[lordleft]

As much as I love American upbeat-ness (I'm American) I think that our hatred of failure and our strained optimism puts a tremendous psychological pressure on us. Sometimes, we fail, and that's okay. Sometimes, we lose, and that's just life. I think that's an essential part of growing up, and our collective denial of that makes me feel like we, as a people, are not quite mature.

[GMoromisato]

I think (we) Americans hate failure only when people give up.

We have a very long tradition of failure leading to success, everything from Edison trying hundreds of lightbulbs to Don Draper in Mad Men reinventing himself after failure.

Our bankruptcy laws are different from other countries in how lenient they are towards the debtor. And, of course, the entire culture of Silicon Valley is about failure after failure followed by success.

And it's not even conventional, economic success that we want. We're happy when someone finds happiness even if not financial success. The rich-person-gives-up-everything-for-love is a familiar American trope.

We don't like failure, but we forgive it, as long as we keep trying.

[N_Lens]

I think you're over optimistic about the mindset of the majority of Americans. Americans love a winner and hate losers, that's why they elected Donald Trump.

[falcor84]

Absolutely agreed, we should be more eager to celebrate having tried and lost.

One good example that comes to mind is "Such a Loser" by Garfunkel and Oates, with its poignant "It's better to be a loser than a spectator"

https://youtu.be/m_JI5cqakIU

[dlivingston]

At least for American technologists (if not technologists more broadly, or Americans more broadly) failure is not at all seen as a bad thing: it's seen as a data point that XYZ didn't work, so now we'll pivot to ABC and give that a go.

Edison's quote about not having failed, but rather, discovering 1,000 ways not to do something captures this well.

[wodenokoto]

It’s a good counter point, but I don’t think it mimics the kind of failure embracing that Clark talks about.

It is more a reframing of failure as a success of learning and growing. E.g, while the project failed, you didn’t. You learned lessons and are stronger and better for it. You succeed.