with that and that’s not me judging, but it’s a strong differentiator for people rising above the crowd.
This thread might be about ambition, but the OP is asking about divisiveness. Or how much of the current acrimonious division in the country is caused by people trying to better themselves.
I don’t think the divisiveness is caused by honest ambition. I think the divide is being caused by the anger that happens when that honest ambition is thwarted by the current conditions put in place by the corporations to keep the workers down. Only those who come from money can make money now. For the rest of us, it’s castrated unions cuddling up to the bosses, or being disbanded altogether, or simply outflanked by outsourcing to foreign countries or robotic machinery taking over. It’s bosses against workers.
Ambition primarily comes from parents. We all want our children to have more opportunities that we ourselves has growing up. But it can also be self derived.
I do think that there is some truth to the OP’s supposition, that people develop mindsets, align life points of view, etc. to better themselves.
If you believe that free markets give people better opportunities for personal success through entrepreneurship then you will align yourselves with politicians, parties, etc. that will help foster that.
If you believe that government intervention in the education system will give you more opportunities through lower education costs for yourself, family or society, then you will align yourself with politicians, parties, etc. that will help foster that.
But the great thing about our country is that we are free to disagree and we are free to pursue our own happiness (under a rule of law) regardless of who is in power.
I have lived my adult life under a variety of different groups in power, many times I have not agreed with the agendas, philosophy, rules, regulations that have been put forth. But, I have not ever let that diminish my goals that I have set out for myself.