Ah but there is the rub. You can work for what you want to attain. Other people can do the same. However people have different goals, different views, abilities, talents and motivations. For some people working 70 hours a week is worth it if they move higher up the food chain. For others it is now. The wonderful part of the capitalist system is that the *individual* gets to choose how much effort they put in. And since no one puts in 100% (as far as I can see) of all of their time working/improving/learning there will always be a portion of the blame attributed to the individual himself for not being successful.It is a myth. Think about it.
Suppose you'd worked as hard as you could to get as high as you can in your current employer. Suppose everyone else in the business does the same. Does that mean it'll end up with nothing but managers? I would hope not, for its sake. There's a finite number of well paying jobs in the economy. We can't all be rock stars, managers and doctors: someone has to clean toilets and collect garbage.
looking back i can see that tear's post implies that the best way to help at-risk kids is through short interventions at a very early age, so i guess he WAS talking about Head Start after all. The data is ambiguous, but the studies have been iffy as well. the best one (which indicated that HS was great for certain groups of three-year-olds in particular) had a control group where like 60% of the kids were in some OTHER kind of intervention programme
but that's a short-term intervention, and from what i've gathered it doesn't change the kids' family's situation in the long term. big surprise, then, that the effect vanishes over the course of ten or so years!
Last edited by Aimless; 01-31-2010 at 09:11 AM.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
sneaky lewkowski, you forgot "different lives"! and how bizarre, you exclusively focus on the individual and on the blame that can be placed on the individual, and completely ignore the individual's context. his family, his upbringing, his school, his society. the mistakes made at early stages that end up punishing him forever. it's almost as if you'd like to pretend those things don't matter.
it's almost as if you'd like to pretend that those things can't be changed!
but of course you'd like to believe that, it lets you hate on taxes while still pretending to be a virtuous man
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
it's only legitimate if it's IMPOSSIBLE??
bizarre
not saying i accept the premise of course
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
whether or not you see it as a myth depends on what absurd/extraordinary lengths you expect people can/will go to i guess
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
to clarify, i was under the impression that the thesis under discussion was the myth that anyone can pull themselves up from any level to any level by their own bootstraps more or less without help.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Or the huge number of NGOs that have taken up the slack from an ineffective Haitian government. There are some reports that the citizens want the US to come in and re-build, not just assist their government. Kind of a semantic dilemma too, since they didn't have sophisticated electrical, water, sewerage to begin with.
May I point out that Haiti is on the island of Hispaniola. On this island we find one other state; The Dominican Republic with a GDP per capita of $8,200. Haiti, which roughly has the same predisposition as its neighbour has a GDP per capita of $1.300
To me it seems that if, as a nation, Haiti would have put in an effort then they could have managed to do a little better than they are doing. As targets go the Dominican Republic isn't exactly the highest you could go for to overtake.
Congratulations America
But when you do not achieve your goal you need to ask yourself, "Did I do everything I could have?" If the answer is no, then quit blaming other people. Work harder, work smarter, better yourself and go at it again.Which you may not achieve, thanks to circumstances beyond your control.
What about that? Critics have been comparing them for a long while, but it won't make a whit of difference in the beginning stages of a true crisis situation. You're talking long term concerted effort in planning, legislation, reworking decades of inefficiencies, and massive international funding.
Rather hard to do when they're still figuring out how to bulldoze bodies in mass graves and find clean drinking water, as well as creating make-shift communities out of sheets hung by sticks.
So what difference is it going to make if in the long run they consistently refuse to do anything to make their lives better? The first obvious positive step for any person would be to leave Port-au-Prince, because it's a dangerous place to live and no longer has even the rudiments of an infrastructure. The only reason to stay there is that it's closest to the places where food and water are handed out for free. How's that for proof that these people have got themselves to blame for not getting ahead.
If they want to live in the shit they made themselves, I'm quite happy to let them, as they have no inclination themselves to change anything.
Congratulations America