The Perfection, The Excellence, The Precision, The Quality, The Transcendence, The Ideal. These are, of course, the everyday words we encounter in our lives. But what are they, and why are they there?
We often associate those words with positive connotations. Perfectionists are considered to be very rigid human-beings who are highly outstanding and exceptional, thus becoming leaders of the society. They are the wealthy and strong individuals, whilst the idlers are worthless, weak-willed, and underserved individuals. But is it really true? Is the effort to become flawless entirely worthful, considering the imperfection of humans? And does the endeavor to pursue the perfection lead to a path of prosperity? Well, according to the famous saying, “perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
This common meritocratic belief — meritocracy is a term established by Michael Young in 1958 which holds that certain things, such as economic goods or power, should be vested in individuals on the basis of talent, effort, and achievement, rather than factors such as sexuality, race, gender, or wealth— that encourages the practice of perfection is the underlying principle of modern society. From a young age, we are taught that working hard is important and that success is only achievable through this practice; that is, in other words, the power and the cash.
We all may agree with the idea that working hard could contribute to success. However, is success entirely up to it? The answer would be “No”. Hard work is not always the main factor leading to success. Although most of the successful individuals who have their own written biographies did work hard, this doesn’t necessarily mean everyone in the world could be prosperous and wealthy just by pure hard work; we are considering success in terms of wealth. I know that this is not the best criteria to measure success, but still. Due to the exceedingly ornamented and embellished success stories, earthlings began to believe that the idea of sedulousness and diligence is competence, and thereby, wealth and success. And this seemingly impeccable equation of success automatically implements the notion associating idleness to incompetence, and thereby, poverty. This ostensibly immaculate assumption then spontaneously turns the fault of one’s poverty to the individuals that “lacked the endeavor” and justifies the discrimination and the hierarchy created from the meritocratic society.
The reason why the meritocracy established in modern capitalistic society is fictitious is due to unfair opportunities and different starting lines. The one and only prerequisite for fair meritocracy is “equality of opportunity.” However, “equality of opportunity” is often ignored. Thus, although individuals strive to obtain the costly opportunity to improve themselves, the effort is invalidated due to the distinction between the different social stratum. But, despite this distorted and contradicting nature of contemporary meritocracy, the idea is still continuously implemented by all the success stories and self-improvement books that are labeled as steady best sellers and therefore engender people to define their identity with their social status. This practice places them somewhere around conceitedness or shame, but nowhere else. Since, in terms of the meritocratic view, the striving endeavor of the individual is the only factor defining the higher or lower social position of individuals (suggesting the impoverished ones have ended up the way they are due to their idle habits) when it is way more complex in real life.
Due to the factors described above, meritocracy and the act of “Working Hard” could not be as idealistic as believed by human beings. As such, you might ask the questions “then what? What do we do to succeed? How could the impoverished even possibly reach the state of affluence?” Yes, these are indeed great questions that have bothered me a lot as well. However, if we eliminate the central insistence that claims success as an imperative must-have figure, they becomes a worthless questions.
Yoonseo Cho (11)
We often associate those words with positive connotations. Perfectionists are considered to be very rigid human-beings who are highly outstanding and exceptional, thus becoming leaders of the society. They are the wealthy and strong individuals, whilst the idlers are worthless, weak-willed, and underserved individuals. But is it really true? Is the effort to become flawless entirely worthful, considering the imperfection of humans? And does the endeavor to pursue the perfection lead to a path of prosperity? Well, according to the famous saying, “perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
This common meritocratic belief — meritocracy is a term established by Michael Young in 1958 which holds that certain things, such as economic goods or power, should be vested in individuals on the basis of talent, effort, and achievement, rather than factors such as sexuality, race, gender, or wealth— that encourages the practice of perfection is the underlying principle of modern society. From a young age, we are taught that working hard is important and that success is only achievable through this practice; that is, in other words, the power and the cash.
We all may agree with the idea that working hard could contribute to success. However, is success entirely up to it? The answer would be “No”. Hard work is not always the main factor leading to success. Although most of the successful individuals who have their own written biographies did work hard, this doesn’t necessarily mean everyone in the world could be prosperous and wealthy just by pure hard work; we are considering success in terms of wealth. I know that this is not the best criteria to measure success, but still. Due to the exceedingly ornamented and embellished success stories, earthlings began to believe that the idea of sedulousness and diligence is competence, and thereby, wealth and success. And this seemingly impeccable equation of success automatically implements the notion associating idleness to incompetence, and thereby, poverty. This ostensibly immaculate assumption then spontaneously turns the fault of one’s poverty to the individuals that “lacked the endeavor” and justifies the discrimination and the hierarchy created from the meritocratic society.
The reason why the meritocracy established in modern capitalistic society is fictitious is due to unfair opportunities and different starting lines. The one and only prerequisite for fair meritocracy is “equality of opportunity.” However, “equality of opportunity” is often ignored. Thus, although individuals strive to obtain the costly opportunity to improve themselves, the effort is invalidated due to the distinction between the different social stratum. But, despite this distorted and contradicting nature of contemporary meritocracy, the idea is still continuously implemented by all the success stories and self-improvement books that are labeled as steady best sellers and therefore engender people to define their identity with their social status. This practice places them somewhere around conceitedness or shame, but nowhere else. Since, in terms of the meritocratic view, the striving endeavor of the individual is the only factor defining the higher or lower social position of individuals (suggesting the impoverished ones have ended up the way they are due to their idle habits) when it is way more complex in real life.
Due to the factors described above, meritocracy and the act of “Working Hard” could not be as idealistic as believed by human beings. As such, you might ask the questions “then what? What do we do to succeed? How could the impoverished even possibly reach the state of affluence?” Yes, these are indeed great questions that have bothered me a lot as well. However, if we eliminate the central insistence that claims success as an imperative must-have figure, they becomes a worthless questions.
Yoonseo Cho (11)