Bless TED for introducing me to so many fascinating people and ideas. This morning I watched the talk by Alain de Botton: “A kinder, gentler philosophy of success”. It was an eye opening perspective on our society. I never really appreciated that when you create the illusion of a meritocracy you are implying that, in the same way that people who deserve to rise to the top, will rise to the top, people who are down at the bottom are also there because they deserve it. They are losers, not unfortunates. And given the enormous influence of randomness and chance in every life, that is an unfair judgement. It is a judgement that creates not only ‘low self-esteem’, but also the fact that suicide rates are higher in modern individualistic societies, then anywhere else in the world.
I think I might have to add some of Alain’s books to my ‘to-read’-pile.
