225 Superficial Success

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">From the outside, many people exhibit the visible indicators of success: prestigious jobs, peer acclaim, and the accumulation of trendy goods. However, how much of those people's trajectory in life has been through behind-the-scenes circumstances & machinations in which merit played little part? Why should graduating from an Ivy League University be such an all important ingredient of their life? Why should being Jewish or Mormon be more of an advantage than a high IQ? Why should athletic ability confer more status than an advanced degree? Clan associations & fraternal relations completely overwhelm personal effort, though the recipients of such largess are often ignorant that they are receiving special treatment.<br /><br />Society's lauding of honors & awards reinforces this false narrative because the organizations that are co-opted are the ones giving out the awards. In fact, the only explanation for the superficial success of The 1% is a Virtual Class System which is mostly determined by the happenstance of birth. The occasional overachiever can still break through, and are often used as proof that boot-strapping is still possible, but those singular individuals are few indeed, and the chance of most people exceeding the boundaries they were born into has become fleeting small. The American Dream has succumbed to aristocracy. The reason it existed at all was because our ancestors started out mostly classless, and the only way we will get it back is to eliminate the inherited aristocratic class.</p>