We’re More than Community and Infrastructure
Everyone from Bill Gates to the homeless guy on the street had access to community and infrastructure. Personal example? My mom went to public high school with Oprah Winfrey in Glendale, Wisconsin. My mom didn’t end up fabulously wealthy.
Considering the wide variation of outcomes the intelligent, logic-minded individual can conclude community and infrastructure, which are extended to all Americans, were NOT the determining factors in success. If this were the case we’d all be fabulously wealthy and teachers in high school would have told us all to drive more, use more electricity, waste water, and talk on the phone rather than go to college and work hard. As far as the internet, hell, we all know FB is the black hole of productivity…
This wide variation applies to rich people too. Some build their wealth into generations of wealth (Bruce Jenner), while others squander their fortunes and end up broke only years after leaving the game (Emmitt Smith). I heard the NBA is considering some kind of mandatory retirement savings…what does that tell you? I’ll tell you what it doesn’t say: “Those guys need more community and infrastructure!” No, what that mofo needs is a budget!
Let us remember Newton’s third law of motion, to put the next argument into context: “To every action there is always opposed, an equal reaction.” In other words, if community and infrastructure contribute to success, they must accept equal credit for failure.
Most American serial killers and mass murderers are products of the public school system. If community and infrastructure should be credited in part with great success, why should it not be equally blamed for egregious failure? Because both are examples of flawed logic. If we can’t blame public schools for killers, we can’t attribute the success of people to the highway or municipal water system. It’s a double-edged sword. To proclaim one you must acknowledge the other resulting in zero gain.
Most people reading this will agree they are better off than their grandparents or parents. If you asked them they wouldn’t say, “We didn’t have all the infrastructure and community…” They’d say one word, “Opportunities.” But opportunity alone doesn’t equal success. If the idea for FB dropped in your lap and you did nothing with it, you wouldn’t be Mark Zuckerberg today. Abe Lincoln was dirt poor, had no access to public transportation, a grocery store, municipal water, the internet, etc. Yet he succeeded. Millions blazed a trail across America to find success without the benefit of tax-payer funded (i.e. government funded) infrastructure.
My father, who could be considered seriously disabled, made a success of himself in spite of everyone telling him he would be a welfare case with one arm and one eye. His red-neck, white trash family called him ‘rich’ and shunned him because he made something out of himself while they remained poor. Only the ignorant are unaware of the fact that ‘rich’ is highly subjective, or that equal shares in community and infrastructure don’t dictate success or failure.
The conclusion? Community and infrastructure though they may contribute a negligible amount to the success of an individual, must logically carry equal parts blame for those who didn’t succeed and had equal opportunity (my mom vs. Oprah; Bruce Jenner vs. Emmitt Smith). Therefore community and infrastructure, though making our lives easier, is peripheral to success, not central to it.
By: Rayne Krebsbach
Well written ma’am. I salute you for your clear thinking.