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I'm conflicted about this article. On one hand, its central premise, that people who are successful (in societal terms) tend to ascribe that success to an inher
by CommieBobDole 8y ago
I'm conflicted about this article. On one hand, its central premise, that people who are successful (in societal terms) tend to ascribe that success to an inherent moral superiority, is obviously true.
On the other hand, there's nothing particularly Victorian about this attitude; people have been doing this ever since society has existed and will be doing it long after we're all dead.
On yet another hand (I have three), who is the target audience for this article? Seems like this is something that anyone who would be interested in or capable of understanding this article would already know.
- good_gnu 8y agoDid aristocrats in the middle ages ascribe their position in society to their individual actions or to their being born into aristocracy?
- jeffreyrogers 8y agoTo being born into the aristocracy. And they viewed themselves as having obligations to the lower classes.
- cfadvan 8y agoThey mostly ascribed it to being chosen by god and descended from various noble families, and kings.
- CommieBobDole 8y agoMy understanding is that European royalty generally thought of their positions as being granted by divine providence. I guess it's slightly different because they didn't attain their position (they were born into it) but I think there's little question they generally considered themselves inherently morally superior to the poor. Really, it seems like the mechanism may have changed; "I am successful because God has chosen me in my inherent superiority to be successful" vs "I am successful because of the inherent superiority of the moral code I follow", but they're really just different applications of the just-world fallacy. Which, in turn, is a natural product of the way our brains are wired.
- mark212 8y agonote that the article isn't really talking about aristocrats, whatever their modern equivalent would be, but today's upper middle class. The kind of people who work for a living, highly paid for sure, but who aren't rentiers or factory owners. As far as successful burghers or artisans in the middle ages, then yes, I think they did ascribe their financial success as resulting from God's blessing their superior morality.
- noobermin 8y ago>people have been doing this ever since society has existed and will be doing it long after we're all dead. Jacobin is a leftist magazine. One of the main ideas of people on the socialist left is not just to observe how people behave and live, to merely be reactive, but to seek to change society to ameliorate its ills.