3 ms·

He says there are many methods which make people rich, but only one "instinct" he knows of (avarice). That doesn't imply he thinks all or even most rich people

by dkasper 14y ago

He says there are many methods which make people rich, but only one "instinct" he knows of (avarice). That doesn't imply he thinks all or even most rich people are avaricious. The point of the passage is that worshiping success is worthless, and moreover success itself is a pretty meaningless term ("To begin with, of course, there is no such thing as Success. Or, if you like to put it so, there is nothing that is not successful.") If you see this as a short-sighted attempt to say money is evil I think you've missed the point. The problem he's getting at is not money, it is that people spend time dreaming of success instead of doing something of value.

eli_gottlieb 14y ago
The real question is easy to bring out. Hell, it's so easy they asked it several times in the course of Office Space: "What would you do if you had a million dollars?" For today's purposes, let's make it truly unlimited and substitute a billion (milliard, for Commonwealth folks) dollars. Or Euros. Whatever. Point is, given a de facto unlimited source of funding to witter away entirely as you please, what would you do? Many people can't answer, because we've got a culture that encourages focusing on accumulating capital, which is ultimately a second-order value (useful for doing other things you actually want to do), rather than doing any of the things people actually want to do with money.
- dgreensp 14y ago
  Ah, the heart of this is why "success" (full stop) should mean financial success. An insidious association in our culture. Office Space is a profound movie, btw.
dgreensp 14y ago
He can rightly say that there are few "magic bullets" in life (that are articulated clearly in self-help books of 1915, at the very least), but I think he reveals that he doesn't consider making money; success in business; or managing oneself to be the metaphorical crafts or games that you can read books about and get better at. Moreover, the author does say that people who seek to get rich are greedy, and not only that, but that they are trying to succeed by being greedy, rather than by "good work": But what shall we say of the gospel preached to the new Industrious Apprentice; the Apprentice who rises not by his virtues, but avowedly [self-admittedly] by his vices? If you acknowledge there is skill in succeeding (with a company, say, or in overcoming a bad habit, or tending your goals and beliefs, perhaps even to train more rigorously for that high jump), and that these things are moral or at least not immoral, the author's argument falls apart. It's as if he spins around and says that the best whist players and bricklayers must be propelled by an unhealthy greed or pride, seeing as it's impossible to write a book on such mystical things. We recognize today that money is not moral or immoral, but amoral. Perhaps it is dangerous that the economy is one big, somewhat arbitrary game, but so be it. We should see it for what it is. As for self-improvement, I look forward to collectively pulling back the curtain on the human psyche more and more, continuing a pattern of ever-enlarging consciousness and awareness, shedding light on what was previously mysticism. From this perspective, the author just seems to be saying, "Stop, there's nothing there. Don't sail that way or you'll fall off the edge of the Earth."
- degobah 14y ago
  You make a fair point that Chesterton seems to have a certain disdain for making money and business, but it seems like you didn't read the essay very carefully: > If you acknowledge there is skill in succeeding (with a company, say, or in overcoming a bad habit, or tending your goals and beliefs, perhaps even to train more rigorously for that high jump), and that these things are moral or at least not immoral, the author's argument falls apart. His thesis or argument is that the books and articles of his day on "success" are mainly rubbish. It is not to say that the word "success" is actually no good, or that trying to succeed at some individual thing is not good. A main point of his is that there are individual skills to succeed at specific things, but not an all-encompassing skill of "success." I will concede that Chesterton sees people whose main mission in life is to make money as greedy, because he strongly, strongly believes that money doesn't make a person happy.
  - dgreensp 14y ago
    > It is all very stirring, of course; but I confess that if I were playing cards I would rather have some decent little book which told me the rules of the game. Beyond the rules of the game it is all a question either of talent or dishonesty; and I will undertake to provide either one or the other—which, it is not for me to say. This false dichotomy between "talent and dishonesty" is an example of what rubs me the wrong way, and it's no small thing. It still shows up today when people get frustrated that the "best" things or people don't always succeed. If you have a band, for example, is thinking about how to promote yourselves on the side of greed rather than just being talented? What about an engineer who could use some networking advice to find a better job? The athlete who lacks discipline, or who needs to connect more fully with his dreams and motivations to burst forth and excel? You could say these are still specific skills, just enlarged ones, but I believe there is such a thing as skill at every level of generality. The 20th century saw new awareness of the imperfect correspondence between quality and success, for example in the form of marketing -- think cigarettes, or Bush Jr. There's also some new understanding of talent vs. success. It used to be you just called a talented but unsuccessful person "lazy." Or, I suppose, insufficiently greedy.

by dkasper 14y ago

eli_gottlieb 14y ago

The real question is easy to bring out. Hell, it's so easy they asked it several times in the course of Office Space: "What would you do if you had a million dollars?" For today's purposes, let's make it truly unlimited and substitute a billion (milliard, for Commonwealth folks) dollars. Or Euros. Whatever. Point is, given a de facto unlimited source of funding to witter away entirely as you please, what would you do? Many people can't answer, because we've got a culture that encourages focusing on accumulating capital, which is ultimately a second-order value (useful for doing other things you actually want to do), rather than doing any of the things people actually want to do with money.

dgreensp 14y ago
Ah, the heart of this is why "success" (full stop) should mean financial success. An insidious association in our culture. Office Space is a profound movie, btw.

dgreensp 14y ago

He can rightly say that there are few "magic bullets" in life (that are articulated clearly in self-help books of 1915, at the very least), but I think he reveals that he doesn't consider making money; success in business; or managing oneself to be the metaphorical crafts or games that you can read books about and get better at. Moreover, the author does say that people who seek to get rich are greedy, and not only that, but that they are trying to succeed by being greedy, rather than by "good work": But what shall we say of the gospel preached to the new Industrious Apprentice; the Apprentice who rises not by his virtues, but avowedly [self-admittedly] by his vices? If you acknowledge there is skill in succeeding (with a company, say, or in overcoming a bad habit, or tending your goals and beliefs, perhaps even to train more rigorously for that high jump), and that these things are moral or at least not immoral, the author's argument falls apart. It's as if he spins around and says that the best whist players and bricklayers must be propelled by an unhealthy greed or pride, seeing as it's impossible to write a book on such mystical things. We recognize today that money is not moral or immoral, but amoral. Perhaps it is dangerous that the economy is one big, somewhat arbitrary game, but so be it. We should see it for what it is. As for self-improvement, I look forward to collectively pulling back the curtain on the human psyche more and more, continuing a pattern of ever-enlarging consciousness and awareness, shedding light on what was previously mysticism. From this perspective, the author just seems to be saying, "Stop, there's nothing there. Don't sail that way or you'll fall off the edge of the Earth."

degobah 14y ago
You make a fair point that Chesterton seems to have a certain disdain for making money and business, but it seems like you didn't read the essay very carefully: > If you acknowledge there is skill in succeeding (with a company, say, or in overcoming a bad habit, or tending your goals and beliefs, perhaps even to train more rigorously for that high jump), and that these things are moral or at least not immoral, the author's argument falls apart. His thesis or argument is that the books and articles of his day on "success" are mainly rubbish. It is not to say that the word "success" is actually no good, or that trying to succeed at some individual thing is not good. A main point of his is that there are individual skills to succeed at specific things, but not an all-encompassing skill of "success." I will concede that Chesterton sees people whose main mission in life is to make money as greedy, because he strongly, strongly believes that money doesn't make a person happy.
- dgreensp 14y ago
  > It is all very stirring, of course; but I confess that if I were playing cards I would rather have some decent little book which told me the rules of the game. Beyond the rules of the game it is all a question either of talent or dishonesty; and I will undertake to provide either one or the other—which, it is not for me to say. This false dichotomy between "talent and dishonesty" is an example of what rubs me the wrong way, and it's no small thing. It still shows up today when people get frustrated that the "best" things or people don't always succeed. If you have a band, for example, is thinking about how to promote yourselves on the side of greed rather than just being talented? What about an engineer who could use some networking advice to find a better job? The athlete who lacks discipline, or who needs to connect more fully with his dreams and motivations to burst forth and excel? You could say these are still specific skills, just enlarged ones, but I believe there is such a thing as skill at every level of generality. The 20th century saw new awareness of the imperfect correspondence between quality and success, for example in the form of marketing -- think cigarettes, or Bush Jr. There's also some new understanding of talent vs. success. It used to be you just called a talented but unsuccessful person "lazy." Or, I suppose, insufficiently greedy.