America’s unspoken fault line
Why is luck a prerequisite for success?
There’s a fundamental fault line in the United States that we hardly ever talk about: the degree to which luck alters the trajectory of our lives. How much do we acknowledge the impact of fortune on individual success? How much do we attribute blame to individual failure? Whether we recognize or reject the role of randomness and happenstance on personal success is literally a “fault” line in American society.
Consider a telling incident during the 2012 presidential campaign. At a July rally in Roanoke, Virginia, President Barack Obama told a crowd of supporters, “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges.” He continued: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
Perhaps realizing he’d just unwrapped a Christmas-in-July gift for his opponent, Obama clarified his thoughts a few sentences later. “The point is,” he concluded, “is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.” That clarification didn’t matter, of course. The Romney campaign and its supporters took…
