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> Yet many are oblivious of their own advantages, and of other people’s disadvantages. The result is [...] partly explaining the hostility to state expansion of
by avz 12y ago
> Yet many are oblivious of their own advantages, and of other people’s disadvantages. The result is [...] partly explaining the hostility to state expansion of Medicaid, to long-term unemployment benefits, or to raising the minimum wage to keep up with inflation.
I don't think hostility to the expansion of social welfare programs depends much on one's stance in the debate about the relative importance of different factors of success in life.
The causation runs the other way. It's convenient and pleasant for the successful to think their success is of their own making. It's convenient and extenuating for the less successful to attribute their failures to external factors. We internalize success and externalize failure.
Both arguments are self-serving simplifications of a surely more complex reality.
- leot 12y agoIt's not just convenient and pleasant: just like everyone, those who are successful recognize the impact of their own decisions and behavior on a moment to moment basis. They succeed when they try hard, forego immediate pleasure for delayed gratification, and in a disciplined way execute on a particular plan. When the wealthy and successful criticize others for not behaving similarly, they are externalizing their own personal internal heuristic/narrative that they use to compel themselves to take responsibility for the way they spend their time. In other words, it's not just convenient to take responsibility for one's own success: it's extremely helpful to one's own psychology to do so.