
G.K. Chesterton: The fallacy of success (1909) - mustapha
http://mustapha.svbtle.com/tfs
======
F_J_H
Not on topic as far as the article is concerned, but in regards to G.K.
Chesterton, my favorite quote of his is:

 _" Never take down a fence until you understand why it was put up."_

I used to use that one a lot with developers trying to improve on a
predecessor's code...

~~~
ctdonath
That's the basis for "conservatism": recognize that many processes, rules,
barriers, morals, norms, etc. have been hard-won and hard-learned at great
cost (money, lives, time), that we may not remember/understand quite why
they're in place but they're there for good reason nonetheless, and
abandoning/destroying them out of ignorance may doom generations to suffer
until they re-discover why those were enacted in the first place.

That's also why rebuilding systems from scratch (the old "just rip it all out
and do it again") usually doesn't work: there is a great deal of wisdom,
however poorly implemented or documented, buried within that system. Starting
over abandons those minute but critical bits, and must be re-discovered the
hard way.

~~~
smacktoward
And yet the crowning achievement of conservatism in the last thirty years has
been tearing down the processes, rules, barriers, morals, norms, etc. that
were put in place during the Great Depression to prevent capitalism from
tearing itself apart again.

~~~
mscottmcbee
There's a difference between an ideology and a country's political party.

~~~
smacktoward
This line of argument tiptoes kind of close to the "no true Scotsman"
argument, though. Don't you think?

"Conservatism is about respect for established institutions!"

"But every conservative I see is running around tearing down those
institutions."

"Those people aren't _real_ conservatives!"

~~~
__--__
No, the line of argument is that conservative means two different things in
two different contexts.

------
nrmilstein
Wow, what fantastic writing. I often find tech entrepreneurs and HN readers
are too obsessed with success and wealth, often explaining away any
accusations of greed by claiming it's their "passion" and talking in mystic
terms of the tech revolution they're a part of.

The biggest thing I would call a "success" in my life is the joy I've received
from good friends and family, and the experiences I've had with them. Things
that take a long time to cultivate and over which I often have little control.

~~~
ekanes
Value is created when both sides want what the other side is offering more
than what they have. There is a case to be made that your wealth is a
reflection of the value you have created in the world. Do Big Things in the
world, and you may find yourself wealthy. It's not necessarily greed. When you
speak of success, and friends and family, most people on HN would agree, but
put them on a parallel track to wealth. They are more to do with happiness
imho. Rock on.

~~~
jholman
> _Value is created when both sides want what the other side is offering more
> than what they have._

Value is created when, by your action, you change the world to a state that
you, or another person, find preferable to the previous state.

On the other hand, _trade is profitable_ when both sides want what the other
side is offering more than they have (with some caveats involving deceit).

That was a quibble with a minor stumble you made, now for a reply of
substance:

As for wealth being a reflection of the value that you have created, it might
be. It might be that you inherited it. It might be that you stole it. It might
be that you tricked someone into believing you had something they wanted, and
traded for it. Maybe you extracted rent (in the study-of-economics sense),
without creating value. Maybe your wealth comes of virtuous value-generation,
but you earned more wealth per value than another person, by virtue of skin
colour or gender or whatever. There are many many ways to acquire wealth, and
scant few of them require creating value, and even fewer reflect virtue in a
linear and straightforward way.

And similarly, value that you create may not convert to wealth. Who created
more value, Torvalds or Zuckerberg? Not that Linus is poor, but he's not a
billionaire, afaik. I propose for consideration that it may be far easier to
create value when wealth is not a priority (though I concede that in some
circumstances, vehicles like corporations help with scaling your value-
creation).

Now, all that said, you might amend your position thus: "Wealth earned in
certain ways, with certain restrictions, is roughly proportionate to value
created, perhaps modulo a scaling factor beyond anyone's control." Okay, I
sort of agree. BUT! If you believe this, it follows that spending your wealth
on yourself is destroying (consuming) value. I make a sandwich, wealth is
generated. I eat the sandwich, wealth is destroyed. I make $1000 of software
and get paid accordingly, wealth is created. I spend it on plane tickets, I
consume/destroy the wealth. Only the money you give away (including via taxes)
is wealth created-and-not-consumed. Bill Gates was a leech on society (rent-
seeking friction-inducing market manipulation)... until he decided not to be,
and redeemed himself twice over.

So, in summary: while there is a relationship, in some limited circumstances,
between wealth and value-creation, taking wealth as a proxy for virtue is
spectacularly mistaken.

~~~
numeromancer

        I spend it on plane tickets, I consume/destroy the wealth.
        Only the money you give away (including via taxes) is 
        wealth created-and-not-consumed.
    

So if I buy a bottle of wine to have with dinner, and my wife and I drink it
with dinner, I have destroyed wealth, and am a mooch. If I give the wine-money
to a bum who then uses it to buy a bottle of Mad Dog and drinks himself into a
stupor, I have created wealth, and am a benefactor to mankind.

Mad Dog for all bums now!

------
npalli
Wowza, that was some Inception style mind bender out there.

At the top you have a rookie author using an early 21st century platform
(svbtle) to dispense bon mots about life and ingratiate himself with his
readers who are turned off by current social mores by

\--- Aligning himself with the words of a rookie author in the early 20th
century platform (books) who dispensed bon mots about life at the turn of the
20th century who in turn ingratiates himself with his readers who are turned
off by then current social mores by

\--- Invoking the words of puritans of the early 19th century who in turn …
well the trail ends since we don’t know what they thought. Plus we live in a
puritan culture so I suppose we are stuck with whatever they thought and that
is foundational.

Three level inception. Nice.

“Medium” guys take note, svtble is using a three level inception to gain
readership. The game is on. You need a four level inception to convince me.
Otherwise, I ain’t clicking on your ads.

Seriously though, I’m reminded of the foreword of another early 20th century
book as noted by Oscar Wilde

In old days books were written

by men of letters and read by the

public. Nowadays books are written

by the public and read by nobody.

~~~
mistermcgruff
G. K. Chesterton was a great mind and certainly not a "rookie author." I hope
I'm reading you wrong there. You may not agree with him, but that doesn't mean
he's a rookie.

Wikipedia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton)
American Chesterton Society:
[http://www.chesterton.org/](http://www.chesterton.org/)

~~~
npalli
Sure, he was a great mind. However he was getting started by the time of All
things considered, published 1908. Let's put it this way, he published far
more after this essay than before, so on a relative level he was rookie author
when he wrote the essay.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton_bibliography](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton_bibliography)

------
001sky
_It is perfectly obvious that in any decent occupation (such as bricklaying or
writing books) there are only two ways (in any special sense) of succeeding.
One is by doing very good work, the other is by cheating. Both are much too
simple to require any literary explanation._

~~~
dalek_cannes
Bertrand Russell once said that all work falls into one of two basic
categories: moving objects on or near the surface of the Earth, and telling
other people to do so.

~~~
nrmilstein
That's a great quote. Do you have a source? I can't find it online from him.

~~~
jhickner
> First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the
> position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such
> matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant
> and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. The second kind is
> capable of indefinite extension: there are not only those who give orders,
> but those who give advice as to what orders should be given. Usually two
> opposite kinds of advice are given simultaneously by two organized bodies of
> men; this is called politics.

------
skidoo
I think I have been silently screaming to read something like this for ages
and ages. Capitalism, the godless religion. Thank you for that link.

~~~
bgilroy26
For anyone who might be interested, the greater part of Chesterton's work is
available for free online.

The essay quoted in the blog post above is from this collection:
[http://archive.org/details/allthings00chesuoft](http://archive.org/details/allthings00chesuoft)

Many volunteers have shared recordings of themsevles reading Chesterton's
writings aloud

[http://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22G%20K%20Che...](http://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22G%20K%20Chesterton%22%20AND%20collection%3Aaudio_bookspoetry)

~~~
mustapha
This is excellent. I'll add this to the article so everyone can read it all.
Thanks for taking the time out to search for and put it up.

------
zt
There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter,
or cheat. Now I don't cheat. And although I like to think that we have some
pretty smart people in this building...it sure is a hell of a lot easier to
just be first.

~~~
phreanix
What happened to "be better"?

~~~
aspensmonster
It's a quote from the movie Margin Call, IIRC.

------
tehwalrus
I loved this article - anything which dismantles an ideology (especially one
as ancient and terrible as money-worship) always gives me a smile.

------
Pitarou
G. K. Chesterton nails it every time.

------
informatimago
Success is in the eyes of the beholder. Take two millionaires. On that had the
objective of having by now one million bucks, has them, reached his objective,
success! The other had the objective of having by now two million bucks, has
only one million: failure. Not even close.

Now what if the later changes his objective after the fact? IMO still a
failure :-)

So success is not defined by what you have are or archive, but by the goals
you set for yourself.

I am a big failure: I'm not 500 light years from here exploring the stars. :-(

~~~
bostonpete
So your advice to kids who want to succeed in life would be to aim low?

~~~
dalek_cannes
"Low" by whose standards and compared to what? Those who mistake success for
happiness usually end up losing both. We recently had a wealthy corporate CFO
in these parts who had pretty much everything everybody else wants jump off a
bridge because... I don't even know why.

------
markost
In a chat with one of my older friends who I respect very much, he lent this
advice: _Mark, the first thing you need to do to be successful is make a
decision on what you want to accomplish, and then commit all your resources to
that goal._

------
jdmitch
_A hundred years ago we had the ideal of the Industrious Apprentice; boys were
told that by thrift and work they would all become Lord Mayors. This was
fallacious, but it was manly, and had a minimum of moral truth...The
Industrious Apprentice rose by virtues few and narrow indeed, but still
virtues. But what shall we say of the gospel preached to the new Industrious
Apprentice; the Apprentice who rises not by his virtues, but avowedly by his
vices?_

So who are the _new_ new Industrious Apprentices? Growth Hackers? ;)

~~~
nikatwork
Graduate nerds being exploited in web dev sweatshops.

------
Camillo
Chesterton is a great writer that ought to be better known.

~~~
bloaf
Not only are his works worth reading, he is endlessly quotable.

~~~
ableal
And, as usual, he's quoted for what he did not quite say (but the meaning is
accurate): [http://www.chesterton.org/discover-chesterton/frequently-
ask...](http://www.chesterton.org/discover-chesterton/frequently-asked-
questions/cease-to-worship/)

------
SeanDav
Although the author is trying to make some good points, he succeeds only in
attempting to tear down. He does not appear to offer any reasonable
alternatives.

I came away from this article feeling slightly unclean, as if wanting to
improve myself is both pointless and somehow wrong. It appears that I should
have no goals, aiming only for mediocrity.

~~~
huxley
I think you may be misreading him, Chesterton isn't saying you should stop
improving yourself, but that you can't hope to find that improvement in a book
detailing the supposed habits of the wealthy and successful (or the one weird
trick that makes everyone a millionaire).

Your goal shouldn't be to become Cornelius Vanderbilt, it should be to take
advantage of your abilities and circumstances to find your own path to
success.

------
tokenadult
A website post, "Saint Chesterton?" commenting on recent discussion of
proposals for canonization of G.K. Chesterton (declaring him to be a saint):

[http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/saint-
che...](http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/saint-chesterton/)

~~~
slurry
Really a charitable understatement of the case against.

------
Debugreality
Success is easy to sell as it is most often what someone believes they need.
Perhaps it masks a flaw in their character.

The example in the article relates to money but success to a lonely man may be
love. Perhaps success means only that which we most feel we need to be
complete.

------
devgutt
_The days of idealism and superstition are over. We live in a time of science
and hard common sense..._

Unfortunately, it wasn't true in 1909, and still not true at all today

~~~
bitserf
Did you miss the quotes?

~~~
hyperpape
I don't know if it's a browser issue or something else, but I actually don't
see any quotation marks, or italics, or anything else. I spent a good while
figuring out where one of the quotes ended.

~~~
aspensmonster
Same here. No actual quotes or other indication of quoted text, but context
was enough to figure out when the quote began and ended.

~~~
devgutt
sorry about that, but it appears in italic for me. with quotes: "The days of
idealism and superstition are over. We live in a time of science and hard
common sense..."

------
rajivtiru
For those interested, you don't have to flip through the images to read. All
Things Considered is free on the kindle store.

Or download ebook here:
[http://openlibrary.org/books/OL13992463M/All_things_consider...](http://openlibrary.org/books/OL13992463M/All_things_considered)

------
BigChiefSmokem
It's like Chesterton is describing every other marketing post on HN.

Fascinating!

------
EGreg
I wonder if Chesterton ever read Dale Carnegie :)

~~~
josephjrobison
Haha well put, I've read both and Chesterton is good for having a deep
understanding of how humans behave and I come away feeling smarter and more
interested in the world. I enjoy Carnegie at the same time and get a rush of
optimism after reading, but they are more general tactics.

What's even more amazing is that writing from these authors from the early
1900s and 1930s is clearer and stronger writing than a lot of stuff today -
well at least compared to blogs.

~~~
Ygg2
That's not strange/amazing/weird. They passed through filter of time. For
every Chesterton/Carnegie there are thousand really bad contemporary writers,
prostitutes aspiring to be writers etc.

If you lived in their time, you'd probably say same about people from 1850.
And saying all those news articles are pretty mundane and bad. And that the
thing people scribble on walls are very rude.

Technology changes, people don't.

~~~
numeromancer

        That's not strange/amazing/weird.
        They passed through filter of time.
        For every Chesterton/Carnegie
        there are thousand really bad contemporary writers,
        prostitutes aspiring to be writers etc.
    

Indeed, the subject of the article was the abundance of such writers at the
time.

------
hownottowrite
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11505](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11505)

------
rogerthis
Wow. The good old fat catholic Chesterton (though not fully catholic in 1909,
but 95%).

------
EdwCoady
Perfection

------
a3voices
"The world has become an idolator of this god called money." \- Pope Francis

