Is a Hard Life Inherited?

I'm going to post a recent Onion article. It shares some of my thoughts on the subject matter far more eloquently than my own words ever could.

"White Male Privilege Squandered On Job At Best Buy

HAMILTON, OH—Despite being the beneficiary of numerous societal advantages and having faced little to no major adversity throughout his life, local man Travis Benton has spent the last four years squandering his white male privilege on a sales floor job at Best Buy, sources confirmed Tuesday. “You can get by with a regular HDMI cable, but if you’re looking at a length longer than 10 feet, I’d go with a gold-tipped one,” said the man dressed in a bright blue polo shirt and pin-on name tag as he continued to fritter away such innate life advantages as greater access to higher education, leniency from the justice system, and favorable treatment from other white males who lead and make hiring decisions at a disproportionately high number of American companies. “The AudioQuest gold-tip is actually the cable I use in my own home entertainment center and it provides excellent audio and video clarity, plus it comes with a full five-year warranty, unlike the 90-day warranty of a bargain brand. For your money, you’re not going to find a better cable.” At press time, the man born into the world’s most affluent and privileged socioeconomic group was spending his 15-minute break silently consuming a sleeve of Donettes purchased out of a vending machine."

http://www.theonion.com/articles/white-male-privilege-squand...

There are also plenty of soccer players who worked hard, trained as much as they could and did not became famous players. The same goes for any well developed sport. Hard work is a must, but so is the right body type, support in make difference age and, well, luck.

> Yet many are oblivious of their own advantages, and of other people’s disadvantages. The result is [...] partly explaining the hostility to state expansion of Medicaid, to long-term unemployment benefits, or to raising the minimum wage to keep up with inflation.

I don't think hostility to the expansion of social welfare programs depends much on one's stance in the debate about the relative importance of different factors of success in life.

The causation runs the other way. It's convenient and pleasant for the successful to think their success is of their own making. It's convenient and extenuating for the less successful to attribute their failures to external factors. We internalize success and externalize failure.

Both arguments are self-serving simplifications of a surely more complex reality.

It also goes other way round. Just as bad behavior cause economical problems, economical problems cause social and behavioral problems.

If you live in a place with huge unemployment rates, not much to do and little hope for future, you are more likely to start drinking or get into trouble. The effect can be seen when local economy goes down the drain while the people stay in place - problems goes up usually.

To add to it, when people try and fail multiple time, they often give up entirely. Then they are unable to help themselves even if it is actually possible (learned helplessness). If your changes to succeed in whatever you have been trying as young were too low, you might have concluded that there is no point trying anymore.

It is certainly true that productively developing a valuable skill set will set you apart from the vast majority. With a few helpful insights, the right attitude, and an ability to quickly overcome obstacles, you will be an exceptional person, without a doubt. If you assign credit for success to a person's attitude and perseverance, then certainly "luck" had little to do with it.

Where things get dicey is when you ask the next set of "whys". I.e., "why does this person have such a helpful attitude? why do they have such perseverance?". To what do we attribute these qualities? If it's genes, then it's luck (you can't take credit for your genes). If it's parenting, then it's luck (you can't take credit for your parenting).

Perhaps it's neither genes, nor parenting, but instead "spirit" or "will". So, whence these qualities? The person's "soul"? Something immaterial? Anyone who provides these kinds of answers is necessarily endorsing brain-mind dualism, which (near as anyone can tell) is almost surely false.

Does this mean that everyone can disclaim personal responsibility for their actions? Surely not. Choosing to believe in one's own agency in turn empowers one's own agency. But everyone's believing in a fiction, no matter how necessary or adaptive this fiction happens to be, doesn't render it true.