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A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson

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Re: A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson

#21

Post by [deleted] »

rimbo789 wrote: post #12
rayiner wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native Americans were here for tens of thousands of years. If it was so easy to use Indians’ resources to build a civilization, why didn’t the Indians do it? Your attitude is illogical cope. How could “WASPs” have gotten rich from stealing from a group of people they vastly outnumbered and who were primitive in comparison?

Given all the raping, enslaving, pillaging, and general genociding europeans did upon arrival to North America I don’t think we can say it was the First Nations that were “primitive”

[deleted]

Re: A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson

#22

Post by paulryanrogers »

Atlas667 wrote: post #17
api wrote: post #10

In the debate between self made and team effort my opinion is “both.” Nobody starts from zero. Everyone builds on the work of others with help from others. At the same time, individuals can make unique contributions and are not just interchangeable parts. You see this over and over again in art, music, engineering, science, literature, etc., or really anything requiring skill. People aren’t interchangeable. I think b…

Yes, facts make it necessarily both. But what does that mean? What is attribution? What is ownership? How does our legal framework work? How does the media speak about reality? The reason for "great men" isn't that its true, it's that that's how our society is structured. These ideas come from how our property is structured. If a person can own as much wealth as millions and the media is on their side; great men exis…

Is that the traditional meaning of 'great' in "great men theory"?

If so, why not just say "strong men" or "powerful men" instead?

Re: A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson

#23

Post by quesera »

lazide wrote: post #9
ramesh31 wrote: post #4

Go back a few generations for just about every wealthy family in the US, and it's nothing but slave (or highly exploitative) labor building on land and resources stolen from the indians. It's the uncomfortable answer behind the question of "Why do WASPs own everything?". The whole "self-made" myth is nothing but a byproduct of white guilt all the way down.

Wait, I thought it was the Jews that owned everything? Or was it the Freemasons? I can’t even keep track anymore. I can’t think of a single WASP billionaire though - maybe that’s the mind control at work?

> I can’t think of a single WASP billionaire though

Gates, Buffett, Musk ... all spring to mind.

White certainly. Anglo-Saxon doesn't mean much more than "of western/northern european ancestry" any more. Protestant as much as any other non-Catholic Christian sect.

But WASP doesn't mean literally what it means any more, so maybe I'm missing the reason you overlooked the most famous modern American-citizen billionaires?

Re: A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson

#24

Post by roarcher »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #16
roarcher wrote: post #5

It's obviously true that nobody achieves things in a vacuum, since we all have some level of "privilege" given to us by our economic circumstances, the level of education available to us, our luckier heritable traits, etc. But for every successful person, there are countless others born to a similar level of privilege who squandered it. The claim that everyone owes their successes to the group ignores this.

> for every successful person, there are countless others born to a similar level of privilege who squandered it. Indeed. > The claim that everyone owes their successes to the group ignores this. This doesn't follow. Can you elaborate?

By "owe" I mean that the credit for their success belongs to the group and not the individual, because the individual was merely a product of good circumstances provided by the group. I believe this is the sentiment intended by the "no such thing as a self made man" crowd--no individual is special, and anyone else would achieve similar things under similar circumstances. This ignores the fact that many others DO enjoy similar circumstances but achieve nothing.

Re: A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson

#25

Post by Atlas667 »

roarcher wrote: post #5

It's obviously true that nobody achieves things in a vacuum, since we all have some level of "privilege" given to us by our economic circumstances, the level of education available to us, our luckier heritable traits, etc. But for every successful person, there are countless others born to a similar level of privilege who squandered it. The claim that everyone owes their successes to the group ignores this.

If you were to truly do a science of people would you not take into account all of the circumstances that person was in, in order to understand them?

You say: "One achieved it, but the other person in similar circumstances didn't achieve it"

Well how do their circumstances differ? Don't you think it's important how they differ? Actually, couldn't how they differ be the key?

Why, then, do you draw the line at an incomplete analysis? Maybe because it is convenient? Maybe because we'd rather not destroy our illusions of ourselves? Maybe its convenient not to understand others?

What is real in regards to ones self and others? There shouldn't be a loss of pride with understanding.

Re: A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson

#26

Post by Isamu »

ramesh31 wrote: post #18
roarcher wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the uncomfortable answer behind the question of "Why do WASPs own everything?" The correct answer to that question is "they don't".

>The correct answer to that question is "they don't Read the list and try to find a single non-WASP family: https://www.forbes.com/families/list/

Hang on, from a quick scan I see Koch is German in origin, Lauder is Hungarian Jewish, Pritzker is Ukranian. [edit] and DuPont is French … etc. I think you meant white, not WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant).

Re: A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson

#27

Post by rayiner »

ramesh31 wrote: post #18
roarcher wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the uncomfortable answer behind the question of "Why do WASPs own everything?" The correct answer to that question is "they don't".

>The correct answer to that question is "they don't Read the list and try to find a single non-WASP family: https://www.forbes.com/families/list/

The very first example on your list is the Walton family. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, grew up in nowhere Oklahoma as the child of farmers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton.

Show me where it says his wealth was built on your “WASP slavery money?”

Re: A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson

#28

Post by missedthecue »

roarcher wrote: post #5

It's obviously true that nobody achieves things in a vacuum, since we all have some level of "privilege" given to us by our economic circumstances, the level of education available to us, our luckier heritable traits, etc. But for every successful person, there are countless others born to a similar level of privilege who squandered it. The claim that everyone owes their successes to the group ignores this.

Disputing the notion of "self-made" is generally an attempt to deliberately misunderstand the point in order to derail the discussion, thus making discourse impossible.

No one who uses the term "self-made" literally believes that Howard Schultz never hired any employees at Starbucks, they mean to say that for someone who was born in the projects, he did very well for himself. Pointing out he hired employees adds no value to the discussion, so it's not why people point it out.

Re: A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson

#29

Post by anon291 »

api wrote: post #10

In the debate between self made and team effort my opinion is “both.” Nobody starts from zero. Everyone builds on the work of others with help from others. At the same time, individuals can make unique contributions and are not just interchangeable parts. You see this over and over again in art, music, engineering, science, literature, etc., or really anything requiring skill. People aren’t interchangeable. I think b…

> The “great man” theory leads to the idea that 99.999% of humans are mediocre at best and we all exist to serve a tiny number of greats

I feel this take says more about the person saying it then it does about the great men theorists.

Believing that revolutions often happen due to a few individuals does not mean that you believe most people are there to serve anyone. That's a non sequitur

Re: A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson

#30

Post by anon291 »

Atlas667 wrote: post #17
api wrote: post #10

In the debate between self made and team effort my opinion is “both.” Nobody starts from zero. Everyone builds on the work of others with help from others. At the same time, individuals can make unique contributions and are not just interchangeable parts. You see this over and over again in art, music, engineering, science, literature, etc., or really anything requiring skill. People aren’t interchangeable. I think b…

Yes, facts make it necessarily both. But what does that mean? What is attribution? What is ownership? How does our legal framework work? How does the media speak about reality? The reason for "great men" isn't that its true, it's that that's how our society is structured. These ideas come from how our property is structured. If a person can own as much wealth as millions and the media is on their side; great men exis…

Many kings were strong and admirable. Not sure why you are so down on individual kings even if monarchy is not a great system of governance and prone to tyranny.

Good kings provided protection from the very real threat of foreign barbarians, provided a common legal framework, and eased commerce, and thus human flourishing. Good kings deserve commendation even if monarchy has issues.

Ascribing only vices (chopping heads off) to monarchs is wrong.

To be clear, I am a staunch republican and believe king Charles and other European monarchs need to step down. However you are engaging in revisionism

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