Yale 1L claims that the nation's "best and brightest" may dazzle on paper, but fail to live up to it in person. I've seen it first-hand, but instead of lamenting the fact that these people aren't nice, I will simply ask: Do you expect different?
These people beat out thousands of other candidates to make it to top schools. The will go on to beat their elite classmates for even harder-to-find positions. In those positions, they will compete with others - be they companies, countries, political opponents, and so on - because to be the best means to beat the best.
I have met the very, very few who do not have to conciously work against their competition -- those who are so smart and so talented that the competition simply ceases to be a factor. Those people can be nice; they can be magnanimous; they might not even notice how hard everyone else has to try to compete with them.
The rest of those climbing the social, economic, and business ladders of the world don't have that option. One day, they will have to beat someone they know well for a corporate management position. Or they will have to back out of a politically sensitive deal, leaving a friend in a lurch. Or, simply, they will have to fire one or some or even a thousand people. These aren't nice things to do, but they will do them and they will find within themselves plenty of reason why doing so is right. For many of them, those reasons will load into the family mini-van for a drive to the Saturday morning soccer game.
And if that wasn't cynical enough for you, consider this: we purport to operate in a free market and "nice" may be anathema to that system. Nice is, well, nice, but isn't economically efficient.
2 comments:
As usual I'm going to have to disagree with you on the value of "nice". It may not be profitable, it may not lead to six-figure jobs, but it sure as hell beats the loneliness, ennui, and fear that permeates those "on top".
I'd rather live my small life surrounded by nice people enjoying myself without fearing that someone else is going to usurp my position. As the late, great Arthur Lee said, "If you want to count me, count me out."
MM
I also have to disagree: assholishness gets you pretty far, but there is a significant limit to it, because eventually you make all the people around you want to leave.
Steve Jobs excepted, of course.
I've done pretty well in my career by making a point of always treating people around me as well as possible - yes, I've had to fire people (for cause) and I've had to lay people off (not for cause). However, I've also been fired myself, so I know what it's like to be on the other end.
I think what the original writer is really getting at is the behavior of these social climbers is such that they poison the ground around which they stand - they treat success as though it's a finite thing, that for me to do well requires that you do poorly. I feel sorry for people who have that approach to life, and I do not share it in the least. I am happy when others are successful, because it gives me the possibility of learning from their success.
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