A personal note: to
start this posting, this writer wants to share a conversation he had with a
relative. He, the relative, voiced the
opinion that he was responsible for the success he has achieved. It wasn’t government, it wasn’t community, it
wasn’t even family (maybe except for his wife).
He was responsible.
He was expressing an extreme version
of an argument that a person who is well-ensconced in the natural rights persuasion
loves to espouse. That view focuses on
the virtues and potentials of the individual – that is a powerful message, an
appealing message to many.
This blog has
argued that the natural rights view has become prominent in the American
political culture. While this relative
might be expressing the more extreme take on this bias, generally, Americans today
have a serious inability to see the error contained in this line of
argument.
This writer, trying not to start a
serious disagreement with the relative, did point out that his business
interests depended on government services concerning traffic, security, the
financial system, on and on. He
responded that that’s why he pays taxes – too much of them – and so, these
benefits are well paid for; they are a transaction.
Yes, he loves his country, but that
does not necessarily include the government and, given the general tenor of his
comments, that institution is seen as holding an anti-American character. He expressed these opinions with conviction
and confidence – there was little to no doubt in what he was saying.
The writer, Malcolm Gladwell,[1] has
something to report regarding this view:
…I want to convince you that these kinds
of personal explanations of success don’t work.
People don’t rise from nothing.
We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look
like they did it all by themselves. But
in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary
opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and
make sense of the world in ways others cannot.
It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies
passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we
cannot begin to imagine. It’s not enough
to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic
behind who succeeds and who doesn’t.[2]
Gladwell
begins his support for this conclusion by pointing out a usually overlooked correlation. That is, those who succeed in sports that are
played during certain parts of the year – e.g., hockey or baseball – are apt to
be born during certain stretches of dates.
In terms of hockey those are the months from January to April.
Why?
Because, it seems, they are older than their cohorts as they grow up and
learn to play the sport. That gives them
an advantage relative to the others; their mental and physical development is
marginally better but in a competitive environment, that can mean a lot.
They demonstrate, early on, higher
skill levels; they are then on starting teams, get better coaching, and develop
more productive emotional dispositions toward the sport, toward practice,
toward the discipline greatness demands.
In other words, in this seemingly innocuous twist of fate, certain
athletes have a consequential advantage and they had nothing to do with its
occurrence. Does it guarantee
success? Of course not. Hard work is essential, but it is not all
there is.
A person who has studied this phenomenon,
Paula Barnsley, proposes that this type of skewed age advantage works if three conditions
are also present: early selection of the
advantaged, separation of those deemed talented from the untalented, and the
“talented” are afforded superior training or other experiences to enhance the
talent. If the three coincide with or
are caused by the age advantage – people who are born just before the cutoff
dates of the various sports – these lucky ones have meaningful advantages.
Now apply this advantage in sports to
education; does it transfer to a scholastic endeavor? Yes, it does.
And as with sports, the advantage is not just a matter of the first year
or the first few years of schooling, but it extends for many years. And education, as the gateway to many other
opportunities, helps determine many of the successes one experiences through
life. This initial advantage shows
itself in testing and advancements toward higher education accomplishments –
from acceptance to higher education programs to further academic successes.
No, birthdates do not totally
determine who succeeds. Differences in
correlation studies varies from ten to twenty percentage points. But, one cannot deny an effect exists and,
one should remember, is a totally random variable; no one schedules his/her
birthdate. In addition, this birthdate
factor is only offered as an example of how a non-determined, accidental
condition can affect how successful people are successful. The famous sociologist, Robert Merton, gives
this type of advantage a name, the “Matthew Effect.” The Matthew refers to the Gospel of Matthew.
“For unto everyone that hath shall be
given, and he shall have abundance. But
from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” This excerpt from that gospel sounds
un-Christian, but it does ring true given the finding Gladwell is
reporting. The point is:
It is those who are successful, in
other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities
that lead to further success. It’s the
rich who get the biggest tax breaks.
It’s the best students who get the best teaching and most
attention. And it’s the biggest nine-
and ten-year-olds who get the most coaching and practice. Success is the result of what sociologists
like to call “accumulative advantage.”[3]
So, what does all this mean for educators, for civics
teachers?
The first step
to address this obvious, anti-federated reality is for people to become aware of
these unwarranted advantages that undermine fulfilling the federalist value,
regulated equality. How does these conditions
relate to regulations? Institutions –
government, schools, youth organizations, and the like – can regulate
differently how they treat age or other determining factors. This needs definite and serious study. This posting does not have the answers or is
it proposing a set of regulations. It
just wants to add its voice to this topic.
As for the
relative, he has worked hard; he did
not receive a good education; he immigrated to the US from a Central American country
in his teens and was the product of a broken home. He does deserve credit, along with his wife,
for achieving a comfortable retirement, three successful children with their
own families, and an extended number of years on this earth – he is in his eighties.
But he did not do it alone. For one thing, he was able to live his life
in post-World War II America with all the advantages the sole industrial power
during many of those years could provide.
The relative had nothing to do with that, but had the advantages flowing
from an unparalleled economy.
This blog has previously pointed out
this unequal distribution of advantages.
It has cited the work of the late John Rawls, the philosopher and social
commentator. In part, this is what this
blog has reported:
[Rawls]
two main relevant ideas regarding equality are (1) the notion that justice is
the product of a people/group establishing the basic rules of their arrangement
when no one knows beforehand what his/her status will be once the arrangement
is formulated and (2) that once one analyzes the reasons for anyone’s success,
one can only attribute limited attribution to a person’s effort for said
success. Both of these factors lead one
to limit any compensation one [should] … receive relative to market
determinations. Last, Rawls argues for
assistance for those not so privileged under the consideration that life can
and does visit misfortune on potentially anyone – “there but for the grace of
God go I.”[4]
Rawls’ ideas have influenced the
development of the federalist moral code this blog has proposed.[5]
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