empty signifiers

The second becomes evident in light of the first: It produces an attitude that is openly hostile to the less-fortunate. And I use "fortunate" deliberately. The strength of your determination is no guarantee to success or failure. Most will when reading that sentence consider it a truism, and yet as a cultural whole we still pander to the idea that hard work or dedication is the only fuel necessary for achievement. We hold these conflicting ideas in our heads almost without effort. And why?

For one, it is a strong boost to our self-confidence that we can imagine a world where everything we have achieved has been achieved solely through our work. That's insane, but it makes us feel better. Not only must you possess the discipline to try hard, but you must also possess the sheer lucky opportunity to even get that far. All your determination is for naught if you can never get through the company door--or if you aren't even aware of that company's existence.

It also helps to distance us from our social consciences. By crafting the illusion of the American Dream, our fates are matters of personal responsibility. We have no obligation to help others, because after all they're in the gutter because they're lazy. They don't work hard enough. They didn't try. It's their fault they're homeless, or poor, or about to get fired.

Opportunity defines our potential for success, that much is true; but the American Dream is a fallacy for other reasons. It requires an even playing field--hard work becomes the sole delineator of deserved success only if all receive the same opportunity and all work product is comparable and considered equally. Based as it is on differentiation and taxonomy, I sincerely doubt our culture, or humanity in general, will ever be able to escape our aggravating tendencies to invest those different from us with our fears of the Other (in psychological terms).

As current social trends have established, we are incapable of divorcing ourselves from judgment on irrelevant personal concerns. Budding sociopsychological research and functional MRI mapping of the brain indicates we make up our minds about situations and people within the first few milliseconds of encountering them.

There is a deeper problem still: in the name of rationality and objectivity, we have attempted to enshrine authority in certain metrics. Intelligence quotient is one of these metrics--it is supposedly a tool to indicate the ability to function intellectually in society. But it is a flawed test. Upper-middle-class white males will perform better on the IQ test not because there is something more capable about them as a class, but because the language of the test reflects assumptions favorable to upper-middle-class white males. Consider that children in lower-class families perform poorer on IQ tests than siblings in upper-class families (NY Times article, registration might be required; or visit BugMeNot for a generic username and password; link via Kottke).

It's a comforting thought to recognize that yes, I have succeeded because I worked hard. But at the same time, I have to recognize--and be humbled by--the reality that I was damn lucky to get that far in the first place.