More straw-man crap trying to pitch the ridiculous idea that hard work doesn't matter at all. OK, sure, you can argue that you're more likely to reach the very highest echelons of society if you are lucky enough to be born rich, etc. But:
a. "more likely" doesn't mean it isn't possible to achieve if you aren't "born right"
and perhaps more to the point:
b. "success" is measured on a continuum; it's not a binary proposition. And there's a lot of room between "Becoming a Supreme Court justice" (just to pick an example) and winding up as a barista at Starbucks. Like, plenty of lawyers who make a nice living for their families, or all the thousands of local district and superior court judges out there, or the hundreds of federal circuit judges who don't quite make it to the very top.
This kind of article is boring and pointless because it's selling a dangerous idea: that nothing you do matters at all, and, ergo, you might as well do nothing. I mean, if hard work doesn't matter, why bother working hard to begin with, right?
As the old saying goes: "It is better to shoot for the stars and miss than aim at the gutter and hit it". Or another take on it: "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
So yeah, tell your kids to dream big and work hard. They'll probably go further than if you tell them "life sucks, you have no chance, so just go ahead and do nothing but play video games and smoke weed all day".
If we tell people the dangerous false idea that hard work is the main factor that makes someone rich or successful, we could end up with a terrible society where the rich feel they have no responsibility to help the less fortunate (by e.g. providing universal healthcare), because they must simply have been lazy – even though most rich people started out rich, and even the rich people who started out poor and worked hard still owe their success partially to being lucky enough not to have been randomly afflicted by some disease, by growing up in a society that provided them opportunities for education and business, etc.
So if your kids turned out more successful than others, don't tell them it was just because they dreamt big and worked hard. While hard work is important, their success was also partially due to luck and the work of others, and they should never forget that.
"As the old saying goes: "It is better to shoot for the stars and miss than aim at the gutter and hit it". Or another take on it: "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
"
These are fine. However, there is also the belief that all people who have reached the stars have worked hard or that people who haven't reached stars just haven't worked enough. These are wrong. Success is a combination of hard work and a good portion of luck. You most likely won't be successful if you don't work hard but if you don't succeed it's not necessarily because you haven't worked hard.
To me it's a call for successful people to be more compassionate with people who aren't successful.
Nowhere in that article does he say that hard work doesn't matter at all.
>What I have learned in this short period of time is that the pervasive narrative of “if you work hard you will get on” is a complete myth. It’s not true and we need stop saying it. This is because “working hard, and doing the right thing” barely gets you to the starting line. Furthermore, it means something completely different depending on to which context you’re applying this particular notion. So much more is required.
If you note what he says at the end of that paragraph, it becomes obvious that what he's trying to get across is that you absolutely need hard work, but that will give you only the bare minimum to have a chance and it's definitely not a guarantee that you will do well.
Did you read the article? It's about his life where he worked hard and got lucky to escape poverty and attend Oxford. He criticizes the system because it is inherently biased to the privileged so he argues that we need to do better.
Rather than nitpick on the wording, I think you should try to see the underlying point. It's unfortunate phrasing, but the point isn't about how hard you work or whether it's important to have a good work ethic.
I liked this article better, and it conveys more or less the same point as the topic link:
The problem is that hard work makes a dent, but not a very big one if you don't understand the "game" that you need to play. It's easy to take this for granted if you grow up in an environment with many people who understand it because you learn it by osmosis.
I think a better way to frame this is "Hard work barely matters when you work for someone else."
I've been in too many situations and witnessed too many friends and family members that shoot for the moon but are never able to leave Earth as all their extra efforts are usurped by their managers and business owners.
Sure hard work "matters", it can help you get places, but how much does it matter is the question? Does it make 1% difference? 5% difference? 50% difference? I'd bet the difference is <10% compared to someone who does just enough to get by.
I think kids would go furthest of all if we told them "treat yourself as an autonomous being, work hard when you are in a position to realize the benefits of your hard work, otherwise do just enough and save your energy for better days."
The strawman is yours. The author clearly does not believe or say that hard work doesn't matter at all. That's obvious to anyone who actually read it instead of having a knee-jerk reaction to the title and not even bothering to quote-mine before responding. All he's saying is that hard work is only one factor, and that others must be addressed for that hard work to earn its just reward.
>>selling a dangerous idea: that nothing you do matters at all, and, ergo, you might as well do nothing. I mean, if hard work doesn't matter, why bother working hard to begin with, right?
You must work hard and contribute only to a system that is fair.
Its important to starve that system of good contributors which doesn't reward merit.
One of the reason why people immigrate to other countries, or move companies is because of futility of doing anything in their current ecosystem.
“I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.” - Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped
There are two really big problems with this outlook. First if everyone achieves a high level education, the competition for high skilled jobs also goes up, making the higher education mean less and requiring further education to beat the crowd. This is something millennials are experiencing right now. Second, if employers take more risk and hire more people from underprivileged backgrounds, it just means that someone from a privileged background missed out on the job and just shifts the resentment from one group to the other. It doesn't really solve the fundamental problem.
Working hard will move you forward. How forward is hard to determine, and it varies. The reality is that some people in their lifetime won't achieve success but they lay the foundation for their children too...ex his mothers struggle to get from Africa to the UK laid the foundation for him to achieve his success. Their is little chance that he will become say the Prime Minister, but his children may...thanks to their dad being able to provide them with a privileged life.
The job market isn't static like that. If there are lots of highly educated people, there will be new jobs created to take advantage of their skills. There might be more competition or there might not be, and it's definitely not a linear correlation.
As birth rates plummet across much of the developed world, can people really still be convinced to take on hardship just because things might supposedly be easier for their children (that they don't even have, or have but don't maintain a close relationship with)? Telling people today that their sacrifices are worth it or that the obstacles they face are not so bad, because things will be better for their kids, is cold comfort.
One of my pet peeves is when someone takes issue with an oversimplification of something, but instead of dealing with the oversimplification, they keep the same level of oversimplification but assume that the opposite view must be true.
Just because something's not 100% true doesn't mean it's 0% true. In this case, a more appropriate level of granularity would be: "if you work hard, you are more likely to be successful than if you don't work hard." That kind of nuance doesn't really resonate with children though, which is why we don't tell them that.
Complaining that it's all a big lie is akin to someone growing up, realizing that there is no Santa living in the North Pole, and concluding that the North Pole must also be a lie.
Quite so. Hard work will absolutely help you advance in your endeavors, but if your hard work advances others more than it advances you - which is true for an awful lot of people - then you are being used and when your utility is exhausted you will be cast aside without a second thought.
This argument is not, as some have claimed, an excuse for apathy. Rather, it argues that accepting the prevailing socioeconomic norms is foolish for anyone who is not close to the apex of society. The level playing field and other such political tropes are false, there is abundant evidence of this, and anyone who tells you otherwise either lying to you or to themselves.
Is "the top" the goal? Shouldn't be for every child. Telling every child they can reach "the top" is a lie.
I grew up in a very poor part of the country, certainly bottom 5%. And eventually paid my own way through an Ivy League school... I would say that the lessons my dad taught me were solid.
1) It's important to work hard. You don't work hard to get ahead... you work hard so you are satisfied that you gave it your all. Take pride in your accomplishments -- however small. Work until you're happy with what you have done.
2) Be careful what you wish for -- what you choose to dedicate your life to doing is important, but know that luck plays a huge role. You can't count on luck, but you can be immensely thankful for it and humble accepting it.
3) The world is yours to make what you will out of it. You're the only one who can determine what is right for you. Nobody is better than you are, but you're no better than anyone else -- stand up for yourself, and be kind to those you run into along the way.
> What I have learned in this short period of time is that the pervasive narrative of “if you work hard you will get on” is a complete myth. It’s not true and we need stop saying it. This is because “working hard, and doing the right thing” barely gets you to the starting line
The author misses the point. It's true that only saying “if you work hard you will get on” is not enough. But it's only half the picture - working hard will only get you somewhere - the starting line. Then you need to continue and improve and adapt. Whether it's worth that time and effort is another question.
But simply accepting a half truth as a whole and ignoring the whole picture is harmful "It’s not true and we need stop saying it." is the completely wrong thing to say. Better: "it's not the only thing that counts, and we need to give tell our children what they really need to do"
I don't think the author missed the mark. He does elaborate on the other factors, such as social adaption:
> I don’t see this mindset shifting, so my advice to youngsters has remained: you need to adapt yourself. You need to find the right way to speak to different people, at different times in different contexts. This is not compromising who you are, but rather adapting to the relevant surroundings.
People in coal mines work pretty hard. Are they getting luckier, do you think? This is an absolutely great maxim for people who are fortunate or wise enough to be working on developing their own abilities and position. For the majority of people who are working hard to get paid to pay bills to have life's necessities, but don't have much energy or idea what to do beyond that, it's a cruel joke.
Hmm, seems to work the opposite for me. Baling hay, one of the most demanding jobs I've ever had: a bit over minimum wage. Writing software, where my ping pong sessions are occasionally interrupted by work that involves sitting at a desk: fat stacks of Benjamins.
The title doesn't match the content ("gets you to the top" versus "get on in life") and makes the mistake that the only way to consider yourself a success is to become upper-middle class. It is wrong to teach all underprivileged youth that the only thing standing between them and their own professional practice is working hard, but it's not wrong to teach them that a good work ethic will make other things in their life easier.
Telling children 'hard work won't get you to the top' is simply a lie, also. Success has an endless number of variables and they are all weighted differently for every individual. Fact is, your work ethic is a variable you control - Teaching children that is important.
Alas, teaching children (and adults) they're but one of a larger group of victims is, and will always be, a political juggernaut.
If there are equal outcomes, then we have succeeded at creating equal opportunity. Not as individuals; but statistically.
Individually preferences, choices, dumb luck, etc. of course would lead to unequal outcomes -- as it should be. But when taken as a whole, those differences should disappear.
It is an ideal, but I like it because it is a measurable ideal.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone tell their children "hard work gets you to the top". I believe what is actually more often said is "if you don't work hard, you won't get to the top". Subtle, but crucial difference.
I think the more important insight is that what you work on is as important as how hard you work. This is especially true in today's world of automation, where things that took one person literally a year can now be done by machines in a few hours.
Interesting to compare and contrast American and European attitudes toward social mobility [1].
Apparently Americans are far more likely than Europeans to believe that hard work gets you to the top.
However, these expectations are apparently quite divorced from reality. Apparently hard work is far more likely to get you to the top in Europe (especially continental Europe) than in the US.
What's needed is tons of hard work on exactly the right thing at the right time, or some half-assed work on a different kind of right thing at the right time.
Inculcating a culture of work ethic into the majority of the population produces a surplus that may then be extracted and utilized by a specific class of people who do not wish to work hard.
Arbeit macht frei.
As far as I am aware, every human culture has always demanded more work than strictly necessary from the working class in order to support a relatively small proportion of non-workers or light workers. At the band/tribe level, that is generally very young children and very old elders. Larger organization units tended to reserve some of the light work and non-work for administrators and enforcers. For a while, we have had concepts such as "education" and "retirement" that take the place of child labor and dying at your workstation, made possible by improvements in productivity in the working class.
So for those whose hands never acquired a callus, it has long been necessary that other people do harder work. Indeed, we even had more odious lies, such as "you must work hard, because you are my property," or "work hard, or you will be removed, and your family will starve."
Sometimes, the promise of promotion was not a lie. The very best of the hard workers were elevated to encourage the others, but never quite far enough that they might question what is really done with all that hard work.
We have robots and power generators now. None of us can work harder, faster, or more cheaply than a fully automated factory running on raw materials and electricity. The former economic necessities are no longer required. But no one is prepared to come out and say "no one really needs to work hard any more, and you will only be able to reach the top by owning the most productive capital" because there are so many people out there who have been toeing that line their whole lives, working hard without reaching even a local maximum. The economy isn't entirely automated--not yet--and we still collectively need some people to work. No one wants to be the one chump in ten that has to bust their ass every day while everyone else just lies around goofing off.
So we have the "bullshit job" phenomenon, to distribute and obfuscate who is doing all the actual work, making the other 9 put up the appearance of work for the sake of the one still actually doing the critical labor, or dividing up the work so that 10 people each do 10% of a real job and 90% flimflammery.
What we should be telling the kids is "own something now, before it is too late."
I somewhat agree with the premise, but then I read "going home to a bedroom which you share with many other siblings"
Yes, surely sharing a room with your brother and sister hampers your chances of success (sarcasm). Did he mean a cramped room? Even so, I don't agree.
There is no guarantee for anything in life, it's an absolute certainty that you will get nothing without some semblence of hard work.
[+] [-] mindcrime|9 years ago|reply
a. "more likely" doesn't mean it isn't possible to achieve if you aren't "born right"
and perhaps more to the point:
b. "success" is measured on a continuum; it's not a binary proposition. And there's a lot of room between "Becoming a Supreme Court justice" (just to pick an example) and winding up as a barista at Starbucks. Like, plenty of lawyers who make a nice living for their families, or all the thousands of local district and superior court judges out there, or the hundreds of federal circuit judges who don't quite make it to the very top.
This kind of article is boring and pointless because it's selling a dangerous idea: that nothing you do matters at all, and, ergo, you might as well do nothing. I mean, if hard work doesn't matter, why bother working hard to begin with, right?
As the old saying goes: "It is better to shoot for the stars and miss than aim at the gutter and hit it". Or another take on it: "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
So yeah, tell your kids to dream big and work hard. They'll probably go further than if you tell them "life sucks, you have no chance, so just go ahead and do nothing but play video games and smoke weed all day".
[+] [-] frooxie|9 years ago|reply
So if your kids turned out more successful than others, don't tell them it was just because they dreamt big and worked hard. While hard work is important, their success was also partially due to luck and the work of others, and they should never forget that.
[+] [-] maxxxxx|9 years ago|reply
These are fine. However, there is also the belief that all people who have reached the stars have worked hard or that people who haven't reached stars just haven't worked enough. These are wrong. Success is a combination of hard work and a good portion of luck. You most likely won't be successful if you don't work hard but if you don't succeed it's not necessarily because you haven't worked hard.
To me it's a call for successful people to be more compassionate with people who aren't successful.
[+] [-] 011235813213455|9 years ago|reply
>What I have learned in this short period of time is that the pervasive narrative of “if you work hard you will get on” is a complete myth. It’s not true and we need stop saying it. This is because “working hard, and doing the right thing” barely gets you to the starting line. Furthermore, it means something completely different depending on to which context you’re applying this particular notion. So much more is required.
If you note what he says at the end of that paragraph, it becomes obvious that what he's trying to get across is that you absolutely need hard work, but that will give you only the bare minimum to have a chance and it's definitely not a guarantee that you will do well.
[+] [-] sjg007|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] munchbunny|9 years ago|reply
I liked this article better, and it conveys more or less the same point as the topic link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/opinion/how-i-learned-to-...
The problem is that hard work makes a dent, but not a very big one if you don't understand the "game" that you need to play. It's easy to take this for granted if you grow up in an environment with many people who understand it because you learn it by osmosis.
[+] [-] dikdik|9 years ago|reply
I've been in too many situations and witnessed too many friends and family members that shoot for the moon but are never able to leave Earth as all their extra efforts are usurped by their managers and business owners.
Sure hard work "matters", it can help you get places, but how much does it matter is the question? Does it make 1% difference? 5% difference? 50% difference? I'd bet the difference is <10% compared to someone who does just enough to get by.
I think kids would go furthest of all if we told them "treat yourself as an autonomous being, work hard when you are in a position to realize the benefits of your hard work, otherwise do just enough and save your energy for better days."
[+] [-] kafkaesq|9 years ago|reply
Which isn't what the author was saying, of course.
[+] [-] notacoward|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kamaal|9 years ago|reply
You must work hard and contribute only to a system that is fair.
Its important to starve that system of good contributors which doesn't reward merit.
One of the reason why people immigrate to other countries, or move companies is because of futility of doing anything in their current ecosystem.
[+] [-] oceanghost|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FreedomToCreate|9 years ago|reply
Working hard will move you forward. How forward is hard to determine, and it varies. The reality is that some people in their lifetime won't achieve success but they lay the foundation for their children too...ex his mothers struggle to get from Africa to the UK laid the foundation for him to achieve his success. Their is little chance that he will become say the Prime Minister, but his children may...thanks to their dad being able to provide them with a privileged life.
[+] [-] sp332|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mediterraneo10|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwfunk|9 years ago|reply
Just because something's not 100% true doesn't mean it's 0% true. In this case, a more appropriate level of granularity would be: "if you work hard, you are more likely to be successful than if you don't work hard." That kind of nuance doesn't really resonate with children though, which is why we don't tell them that.
Complaining that it's all a big lie is akin to someone growing up, realizing that there is no Santa living in the North Pole, and concluding that the North Pole must also be a lie.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|9 years ago|reply
This argument is not, as some have claimed, an excuse for apathy. Rather, it argues that accepting the prevailing socioeconomic norms is foolish for anyone who is not close to the apex of society. The level playing field and other such political tropes are false, there is abundant evidence of this, and anyone who tells you otherwise either lying to you or to themselves.
[+] [-] dbg31415|9 years ago|reply
I grew up in a very poor part of the country, certainly bottom 5%. And eventually paid my own way through an Ivy League school... I would say that the lessons my dad taught me were solid.
1) It's important to work hard. You don't work hard to get ahead... you work hard so you are satisfied that you gave it your all. Take pride in your accomplishments -- however small. Work until you're happy with what you have done.
2) Be careful what you wish for -- what you choose to dedicate your life to doing is important, but know that luck plays a huge role. You can't count on luck, but you can be immensely thankful for it and humble accepting it.
3) The world is yours to make what you will out of it. You're the only one who can determine what is right for you. Nobody is better than you are, but you're no better than anyone else -- stand up for yourself, and be kind to those you run into along the way.
[+] [-] chippy|9 years ago|reply
The author misses the point. It's true that only saying “if you work hard you will get on” is not enough. But it's only half the picture - working hard will only get you somewhere - the starting line. Then you need to continue and improve and adapt. Whether it's worth that time and effort is another question.
But simply accepting a half truth as a whole and ignoring the whole picture is harmful "It’s not true and we need stop saying it." is the completely wrong thing to say. Better: "it's not the only thing that counts, and we need to give tell our children what they really need to do"
[+] [-] 011235813213455|9 years ago|reply
> So much more is required.
While he does not explicitly state what is required, he is obviously saying that we need to stop using that statement alone.
[+] [-] happypants23|9 years ago|reply
> I don’t see this mindset shifting, so my advice to youngsters has remained: you need to adapt yourself. You need to find the right way to speak to different people, at different times in different contexts. This is not compromising who you are, but rather adapting to the relevant surroundings.
[+] [-] sergiotapia|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikestew|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snarf21|9 years ago|reply
Luck favors the prepared mind - Louis Pasteur
[+] [-] vacri|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djschnei|9 years ago|reply
Alas, teaching children (and adults) they're but one of a larger group of victims is, and will always be, a political juggernaut.
[+] [-] clavalle|9 years ago|reply
Individually preferences, choices, dumb luck, etc. of course would lead to unequal outcomes -- as it should be. But when taken as a whole, those differences should disappear.
It is an ideal, but I like it because it is a measurable ideal.
[+] [-] Xcelerate|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kenji|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bunburying|9 years ago|reply
Apparently Americans are far more likely than Europeans to believe that hard work gets you to the top.
However, these expectations are apparently quite divorced from reality. Apparently hard work is far more likely to get you to the top in Europe (especially continental Europe) than in the US.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_t...
[+] [-] user5994461|9 years ago|reply
Europe and USA are large continents, comprised of many environments and sub cultures.
[+] [-] psyc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 11thEarlOfMar|9 years ago|reply
Luck matters, intelligence matters, natural skill matters, social circumstances matter, but hard work matters more.
You can be blessed with all of those behaviors and still fail, but hard work moves the odds in your favor more than the others.
[+] [-] logfromblammo|9 years ago|reply
Arbeit macht frei.
As far as I am aware, every human culture has always demanded more work than strictly necessary from the working class in order to support a relatively small proportion of non-workers or light workers. At the band/tribe level, that is generally very young children and very old elders. Larger organization units tended to reserve some of the light work and non-work for administrators and enforcers. For a while, we have had concepts such as "education" and "retirement" that take the place of child labor and dying at your workstation, made possible by improvements in productivity in the working class.
So for those whose hands never acquired a callus, it has long been necessary that other people do harder work. Indeed, we even had more odious lies, such as "you must work hard, because you are my property," or "work hard, or you will be removed, and your family will starve."
Sometimes, the promise of promotion was not a lie. The very best of the hard workers were elevated to encourage the others, but never quite far enough that they might question what is really done with all that hard work.
We have robots and power generators now. None of us can work harder, faster, or more cheaply than a fully automated factory running on raw materials and electricity. The former economic necessities are no longer required. But no one is prepared to come out and say "no one really needs to work hard any more, and you will only be able to reach the top by owning the most productive capital" because there are so many people out there who have been toeing that line their whole lives, working hard without reaching even a local maximum. The economy isn't entirely automated--not yet--and we still collectively need some people to work. No one wants to be the one chump in ten that has to bust their ass every day while everyone else just lies around goofing off.
So we have the "bullshit job" phenomenon, to distribute and obfuscate who is doing all the actual work, making the other 9 put up the appearance of work for the sake of the one still actually doing the critical labor, or dividing up the work so that 10 people each do 10% of a real job and 90% flimflammery.
What we should be telling the kids is "own something now, before it is too late."
[+] [-] wnevets|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ashwinaj|9 years ago|reply
There is no guarantee for anything in life, it's an absolute certainty that you will get nothing without some semblence of hard work.
[+] [-] sauronlord|9 years ago|reply
I thought we tell children that hard work pays off and is more likely to get you into a better position than being a slacker.
[+] [-] cashmonkey85|9 years ago|reply
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