As alluded to in my previous post, "Student-Teacher Relationships", we all strive to succeed and reach greatness. But what is the cost we all must pay in order to reach the level that we desire? Can the success we all strive for be one of the obstacles to achieving that very end? According to Stephen Mack in his post "Climbing the Ladder of Success (or Be Careful of What You Wish For)", the renowned author makes the claim that the economic success of our country is quite possibly one of the greatest threats to the ideal of democracy upon which the United States was founded.
We, as Americans are continuously striving to end inequality, but in our efforts really only succeed in furthering inequality. In attempting to bring equality to the country, we have brought to the attention of all that we are a nation truly divided based upon economic standing, a fact that once people are enlightened to can no longer be ignored. When people are educated to the fact that, based upon economic demographics, they are considered to be above others, inequality is not, in general, combated, but rather is accepted as inherent to society.
Why accept this fact? Why not further educate ourselves on the issues which have created the apparent disparity between classes in America? Once we have done this, it will be infinitely easier to succeed in righting the issue of inequality. It is time that we all do a little self-education and start climbing the ladder properly, along with our peers.
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The problem I find that is success is always measured in terms of dollars. Sometimes success is defined differently than the size of your paycheck! Economic inequality is easily measured by income, because dollar incomes are definable, measurable statistics for which we can easily collect data. Something like happiness...which is nearly impossible to measure and quantify...has never been used to describe inequality. Of course, I'm not arguing that it should be, nor can I suggest a way to do it, but I just wanted to point out that not everyone defines success by the size of a home, car, or bank account.
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