Why is it that discussions on equal opportunities can easily get derailed into name-calling? What are the causes of success, and why are people so sensitive about them? Fuzzy thinking about work and politics, and an incomplete understanding can cause an unnecessary confusion.
Are we working as hard as the winner?
A while back, I reposted an interesting cartoon on twitter by Liz Fosslien depicting a paradox that many might have about success. It basically says that people don’t start from the same place, and takes a shot at the fact that success can’t always be solely attributed to hard work.
I commented :
“I worked hard for what I have”, and “They deserve what they get… they are lazy.” are two very problematic statements. “fortune as a result of hard #work” is frequently a social illusion that ignores a crucial variable: The starting point (includes environment).
Original Comment on Twitter
What happened later was quite interesting. The post generated very enthusiastic arguments, name-calling, many slogans (about capitalism, socialism, the state’s size, laziness, evil, and on…) and camps. People got angry, and some were called idiots, among other things.
The enthusiastic jumble of slogans in the comments on the image (capitalism, socialism, the state, evil,..) was a beautiful example of conflation at work in political debates… the cartoon is about the validity of attributing success to a limited set of individual factors.
Success and Fuzzy Thinking in attributing it
Rubbish, some of the richest in the world started out in abject poverty Many who started out wealthy ended with nothing You just want free stuff without the effort
A response to the original post
So is the argument that people do – in fact – start from similar positions in life ?
My answer to the above comment, trying to refocus the discussion
In reality, success is – in addition to the hard work – the result of initial conditions, institutions, momentum, chance, etc…
The complexity of the social and economic environment means that success (achieving goals) is frequently the result of systems and unpredictable factors rather than simple individual ones. This is an aspect of the problem of attribution.
They usually also forget all of the infrastructure – laws, institutions, products and services that other people created that is the reason for 99.9% of their success.
Another comment
The problem of attribution is that we tend to mistake the causes of things – especially success. Because we tend to look more at winners (a minority, but a naturally louder one) than the whole population, we mistake the reasons of success or the conditions that lead to it.
Eventually, people will want the simplest possible explanation for something so complex like success. The simplest possible explanation usually require that we eliminate elements of complexity.
The system is one of these complex elements, and people would gladly replace something so ethereal ( and hard to understand and grasp, like “The System”) with heroes and villains.
The “System” (social, economic, or other) is frequently missed in attributing success, partly because it is easier for us to think in terms of people. We see people and hear them. We like stories of heroes and villains. #innovation is just one example.
This is why many responses to the image were ‘personal’ : “I made it on my own.” , “I was a single mother with nothing and now I have 4 businesses” , “I worked so hard, and these others just want a free ride.”
Personal is simpler. Also, emotions come into play when we want to understand complex phenomena. Emotions make it easier for us to process things. Heroes, personal values, and stories, all make the world simpler to understand.
Simplification, Effort, and the Success of Innovation
This same discussion easily extends to innovation and entrepreneurship and business management. The concept of the ‘Hero’ (Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, …) is always summoned to explain otherwise enigmatic phenomena (success).
Often, I see posts about startups, showing a garage.
This – at best – is a confusion / conflation.. successful world-changing #innovation usually needs a system of connected agents, including universities, factories, and other companies.. not the garage, not the lone-genius.
Successful innovation, and in fact any successful business endeavor beyond a certain scale, is the result of a complex interaction that involves interpersonal skills and conditions, among other things.
Fuzzy Thinking , Politics , and Attribution
In “Fuzzy on the Dark Side” I discuss how fuzzy thinking leads to certain mix-ups (conflation), particularly when politics get involved. People get excited by the approximate thinking they use, because these approximations frequently reflect their values, their culture, and their own identities (and histories).
Approximations are great. Approximate thinking can make us understand complex phenomena (or some aspects of them), but being mindless to the approximations being done leads to many biases and decision-making faults.
But… Some people have a PTSD-like response to some keywords, and start fitting people (groups) into camps that exist (probably) in their mind… This is why one response to the above cartoon was : “the cartoonist is a socialist idiot.” — I can’t see how this conclusion would be reached from the image, and how the socialist type (idiot) was specified… alas.
Hard work is essential for success (usually), and in fact might be one of the most important individual inputs. People’s numerical illiteracy, however, mistakes essential for necessary, and overlooks all the cases not visible in the statistically faulty “successful” sample.
Calling for a more empathetic understanding of people’s circumstances (particularly the less fortunate) can easily be seen by others as the ghost of a ‘big state’ or the ‘evil idiotic socialism’..
This is a typical case of “Fuzzy on the Dark Side” !
Relevant Resources:
Think-Grow Knowledge Modules
The Think-Grow Knowledge Modules are mini-libraries of book summaries, each giving a wide (wise) enough view of a specific field.
They offer a simpler, wiser, and more convenient approach to reading about different fields. The Better Brain Library in particular has summaries of books on intelligence, thinking, and mental training.