Caotang Notes (7) - Reflection on Success and Success Studies

There was a period of time when I traveled frequently for work, and I like to visit the bookstores there when I travel to and from various airports in China. The most conspicuous place in my impression is always on display books about success, business and management. In many stores, there is also a 24-hour screen on which a man in a suit and leather shoes preaches passionately or pretends to be profound, sometimes it is Jack Ma, sometimes it is a face you don’t know at all.

That may be the most popular time for successful learning, from Carnegie, Napoleon Hill to Zeng Guofan, Hu Xueyan, from Wang Yangming, Sun Tzu's Art of War, to Dong Mingzhu, Zeng Shiqiang, no matter the foreign, old or new, theoretical or practical Whether from the pie, the business circle, or from across the border, they can use a set of hype-like theories to instruct you and teach you, so that you believe that "my/his success can be replicated".

Maybe because I am a serious person, I always have a scrutiny attitude towards these things, and I don't have whole-hearted beliefs and practices. Not only that, but I was also full of doubts about the same popular execution series books at that time, so even good employees couldn't make it. For example, when the leader of the unit recommended his subordinates to read "Letter to Garcia", I studied it for a long time, thinking that it should actually make the leader reflect and study, and I wrote an article and published it on the blog. Now that I think about it, these are all factors that hindered my ultimate success.

I haven't been to the airport bookstore for many years recently. I heard that the popularity of successful learning has declined, and the business strategy of the bookstore has also changed. This may be closely related to the social environment. When the economy is growing at a high speed, there are many opportunities for success, great possibilities, low trial and error costs, and many successful role models can be seen, so the pursuit of success is very popular. When the speed of economic development slows down and the social structure is relatively stable, the chances and possibility of success are reduced, and ideas such as Buddhism and lying flat gradually become popular.

[Article: Airport Bookstore: Chicken Blood Success Learning is Fading Out]

Link: http://www.iaion.com/sw/33116.html

I remembered this because I recently read a book, "The Tyranny of Merit" by Michael J. Sandel. The author of this book, Sandel, is arguably the most influential political philosopher of our time. He holds a Ph.D. from Oxford University and is a professor of political philosophy at Harvard University. ?" is profound and interesting. After it was put on the Internet, it swept the world and brought a wave of open courses in universities at home and abroad. He has many more studies on justice, money, and justice, and this book is his new work.

[Video: "Justice: What is the best way to do it?" ("Justice: What's the right thing to do?")]

Link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1zt411U7JA/?vd_source=c88351c9583c3e2ceae830abc39ece56

If the reflection on success and success studies is also divided into levels, the simple level is the criticism of Chen Anzhi, Liu Yisiao and other completely pseudoscientific success studies, including the use of the names of successful people such as Ma Dad and Zeng Guofan, or the use of thirty-six strategies. A fake book in the name of a fake Chinese classic. The ordinary level is to break the superstition of various celebrity autobiographies, such as Tang Jun's "My Success Can Be Replicated". Many people are indeed very successful, but they may not be able to explain why they are successful. He may be right, but most of them are "necessary and insufficient conditions", and many of the factors he extracted by himself may be inaccurate or unrepeatable. The difficult level is to analyze and study the monographs and theories of success and success from the research level. And Sandel's book must be Hell Difficulty, and he reflects on this question from a deeper, philosophical level.

[Book: The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?]

Link: https://book.douban.com/subject/35335482/

The discussion of the book is not metaphysical talk, like his courses, the content is very related to life and reality. Many theories of success in reality tell you how to work hard, how to work hard, how to upgrade your cognition, and how to improve yourself. There is actually a condition hidden behind this: as long as you can be good and work hard enough, you will be successful. This kind of "talentism" is one of the most popular values in the world today, but it doesn't tell the truth and brings many problems.

First of all, the values behind talentism are: people's destiny is entirely up to oneself, without the interference of other factors. But whether talent can be transformed into success depends on many other factors, such as timing, luck, family background, social conditions and so on. In many cases, these factors play an even greater role. For example, in the college entrance examination, a difference of one point may determine whether you can go to a good university, and then affect your future income. Does this point indicate that there is a big difference in your talents? Why make such a big difference to the future? The existence of this phenomenon shows that there are some fairness and injustice in our society, and we need to reflect and improve.

Second, upholding such values may have a negative impact on both winners and losers, which in turn will lead to more social problems. Social elites or successful people will think that enjoying more success, wealth, and respect is a matter of their own efforts and taken for granted. This arrogance will bring prejudice and will make the elites ignore the voices of the bottom workers. For the bottom laborers, the society believes that low wages mean that they do not work hard and their talents are not good, which makes them unable to obtain dignity and satisfaction, and then becomes hostile to the elites, turning to populist and nationalist parties, and Trump's coming to power It is closely related to this trend of thought - he never talks about upward mobility, but with white laborers scolding the elite.

At the same time, talentism will lead to the supremacy of diplomas and academic qualifications, turning education and examinations into an arms race and deviating from the essence of education. This kind of pressure will cause heavy psychological pressure on students. According to the research reality, 1/5 of students in good American universities have considered suicide, and 1/4 have psychological problems.

Sandel also made some of his suggestions for improvement in the book, such as taxing the rich and financial practitioners more, and reforming the college admissions system. Compared to the speculative part, the suggestions in this part are less exciting.

What I have mentioned here is just a drop in the bucket of the wonderful views in the book, or go to the original book to bring you more inspiration.

[Song: As Long as Ordinary ]

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1DL411373h/?vd_source=c88351c9583c3e2ceae830abc39ece56

This is the theme song of the movie "I'm not the God of Medicine". The whole song is a relatively bland tune. It tells the story with a feeling of talking and tells about the insights about life. Some are plain, some are sad, and some are detached. .

I really like listening to this version of "Little Rock and the Children". The simple piano accompaniment and pure children's voice make the whole song feel more like returning to nature.

Let go of right and wrong to know the answer

live bravely

no aura of god

You and I were born ordinary

no aura of god

Hold the ordinary in your hand

No regrets in this life

The fire of life is lit

This time I write here first, I hope you have a peaceful, happy and rewarding life.

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