Fetishizing Failure

A funny thing happened to the "oppressor-oppressed" model that is foundational to modern progressivism. It swirled together, like two ice cream flavors in a soft-serve machine, with the depersonalizing nature of identity politics to produce a world view that despises success and idolizes the lack of it. That narrative conflates success with the "oppressor" label, and lack of success with the "oppressed" label. This is as big a telltale of the Marxist roots of "woke" as you will find, and once you see it, there's no un-seeing it.

This explains why Jews are the bad guys in the Hamas-Israel conflict, butchered Jewish babies notwithstanding. It also explains why (spectacularly privileged) Ivy Leaguers (students and teachers alike) hate America, the "land of opportunity" narrative and the "American way." And, why they have no problem letting their anti-semitic flag fly.

Israel turned a patch of desert into a thriving Westernized nation, while all but a few oil-rich Arab nations lag terribly in per-capita GDP.

Per the narrative, this must mean the Israelis oppressed and exploited… somebody, no matter that Israel is a postage stamp on a giant sheet of Islam. By extension, this requires ranking Jews below Muslims in the grievance hierarchy, and since the oppressor-oppressed model is binary, guess who's the bad guy?

It also explains:

• why Asians get little love from social justice warriors.

• why Asian students face higher hurdles in college admissions.

• why it is verboten to mention how many black children are born out of wedlock and/or raised without fathers.

• why millionaires and billionaires are hated, except when they give their money away to the “correct” recipients and causes.

• why successful businesses must be heavily taxed.

• why participation trophies became a thing.

• why charter schools are vilified despite their outperforming traditional public schools.

• why repressive Islamic and Sharia cultures are never criticized.

• why capitalism is Bad, despite its having proven to be, by far, the best system for elevating human living standards yet discovered.

• why socialism, communism, and other flavors of Marxism continue to be extolled despite their unparalleled and unblemished record of death, misery, and failure.

I could go on, but the point is made.

It's a point that Thomas Sowell made a quarter century ago, when asked why Jews receive such disproportionate hatred around the world.

Humans have always had and will always have propensities toward envy and jealousy, no matter well how our rational sides recognize that such feelings do no one any good. When channeled properly, they can motivate one to success. But, success of that sort requires effort, and not everyone wants to expend the effort required to match others' success. That's where cognitive dissonance kicks in, and where people opt to rationalize away their envy and jealousy. Combine that with the "othering" that our tribalism prompts in us, and we end up with hatred and depersonalization of the successful and the attitude that they didn't earn that success.

As in "you didn't build that" nonsense and the zero-sum view of economic interactions that worships the "exploited." That drops the next domino, capitalism, in favor of the "taker" ethic of Sanders/AOC-style socialism.

Fold into the stew a society increasingly driven by "Other People's Money" in the form of big government everywhere, and people develop a sense of entitlement on behalf of the "exploited," no matter that all economic activity in a free and capitalistic society is voluntary and based on mutual benefit.

With all that comes a Jake Blues-esque "my poorer circumstances are never my fault" attitude, and the social justice types stroke their egos by excoriating the successful for not putting everyone else on their backs.

A society with this attitude cannot succeed. A society with this attitude will inevitably devolve, with the productive citizens being fleeced every which way and to the point where they say "why bother succeeding any more?"

In sports and other entertainments, we cheer for the victors. Why, then, do we deride the successful in real life?