outliers.

my simple claim about why most americans (stress on the word 'most' and not restricting the generalization on one nationality) cannot fundamentally understand a social democratic state has, for a while now, been that their view on success and failure are individual based. my basic tenet is that they cannot tolerate a political system where free-riding is possible: the idea that someone got something out of the system without individual effort hurts their ideal of singular success stories. i collided into my "revelation" when trying to explain our society to friends and acquaintances in the u.s.: the response was always admiring, but ended with a doubt about mooches. how did we deal with abuse of the system? how could we pay taxes knowing that somebody was just claiming the benefits without a need, that we supported the lifestyle of laziness? i explained that it was because we have internalized the fact that people are not solely responsible for what goes on in their life and whether they thrive or collapse under pressure. it does not agree with the american ideal of the self-made man. logically, failure is also accredited to the individual despite our psychological tendency to think our own failures are not our own fault.

americans base (and others who cheer for the right wing rather than the welfare state) their political system on liberalism in its purest forms. pure liberalism (or libertarianism) places responsibility on the individual, but more or less ignores the fact that not everyone starts the same nor is surrounded by the same opportunities. true to their name, liberalists believe that similar freedoms or liberty maximized, is the most important factor in creating equality. their thinking is faulty, as has been proven by liberalists themselves. john rawls, who's often named as The Liberalist Thinker, started his theory of justice (1971) from the simple realization that people are not born equal and these inequalities tend to follow them throughout life, and as much as rawls's analysis was insufficient, his reluctance to give credit to the singular greatness of those who succeed, rightly places him near the top of political thinkers.

to my surprise, malcolm gladwell has uttered the same thought in his new book outliers (little, brown and company 2008). he claims that we are too keen on explaining success through individual effort and strenuous work, and that we often ignore the advantages and possibilities that are enjoyed by those who do, in fact, succeed. it does not mean that success stories happen despite individual work and that we could not take pleasure and congratulate ourselves for our own triumphs, not in the least. nevertheless, it is quite a different story to take singular credit for one's victories and think that this choice to ignore the realities of what enabled the success somehow works as a good basis for social justice.

david leonhardt writes in his ny times book review:

"Many people, I think, have an instinctual understanding of this idea (even if Gladwell, in the interest of setting his thesis against conventional wisdom, doesn’t say so). That’s why parents spend so much time worrying about what school their child attends. They don’t really believe the child is so infused with greatness that he or she can overcome a bad school, or even an average one. And yet when they look back years later on their child’s success — or their own — they tend toward explanations that focus on the individual. Devastatingly, if cheerfully, Gladwell exposes the flaws in these success stories we tell ourselves."

gladwell's capability to express ideas clearly and his reputation as a writer give me hope that this simple realization would gain more ground among people. it might work as a stepping stone for creating social minimums which were actually sufficient. hooray.