View of success
Allow me to start with a question: Do you correlate success with virtue? In other words, when you see a person with a nice home in the suburbs do think that is probably a person of good character? Similarly, when you see a rough looking person, do you presume the person has bad character?
This is not a post about condemning stereotypes. I’m also not going to claim right or wrong answers here. Some of the underlying issues due have empirical bases, but that is tangential. The answers to these questions do give you an idea of your outlook on life though. For those holding the correlation positively, sports have provided an interesting window over the years. Sports were in fact the area where I first let the positive correlation go.
Tiger Woods is a good place to start here. The shock and horror that he was – there is no compelling reason to use the past tense here but I will anyway – a womanizer rang out as the revelations came forth. This past Sunday was supposed to be his day of redemption, although any other Sunday would have done to fit the narrative. Michael Vick of course was redeemed last season by winning and actually bothering to care about his work. What winning on a football field has to do with felony redemption escapes me. Apparently people needed permission to cheer for Vick and Woods.
When high level athletes are placed under the microscope, we find they are for the most part self absorbed jerks. Even the exceptions tend to be graded on a curve, like the NBA player who manages to have a career without an illegitimate child popping up. Rather than playing by the rules, we find they excepted from most of them. I still recall the story of one future Heisman trophy winner announcing to those around him in the lecture hall that this would be the first and last day they would see him in class. We have reports that a Heisman winner was found in possession of stolen property, turned in work that wasn’t his own, and was found to have solicited a 6-figure reimbursement for playing football his senior season. Even ignoring criminality and strict immorality, one finds that successful athletes must spend an inordinate amount of time on training and preparation that necessarily they will place a greater importance on themselves than others.
At some point the question arises, does this transfer over to the non-sports world? Personally, I came to the conclusion a few years ago that this indeed was the case. Contra Sullivan, I no longer believe that when I see a successful person I’m looking at a person with good character and industry. I’m curious on your thoughts.
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Certainly not. I also don’t associate success with vice, as you seem to.
There’s an old saying “behind every great fortune is a great crime”. I’ve seen enough evidence firsthand to know that there is definitely some truth to it, but only for wealth accumulated very quickly. There are many successful men who have built great fortunes by honest means.
I was raised by a single mother in a lower-middle-class neighborhood. I often hung around with my friends in the roughest neighborhoods in town. In my current career, I run in circles of money and power and exchange phone calls with billionaires every day. I’ve seen the lowest of the low, and the highest of the high. Here’s what I can say:
Virtue exists in equal measure between the privileged and the underprivileged. They are simply different virtues. The wealthy often posses the four cardinal virtues (prudence, temperance, courage, and justice). The poor often possess the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. Conversely, the vices are likewise juxtaposed.
Men are men, regardless of stature. People who accumulate wealth quickly often have more vice than virtue – this applies to both the rich (white collar crime) and the poor (blue collar crime). They simply look different to the untrained eye.
Now, regarding the sports analogy, the same principles apply; the amount of success you achieve is directly proportional to the time and effort you put in. This applies to any skill or achievement-based profession. There is one critical difference: you rarely hear about concert pianists self-destructing, yet you often hear about sports figures mired in scandal. Why?
It’s all about time. Remember the “quick = vice, long = virtue” principle above? For a concert pianist, they may reach the apex of their career after 40 years of training. They are able to live a balanced life as their training stretches out over time. For a sports figure, you’re damaged goods once you hit 30. In order to reach the level of an elite athlete, you have to compress 40 years of training into 5-10 years. This means your dedication to your craft has to border on obsession – you have to live such a self-centered and unbalanced life that you under-develop virtue in other areas.
I often use that as my principle – I often pity those that achieve success too quickly. It usually means they’re a mess inside.
Since concert pianists aren’t on the society page, I have no data on them. I would tend to think they aren’t excepted from the norm.
Sure, if you think of the escapades of professional athletes as the norm. ;)
I think you may have misread me. My argument is that the further you get away from a balanced life where you can spend time developing virtue, the less virtue you will possess. Generally speaking, elite performance requires a substantial investment of time and energy. If you can spread that out over time, you stand a much greater chance of developing virtue.
I have never equated economic status with level of virtue, in either direction.
I grew up with poor to lower-middle-class people, some of whom were very nice and a lot of whom were jerks; many of whom were respectable, hard-working and honest, and some of whom were lying slackers.
After growing up I started to meet some people who were a lot richer than anyone I ever knew growing up, and I have found that some of them are very nice and some of them are jerks; some are respectable, hard-working and honest, and some are lying slackers (and some are hard-working liars).
Basically people are people: People of every place, every color and every economic class.
When I see obvious beauty and success or obvious ugliness or failure – and, hardest of all, when none of those things particularly register – I strive alert myself to the cognitive attribution blindspots they typically create. Of course, the Scriptural type for this is Samuel beholding Jesse’s sons, but it has the curious ending that David, while ruddy, is still pleasing to behold (though, importantly, he is the youngest, which is his most traditional cultural deficit).
I would echo Angellius and (to some degree) Dan. There are corrupt and virtuous in all classes. There are rich with great virtures and rich with great vices. There are poor with great virtues and poor with great vices.
Having grown up the son of a Teamster whose pay put us in the lower end of the economic spectrum, I saw many who brought misfortune on themselves through their vices and some who rose through their virtues. I also saw some who redeemed their lower class status through their virtue and some who corrupted their lives by rising through vice.
Virtue or vice is not dictated by one’s place in society. It is dictated by the personal choices we make to achieve our true nature as free beings. This sometimes in spite of our surroundings whether rich or poor.
The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt… It is not certainly un-Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the rich. But it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor.”
— G.K. Chesterton
I agree it does reveal something about one’s outlook on life. It’s pretty easy to find examples of wealthy men who are wicked and sports and movie stars who are jerks. My first reaction to the question was why does it equate success with economic achievement and sports championships? Is it because we can only “see” success with visual distinctions of excellent performance?
I think the qualities of discipline, hard work, the ability to focus and self awareness are more likely to result in excellent performance in any field, and they probably overlap a great deal with those likely to lead one to practice virtue. But there is enough which does not overlap, which makes the examples I mention so easy to find.
Jesus clearly did not equate wealth with virtue. My fear is that I have a hard time reading any other way then to think that he equated wealth with the neglect of the poor, and therefore did not see the wealthy as his followers. Though I have not accumulated much wealth, my income puts me in the top ten percent of wage earners and I consider myself wealthy, which is why I say this is my fear.
There are few examples in the gospels where a wealthy person is given as an example to show us how to behave. It is always hard to understand the context of the writings in the times they were written, but I have a hard time believing that the aspects of wealth accumulation through the use of others labor and the damage to the poor by the retention of wealth have changed. I do not necessarily feel the wealthy people I know are people of good character or not, but I do feel some prejudice against them. I know many who do good things for a large number of others, and many who do mostly for themselves. But I cannot get past the basic gospel teaching that the accumulation of wealth comes at a cost to the poor.
I can think of a few counterexamples. The two foremost being Nicodemus, as well as the “if someone gives as much as a glass of water to my followers…” statement. To me, the last statement clearly recognizes the need in the Body of Christ for people whose charism is to provide the resources necessary for the ministers to go out and do their work. Even Mother Teresa needed a budget.
Wealth is not evil. It is even a good if it is being used for the Kingdom. God does not want people to be poor, or he wouldn’t ask wealthier people to help them. God wants to alleviate the suffering of the poor, and avoid the distraction and headaches that an excess of wealth provides. If your wealth has not mastered you, and you are not exploiting other people through it, then you are not condemned.
Paul writes, “But I cannot get past the basic gospel teaching that the accumulation of wealth comes at a cost to the poor.”
I question whether this is a “basic gospel teaching”. I also question whether the accumulation of wealth always comes at a cost to the poor. Often the same activities that result in the accumulation of wealth, also result in providing jobs which enable people to avoid poverty. In fact, as Dan points out, I think some people have a positive vocation to make money for the purpose of funding good causes. There need to be good Catholic rich people that religious orders and Catholic colleges and publications, etc., can turn to for funding of worthwhile projects that ultimately may help to save souls.