-CraZed- said:
This reminded me of a Times article about the "Me" generation and an important portion from it about how back in the 80's and 90's they linked self-esteem to higher grades and testing scores. Turns out the take away that boosting self-esteem by giving awards, trophies or ribbons for simply being one's self and stroking our kids' egos didn't create better grades or more achievement but has come about in the form of greater rates of narcissism and selfishness. It was really ACTUAL achievement that boosted real self-esteem not the other way around. I suspect that the same will be found here eventually after we have gone ahead and given away earned wealth and resources we will see a gradual decline in overall living standards and an even further decline in rates of intelligence. We are already seeing it over the last several decades. We spend more on education, feeding the poor, giving away free health care etc. etc. than ever before and yet by nearly every metric we use to track the academic progress of our populace we are getting dumber and dumber. |
So, you are saying it helping people in need that makes them dumber, and if you just cause people to suffer more, they will snap out of it and get smarter? The research doesn't show this. And it has been show that stress and immediacy of problems cause creative thinking to get short-circuited. That is the article, not that pampering spoils people and makes them dumber. If what you are saying is true, show studies where malnutrition and homelessness make people function better. If you can, kudos to you.
Now, in regards to your other article, there was misreading and I can agree with you. The whole self-esteem thing had it backwards. And actually, real research shows that it isn't how much self-esteem you have, but possibly how little one thinks of oneself, and thinks of others. Here is one article that goes into it:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=self-esteem-can-be-ego-trap
Adam Grant, in the book "Give and Take" introduces the concept of "Otherish" as opposed to "selfless" or "selfish" in as a trait that indicates chance of success. A person who can think of how to serve others better, and solve the problems of others, does better.
http://www.giveandtake.com/Home/Index
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=3224
When you deal with networks, the individual or node in it that provides the most resources will get the most traffic, so what Adam Grant writes is correct as I see it.
