'Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman criticizes the value of books that assess successful business practices and leaders. "The comparison of firms that have been more or less successful is to a significant extent a comparison between firms that have been more or less lucky." The author apparently feels this is a breakthrough thought that diminishes success--and, I suppose, failure--in the marketplace.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It is a variant of the "You didn't build that" riff that hopes to make success arbitrary and unjust. It has been a constant, if subtle, theme in Obama's speeches.
Only a fool would argue against luck. And only a bigger fool would try to define luck and then legislate against it. Imagine trying to balance the scales of beauty or height or speed. Worry about individual ambition or lack thereof, those with social graces, the backward academic, the aggressive warrior. Envision Kurt Vonnegut's ballet where the dancers' grace is hamstrung by awkward weights. Or are we all clean slates waiting for Yeats or Shakespeare or Einstein to be inscribed? Or should we be engineered, all genetically equal in a egalitarian dream, all citizens identical and true with true national identity? All indistinguishable and each equally representative. Like algae.
There is something strangely ancient about this thinking, Olympian and weird. Notions of dice and wheels and laughing Chance appear in the brain's mist. Tykhe was the Greek goddess of fortune and chance, one of the Moirai--or Fates, where anything could happen. Thkhe was usually paired with Nemesis, the goddess that maintained balance. She was particularly interested in matters of love, evil rewarded and excessive good fortune. Nemesis avenged wronged lovers, punished successful criminals and balanced unreasonable success.
To the Greeks she was also the goddess of indignation.
To the more practical Romans, she was jealousy.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It is a variant of the "You didn't build that" riff that hopes to make success arbitrary and unjust. It has been a constant, if subtle, theme in Obama's speeches.
Only a fool would argue against luck. And only a bigger fool would try to define luck and then legislate against it. Imagine trying to balance the scales of beauty or height or speed. Worry about individual ambition or lack thereof, those with social graces, the backward academic, the aggressive warrior. Envision Kurt Vonnegut's ballet where the dancers' grace is hamstrung by awkward weights. Or are we all clean slates waiting for Yeats or Shakespeare or Einstein to be inscribed? Or should we be engineered, all genetically equal in a egalitarian dream, all citizens identical and true with true national identity? All indistinguishable and each equally representative. Like algae.
There is something strangely ancient about this thinking, Olympian and weird. Notions of dice and wheels and laughing Chance appear in the brain's mist. Tykhe was the Greek goddess of fortune and chance, one of the Moirai--or Fates, where anything could happen. Thkhe was usually paired with Nemesis, the goddess that maintained balance. She was particularly interested in matters of love, evil rewarded and excessive good fortune. Nemesis avenged wronged lovers, punished successful criminals and balanced unreasonable success.
To the Greeks she was also the goddess of indignation.
To the more practical Romans, she was jealousy.
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