The Shame of Success: A Cult
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Sadhika Pant
 July 13 2023
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    The traditional values -- industry, integrity, independence, duty, bravery, resilience, sincerity -- have been dethroned, because these values make us different, and consequently, unequal, to the others who do not strive in their pursuit. They aim to create developed individuals.

    The modern values -- compassion, equality, open-mindedness, tolerance, freedom, and above all, humility -- have taken their place. They aim to create better societies.

    But it is the continual negotiation between these traditional and modern values that maintains the equilibrium of the microcosm and macrocosm, which now, is skewed.

    We live in times where self-negation and deprecation are clad in virtuous robes. 

    Preaching humility is one thing. One must show gratitude to one’s roots, to the hands that feed us, to our caretakers in the home and in the society, to the law, to luck, and above all to God. It is good to recognise the privileges (I hate that word) that one may have been born with. It is good to attribute some of your success to your family, teachers, friends and other social systems.

    But that is not where it stops. The individual is taught shame in the name of humility: “Never be proud of your qualities. Never take credit for your achievements. Your wealth is always theft, your victory is the outcome of systemic prejudice, and your personal overcomings are never your own triumphs.”

    What is being preached is celebration of failure and the shame of success.

    A group of twenty-somethings passing around beers, chatting and guffawing over what? Their failures - at academics, at work, at marriage. Each has a story of their own personal failure to tell, and it is this failure that binds them together. This is how they bond. This is what they celebrate.

    No one can look at success for long without squinting, be it professional or personal. One is envious of the success of others, and quick to point out two or three privileges that said person had or the asymmetry inherent in the game itself. One is guilty about one’s success too, and hides it like a mark of shame. 

    What of those brave and strong heroes of old, who ventured into the unknown to battle monsters and returned victorious? There was a time when their stories were narrated over the evening campfire. Their stories became the culture we threw away. No one bonds over war stories any more.

    Why celebrate success when one can sit with one’s chosen bunch of losers and revel in one’s defeatedness? And now, this mass defeatedness attribute is crowned as the virtue of ‘humility’.

    Success is quickly renounced lest we be better than anyone else. We are all the proud losers of equality. Everyone must be equal, even if everyone stays mediocre. That is the ruling virtue of our times.

    “No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra.

    existentialism nietzsche equality modern traditional soul individual success failure humility virtue values shame guilt achievement philosophy culture
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