

The Fallacy of Success - i04n
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11505/11505-h/11505-h.htm#THE_FALLACY_OF_SUCCESS

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swombat
Ironic that this chapter fails to get its own point:

> _Turning over a popular magazine, I find a queer and amusing example. There
> is an article called "The Instinct that Makes People Rich." It is decorated
> in front with a formidable portrait of Lord Rothschild. There are many
> definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people rich; the only
> "instinct" I know of which does it is that instinct which theological
> Christianity crudely describes as "the sin of avarice."_

And:

> _If these writers, for instance, said anything about success in jumping it
> would be something like this: "The jumper must have a clear aim before him.
> He must desire definitely to jump higher than the other men who are in for
> the same competition. He must let no feeble feelings of mercy (sneaked from
> the sickening Little Englanders and Pro-Boers) prevent him from trying to do
> his best. He must remember that a competition in jumping is distinctly
> competitive, and that, as Darwin has gloriously demonstrated, THE WEAKEST GO
> TO THE WALL."_

One of the hugest obstacles in front of most of the people on this forum, who
profess to desire to make more money, is a vague and bothersome belief that
money is somehow evil.

How can an intelligent person not see that the statement "rich people are
avaricious", deeply held as a core belief, is a block against any likelihood
of getting rich oneself?

I'm sure the book as a whole is full of useful wisdoms, but this particular
passage seems short-sighted to the point of not even being able to see its own
nose.

There are many issues with a large proportion of the self-help articles,
books, speeches and so on, but to declare that limitations of the self are
simply not worth considering is pretty dumb. As any high-achiever knows, most
of the battle is not against reality, but against your own limitations. Being
aware of those limitations and of how to shift them, remove them, or push
beyond them, is essential.

~~~
dkasper
He says there are many methods which make people rich, but only one "instinct"
he knows of (avarice). That doesn't imply he thinks all or even most rich
people are avaricious.

The point of the passage is that worshiping success is worthless, and moreover
success itself is a pretty meaningless term ("To begin with, of course, there
is no such thing as Success. Or, if you like to put it so, there is nothing
that is not successful.") If you see this as a short-sighted attempt to say
money is evil I think you've missed the point. The problem he's getting at is
not money, it is that people spend time dreaming of success instead of doing
something of value.

~~~
dgreensp
He can rightly say that there are few "magic bullets" in life (that are
articulated clearly in self-help books of 1915, at the very least), but I
think he reveals that he doesn't consider making money; success in business;
or managing oneself to be the metaphorical crafts or games that you can read
books about and get better at.

Moreover, the author _does_ say that people who seek to get rich are greedy,
and not only that, but that they are trying to succeed _by_ being greedy,
rather than by "good work":

 _But what shall we say of the gospel preached to the new Industrious
Apprentice; the Apprentice who rises not by his virtues, but avowedly [self-
admittedly] by his vices?_

If you acknowledge there is skill in succeeding (with a company, say, or in
overcoming a bad habit, or tending your goals and beliefs, perhaps even to
train more rigorously for that high jump), and that these things are moral or
at least not immoral, the author's argument falls apart. It's as if he spins
around and says that the best whist players and bricklayers must be propelled
by an unhealthy greed or pride, seeing as it's impossible to write a book on
such mystical things.

We recognize today that money is not moral or immoral, but amoral. Perhaps it
is dangerous that the economy is one big, somewhat arbitrary game, but so be
it. We should see it for what it is.

As for self-improvement, I look forward to collectively pulling back the
curtain on the human psyche more and more, continuing a pattern of ever-
enlarging consciousness and awareness, shedding light on what was previously
mysticism. From this perspective, the author just seems to be saying, "Stop,
there's nothing there. Don't sail that way or you'll fall off the edge of the
Earth."

~~~
degobah
You make a fair point that Chesterton seems to have a certain disdain for
making money and business, but it seems like you didn't read the essay very
carefully:

 _> If you acknowledge there is skill in succeeding (with a company, say, or
in overcoming a bad habit, or tending your goals and beliefs, perhaps even to
train more rigorously for that high jump), and that these things are moral or
at least not immoral, the author's argument falls apart._

His thesis or argument is that the books and articles of his day on "success"
are mainly rubbish. It is not to say that the word "success" is actually no
good, or that trying to succeed at some individual thing is not good. A main
point of his is that there _are_ individual skills to succeed at specific
things, but not an all-encompassing skill of "success."

I will concede that Chesterton sees people whose main mission in life is to
make money as greedy, because he strongly, strongly believes that money
doesn't make a person happy.

~~~
dgreensp
> It is all very stirring, of course; but I confess that if I were playing
> cards I would rather have some decent little book which told me the rules of
> the game. Beyond the rules of the game it is all a question either of talent
> or dishonesty; and I will undertake to provide either one or the
> other—which, it is not for me to say.

This false dichotomy between "talent and dishonesty" is an example of what
rubs me the wrong way, and it's no small thing. It still shows up today when
people get frustrated that the "best" things or people don't always succeed.
If you have a band, for example, is thinking about how to promote yourselves
on the side of greed rather than just being talented? What about an engineer
who could use some networking advice to find a better job? The athlete who
lacks discipline, or who needs to connect more fully with his dreams and
motivations to burst forth and excel?

You could say these are still specific skills, just enlarged ones, but I
believe there is such a thing as skill at every level of generality.

The 20th century saw new awareness of the imperfect correspondence between
quality and success, for example in the form of marketing -- think cigarettes,
or Bush Jr. There's also some new understanding of talent vs. success. It used
to be you just called a talented but unsuccessful person "lazy." Or, I
suppose, insufficiently greedy.

------
anoncow
All Things Considered - G K Chesterton

Link to mobile site <http://m.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11505.mobile>

Desktop <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11505>

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triplesec
Chesterton is railing against exchorational books, some of which are useless.
However, this deeply conservative man seems to be focused entirely on the
action and ignored meta problems which are just as useful, and if solved often
enabling by huge multipliers. Chesterton ignores the mind, the problems of
concentration, focus, mental health and so forth. We are nothing without good
process, and self-help books or the actions they describe are hugely useful
with that, if we heed their advice. This piece is a deeply anachronistic and
flawed essay, a sunday paper kind of opinion piece, and part of the unworthy
section of any great person'w oeuvre.

~~~
degobah
> We are nothing without good process, and self-help books or the actions they
> describe are hugely useful with that...

His FIRST criticism is that the books and articles about success are vague
(i.e. lacking in specific actions) and ineffective (not actually useful).

> This piece is a deeply anachronistic

You are aware this is an essay from around 1908?

~~~
triplesec
Chesterton's one of the UK's most famous essayists and my dad grew up with his
Father Brown stories. The age of the piece is precisely _why_ I said it was
anachronistic! It's possible that the obvious issue of its age could have been
clearer, both in the posting, and in my comment, although its presence on
gutenberg.org is a good enough clue for most HN readers.

This is clearly not his best work. I suspect he had a hangover, just as
Beethoven clearly did during some of his more inane piano writing. Even the
greats have off days!

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alexvr
I thought Outliers by Malcom Gladwell was a good book, but maybe it's an
exception. It really shed some new light on life in general, so I'm glad I
read it as a high school junior. It's ignorant to write off an entire genre of
books, even if much of the genre is comprised of convenience store bookshelf
"Become a millionaire overnight!" title bait books on the subject; when an
author takes a closer look at what success really is, it can actually be a
worth-while read.

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mikecane
You can grab a PDF version of the entire book that has this essay, for free,
here: [http://books.google.com/books?id=Rvk-
AAAAYAAJ&dq=%22the%...](http://books.google.com/books?id=Rvk-
AAAAYAAJ&dq=%22the%20fallacy%20of%20success%22&pg=PA21#v=onepage&q=%22the%20fallacy%20of%20success%22&f=false)

------
norswap
This book is awesome. Chesterton is the witty english gentleman equivalent of
the old chinese master.

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michaelochurch
Success books aren't so much _wrong_ as self-referential.

People with unconditional ambition-- they don't care what the world looks
like, so long as they're on top-- are a plague. Even worse are the dishonest
ones who use the word "success" to (thinly) conceal their less socially
acceptable desires: money and power. For such people, though, there is a route
to what they want: degenerate social climbing. At the top of society, there
really is no there there. The bad of this is that it reinforces what we've
suspected for a long time: the world really is run by idiots. The good is that
anyone who is sufficiently dishonest can get up there (with a bit of luck,
some extortion, and a habit of self-reinvention).

People who peddle "success crack" have shown a capacity for taking their "fake
it till you make it" campaigns and making them public and, thus, far more
lucrative. The seed is a knack for telling people what they want to hear. This
spins into a speaking tour or a book deal, which makes them legitimately
"successful", which accelerates peoples' interest in hearing what they have to
say.

The problem with success crack is that it comes from people whose successes
are non-repeatable. Motivational speakers lecture on how to be successful, but
the number of people who _can_ be successful in that small, peculiar, niche is
very small.

~~~
orangethirty
Well put. People seem to forget that success is an event and not a lifestyle
(or being rich). I prefer to read about failure due to how it tends to teach
more than success.

~~~
michaelochurch
Success is a _result_. No one can control results. In fact, the better you
are, the less control you tend to have over results, because you relinquish
control and reliability in favor of high-risk, high-expectancy plays.

(As I get older, however, I'm starting to realize that some of that risk-
seeking is pathological. I'd rather have a stable lifestyle business where I
can do work that's good for the world and live, reliably, quite well... than a
10% shot at a $200m acqhire welfare check that leaves the rest of the team
hosed.)

I wrote about this before anyone knew who I was:
[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/stop-
writing-...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/stop-writing-
about-success-and-start-writing-about-failure/)

~~~
orangethirty
Perfectly put. Bravo.

------
degobah
"At least, let us hope that we shall all live to see these absurd books about
Success covered with a proper derision and neglect." - G.K Chesterton, 1908.

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Kequc
This link 403s for me.

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itistoday2
TLDR?

~~~
degobah
A witty essay from 1908 observes that "success" is a ridiculously vague idea
and that "success" books/articles of the day are vague useless drivel. Also,
people should stop worshiping rich guys and mainly just try to be good at what
they do.

------
lutusp
> The falacy [sic] of success

Translation: The fallacy of thinking one can correctly type a submission
title.

