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Agreed. I appreciate the help of others and am considered by most to be a generous giver of help myself. I think the idea that self-reliant people don't care ab

Agreed. I appreciate the help of others and am considered by most to be a generous giver of help myself. I think the idea that self-reliant people don't care about others or don't genuinely appreciate giving & receiving help is cartoonish hyperbole akin to the cigar-smoking rich man bulldozing the youth community center to build a shopping mall. Like, okay, maybe that exists somewhere in real life, but it's usually an exaggeration under-achievers use to self-soothe.

the_af 7y ago
> "[...] I think the idea that self-reliant people don't care about others or don't genuinely appreciate giving & receiving help is cartoonish hyperbole [...]" Note this isn't what other people are saying. They are saying self-reliant people are not entirely self-reliant. It's not a matter of appreciation, it's a matter of understanding we're the products of society, family, luck, and the efforts of others, as well as our own merit -- i.e. we're not entirely self-reliant. The same critique can be made of the overestimated notion of "meritocracy".
- esotericn 7y ago
  Yes, but as saas_sam says, no-one actually believes they are truly completely self reliant in that cartoonish way. When people speak of being self-reliant, they obviously don't literally mean that they were spawned from some sort of spontaneous reaction, that they farm their own cotton, sew their own shirts, invent their own scientific disciplines and produce semiconductors in their garage in the clean room they built from scratch. They're referring more to building their own path in life and going out and getting what they want rather than waiting for it to be handed to them. It's similar to how you or I might say we "need" something, when really it's qualified, because almost all use of language is.
  - the_af 7y ago
    Agreed about the use of language, and I wasn't being literal either. Nobody believes the cartoonish notion described by saas_sam. What they actually believe is that people who think they are self-reliant conveniently forget or downplay the other factors, i.e. they are not as self-reliant as they like to believe.

the_af 7y ago

> "[...] I think the idea that self-reliant people don't care about others or don't genuinely appreciate giving & receiving help is cartoonish hyperbole [...]" Note this isn't what other people are saying. They are saying self-reliant people are not entirely self-reliant. It's not a matter of appreciation, it's a matter of understanding we're the products of society, family, luck, and the efforts of others, as well as our own merit -- i.e. we're not entirely self-reliant. The same critique can be made of the overestimated notion of "meritocracy".

esotericn 7y ago
Yes, but as saas_sam says, no-one actually believes they are truly completely self reliant in that cartoonish way. When people speak of being self-reliant, they obviously don't literally mean that they were spawned from some sort of spontaneous reaction, that they farm their own cotton, sew their own shirts, invent their own scientific disciplines and produce semiconductors in their garage in the clean room they built from scratch. They're referring more to building their own path in life and going out and getting what they want rather than waiting for it to be handed to them. It's similar to how you or I might say we "need" something, when really it's qualified, because almost all use of language is.
- the_af 7y ago
  Agreed about the use of language, and I wasn't being literal either. Nobody believes the cartoonish notion described by saas_sam. What they actually believe is that people who think they are self-reliant conveniently forget or downplay the other factors, i.e. they are not as self-reliant as they like to believe.