2 Main Reasons Why There Is a War on Personal Excellence
There is a war on personal excellence.
Or, I should say, there are two kinds of war on personal excellence.
One is the internal war that is going on inside every single person. A war that every single person that ever lived had to deal with.
The other war is external. It is the war that culture, society, and even the family wage against the individual. And although I do believe that we live in the age of participation trophies, I also think it would be foolish to say that this external war on excellence is a modern phenomenon. There might be a few societies throughout history that could be said to have valued and encouraged personal excellence more than others, but this external war on excellence has always existed to some extent.
As you’ve seen in the very title, I want to talk about two main reasons for this war. And both of those reasons exist, although in different ways, in both the internal and external war on excellence.
The first reason is that personal excellence implies differences between people.
To excel is to stand out. There are people who excel to unimaginable heights at one particular thing, and there are those who excel, maybe not to such heights, but at multiple different things.
And this might be the right time to avoid misunderstanding in the rest of the text, as I'm sure there are people who will think that personal excellence is reserved for the people that we read about in history books or watch on our screens.
Let’s say that the first type of person to reach personal excellence is an artist, an athlete, a scientist, or a professor. Or, it could be a person who excels at something that is not as popular as those things. Maybe they excel as a beekeeper or a master craftsman. But they excel at a very particular thing, and it’s easy to point out where their excellence comes from.
But the other type might be a person who is performing their job at the best of their abilities, has a successful marriage, is recognized by all their friends as a respectful and honest person, and finds time to keep learning about the things that they are interested in and continue to develop as a person. They are a well-rounded person who keeps evolving and possesses multiple qualities that, in theory, seem like basic human qualities but, in reality, are extremely rare.
This second type might not sound as impressive as the first type. But let’s not act like this second type is the standard or average in any society. You could think of a different bundle of qualities than those I mentioned, but you are fortunate to know even one person like this in your life. And if you are that type of person, you have reason to be proud of yourself. That’s personal excellence.
But back to the war on excellence. The point is that both types that we just mentioned stand out. Both types serve as a reminder that, although everyone might be equal in their worth as a human being and everyone deserves the same rights and opportunities, people are different. Not only different in the way that we all accept and like to be different, but different in how much of our human potential we use.
When it comes to the external war on excellence, it’s fairly obvious: society consists (mostly) of people who don’t want to see anyone stand out. They don’t want to see others excel because that reminds them of their averageness, their unused potential, and often their laziness and conformity.
Once again, there is a case to be made that today’s society wages this war on excellence more aggressively than any society in history, but I don’t want that to be the focus of this essay. (If you want to read more about my take on this, read: How Nietzsche, Jordan Peterson, and The Incredibles Warned Us About Toxic Equality )
There is a reason why thinkers throughout history have talked about society trying to overwhelm the individual - the external war on excellence has always existed.
On the other hand, in the case of the internal war on excellence, this reason might not seem so obvious. It might even seem completely illogical. Why would there be an internal conflict? Why would there be any part of us that doesn’t want us to excel? It is because of the fear of loneliness, the fear of being separated from the tribe. Standing out from the rest of society entails the risk of discouragement, disapproval, and even isolation. The very path towards excellence already entails all of these things. No matter how individualistic one is, no human being feels comfortable in prolonged isolation from the rest of society. The internal war on excellence is as old as human society precisely because of this fear of standing out, which is actually the fear of loneliness.
The second reason for the war on excellence is the possibility of failure.
I will again start with the more obvious one, but this time it’s the internal war.
If you set out on a quest for personal excellence, you are aware that you might not reach it. When you set a high standard for yourself, there is a possibility that you might not meet it. When there is something you are aiming for, failure is not only possible, it is very clear and visible. If you are not aiming at anything, if there is no standard that you set for yourself, who is to say what failure is for you? Not only that no one else can look at you and say that you failed; you even spare yourself, although in the worst way possible, from seeing your failure.
This time, it is in the case of the external war on excellence that this reason maybe doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why should society care if you fail or not?
Well, maybe it’s not that the whole society really cares if you fail or not and is trying to protect you from failure by discouraging the pursuit of personal excellence. Maybe this time, the external war on excellence is waged by the people who care about you the most. How many people complain that their family wants them to pursue the safe path, which is not the path that leads them towards realizing their highest possibilities? I think we could agree that it is extremely rare that family members do that out of a lack of love or out of a genuine desire to stifle your growth. It is almost always the case that they do it out of a desire to protect you. To protect you not only from failure but also from all other uncomfortable aspects of pursuing excellence.
And as much as the fear of failure initially doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of the external war on excellence, I would say that, in most cases, people who care about us are even more afraid of our failure than we are.
Feel free to say, "Thank you, David, you did nothing to help me on the path of personal excellence. You just pointed out all the forces working against me."
Fair point.
This is a topic that I plan on writing much more about. So hopefully, I will have some valuable advice on how to deal with these forces and not be overcome by them. And maybe some of you can share your experience with coming out victorious from these wars.
But this time, I see us climbing a mountain side by side. I pointed out some of the major obstacles you have faced and will face during this climb. But I smile. Most of those obstacles were meant to prevent you from even starting to climb. And yet, here you are, climbing. And so am I.
So let’s keep climbing.
Thank you for reading.
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