Rather than dwell on why zombies in Haiti are interesting, let me just say read my earlier post here. It sums ups everything you wanted to know about real zombies but were afraid to ask. In a nutshell -- beliefs cause zombies.
Horatio Alger was a writer and quite a prolific one. In the 19th century he books, and lots of them. See the wiki if you’re not sure. His books, all zillion of them, had the same plot. Poor schmuck works hard, plays by the rules, and voila a hundred pages later he is a captain of industry. Americans ate it up. All you had to do was work really hard, didn’t matter if you were a shoe shine boy or a flower girl you too could become the new rich. Most importantly of all you deserved it. Just pull yourself up by the bootstraps; he coined that phrase, by the way.Maybe Alger was the first self-help guru. Maybe he was just a hack novelist — with a formula. Maybe he was just a good liar. Whatever the case his message has inevitably shaped America and anyone who grows up here.
At our core we believe in Meritocracy, a fancy word I picked up in college to describe the rags to riches story, the belief that the people who get ahead deserve it. It’s one of our unquestionable beliefs. If you work hard you will get ahead.
Don't get me wrong I think people can get ahead. My beef is with what meritocracy implies.
What does that say about people who haven’t gotten ahead? What does it say about people who have tried and failed? Answer these questions and I think you have every Tea party slogan out there. IF you can't reach the top, it's your own damn fault.
If you think about it his whole message is just a merit based version of social Darwinism or Eugenics. People who fail deserve to fail. God, fortune, genetics, whatever has doomed certain people to the life of the underling, unless of course they work really hard and play by the rules. Working hard and being the best shoe shine boy or flower girl is essential to the Alger myth.
Anyone can reach the top.
Really! How many fucking shoe shine boys have become captains of industry?
Name one, Mr. Alger.
Related Articles
- Kathleen Parker: The high-tech fairy tale of Antoine Dodson (commercialappeal.com)
- The Internet's unlikely star (timesunion.com)
- F*ck Horatio Alger (yougabsports.com)
- Lauren Leto Says Goodbye to All That, Hello to New York (observer.com)
- Horatio Alger Gets Remixed: GalleyCat Readers Re-Write 'Joe's Luck' (huffingtonpost.com)
Very true. I was brought up to believe that if you work hard you can do anything.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the caveats to that are often overlooked.
First you need to be able to communicate. Plenty of people work very hard but can't read or write or even speak well. These are certainly qualities one HAS to posses in order to advance in this world.
I think also a sharp wit to spot ne'er do wells is essential. There are too many crooks looking to take advantage of people. If you can't figure out who the sucker at the table is, then it is you!
There are many more qualifications that I believe are necessary that I won't mention.
Of course the benefit to Mr. Algers mantra is that far more people in America try and try and try. This, I believe, is part of the reason for our "exceptionalism" and extreme levels of success and production in this country. To that I think Mr. Alger deserves some thanks!