“Failure” is a dirty word
but that’s because we don’t see it as a way station on the path to success.
- In his 2005 book, “Born Losers: A History of Failure in America,” the historian Scott Sandage offers an account of 19th-century economic hardships and the pitiable archetype they gave birth to: the dismal “plodder,” the man who was a “failure.” To make the loser feel even worse about himself, his glorious antithesis — the striver, the up-and-comer — was being defined at the same time. Writers promoting the secrets of success in the rough game of industrial capitalism rendered a verdict on economic failure that still endures: it’s never an accident. The success people have is determined by who they are — or rather, by who they aren’t — and not by circumstances. More Than a Numbers Game, By Walter Kirn, NY Times Magazine, 10 May2009
