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On "framing personal success", Michael Sandel puts it very well[0], when he says: "Meritocratic hubris reflects the tendency of winners to inhale too deeply of
by kashyapc 3y ago
On "framing personal success", Michael Sandel puts it very well[0], when he says:
"Meritocratic hubris reflects the tendency of winners to inhale too deeply of their success, to forget the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way. It is the smug conviction of those who land on top that they deserve their fate, and that those on the bottom deserve theirs, too. This attitude is the moral companion of technocratic politics."
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PS: I wouldn't give much weight to Newport's words—he's a clever marketer[1][2] and repeats the same few points ad nauseam in endless "books". The antidote to Newport is the classic originals that he's poorly paraphrasing from. I mentioned a few here[1] in the past.
[0] In his book, The Tyranny of Merit — https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374289980/thetyrannyofmerit https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374289980/thetyrannyofmer...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29035998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29035998
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082125
- rqtwteye 3y agoThat’s true. I have read same books of Newport and I thought they could be summarized on two pages probably. But I guess that applies to most self help authors. Their whole life work can usually be summarized on a few pages.
- kashyapc 3y agoAbsolutely. The aggravating thing with Newport is that for a guy advocating "minimalism", he churns out too much needless crap. The irony seems definitely lost on him. As for avoiding the plague that is the filler books, a robust solution is to pick books that have stood the test of time. Hard to beat that strategy. At least that's how I roll. The onus is us, as the reader, to be ruthless about picking the books that truly deserve our attention.