"Nope, they were not fortunate. If you think that's luck, you should spend your time playing lottery."
Everybody who succeeds is fortunate. They were fortunate to be born into a well-to-do family(if they were) in, perhaps, a developed country, or at the very least fortunate not to have starved in an undeveloped one, fortunate to attend school and be educated, most of all, fortunate enough to be endowed with a highly intelligent brain that was shaped and molded and cultivated by the people around them. If you think you did anything alone in your entire life, you are sorely mistaken.
Nobody succeeds alone. Everybody around you deserves respect because they co-authored your life
I was going to take your argument a lot more seriously, but then I came to this part:
fortunate enough to be endowed with a highly intelligent brain
That's just taking it too far. By that same logic they were fortunate that, about 2 billion years, certain bacteria and algae began to appear and thus we have life on Earth today.
If you think did anything alone in your entire life, you are sorely mistaken.
We're all standing on the shoulders of the giants. That doesn't mean we should spend our time looking down and exclaiming "Wow, these guys sure are tall!" We should be aware of where we are, grateful that we're there and make the best of it. And that means look forward and up, not down.
Everybody around you deserves respect because they are the co-authors of your life.
That's where you're wrong. It's true that everything in my life factors into my personality and my measure of success. That doesn't automatically mean that everything and everyone around me deserves my respect.
Like it or not, certain levels of respect have to be earned. Likewise, respect can be easily squandered.
But considering that 90% of the organisms that have ever lived on Earth have died without reproducing, and therefore you are the end result of a line of organisms every single one of which lived to reproduce, then yes, I'd say we are lucky to have been born at the end of this 4 billion year long process and to have a human brain instead of say, that of a slug. But slugs are lucky too.
I agree that you can grade respect based on how much people have earned it. What I'm criticizing here isn't levels of respect but disrespect.
But even people who don't "succeed" by the standards of the modern society are fortunate. Many "failures" live in developed countries, or in countries where the standard of living has improved dramatically over the last 100 years. They are fortunate not to have been killed when they were young. They have many things to be grateful for.
Why should the "successful" people be grateful any more?
And, furthermore, what if you define success in a different way? Perhaps all that Linus has forever wished in his live was for a specific girl to love him, and he just wasn't that "fortunate"?
>Nobody succeeds alone. Everybody around you deserves respect because they are the co-authors of your life.
While "nobody succeeds alone" is true, the conclusion you draw is not.
Some of those "co-authors of your life" write the _bad_ chapters.
Also, that nobody succeeds alone, does not mean that you succeed BECAUSE OF everyone of the other people. Some people you succeed DESPITE OF (and even despite their best efforts to bring you down).
You can argue with the reasoning here, but you can't argue with the conclusion unless you're advocating not respecting somebody. It's a nasty position to take.
Even if somebody writes a bad chapter in your life, it doesn't mean you should be out to write bad chapters in theirs.
Everybody deserves at least a basic level of respect. It's a fundamental component to being moral.
>Even if somebody writes a bad chapter in your life, it doesn't mean you should be out to write bad chapters in theirs.
You'd be surprised. Live by the sword, die by the sword, I say. And eye for an eyelid. I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee...
Everybody who succeeds is fortunate. They were fortunate to be born into a well-to-do family(if they were) in, perhaps, a developed country, or at the very least fortunate not to have starved in an undeveloped one, fortunate to attend school and be educated, most of all, fortunate enough to be endowed with a highly intelligent brain that was shaped and molded and cultivated by the people around them. If you think you did anything alone in your entire life, you are sorely mistaken.
Nobody succeeds alone. Everybody around you deserves respect because they co-authored your life