When your self-worth depends on what you achieve
Summary
TLDREl guion del video explora cómo la sociedad se enfoca en el logro y el rendimiento por encima de la humanidad y el bienestar personal. Critica la obsesión con el éxito y cómo esto puede llevar a una pérdida de reconocimiento del valor intrínseco de cada individuo. Expone cómo la sociedad actual valora a las personas por sus logros y no por su esencia humana, creando una cultura de 'hacer humano' en lugar de 'ser humano'. El guion también analiza la teoría de la comparación social y cómo la cultura del 'hustle' y el consumismo de cursos de auto-mejora pueden ser auto-defectuosos. Finalmente, plantea la idea de buscar el valor y la autoestima en algo más estable y auténtico que los logros externos, sugiriendo que la verdadera humanidad no se mide por lo que hacemos, sino por quiénes somos.
Takeaways
- 🔍 La búsqueda en internet a menudo dirige a las redes sociales para obtener información sobre una persona, pero esto revela poco sobre su verdadera personalidad.
- 🤳 Las redes sociales muestran logros, títulos laborales y antecedentes educativos, pero pueden no reflejar la esencia de una persona.
- 🏆 La sociedad se obsesiona con el éxito y el estatus, lo que puede llevar a subestimar la importancia de la personalidad y el bienestar.
- 🧐 La valoración de las personas se basa en sus logros en lugar de en su humanidad, lo que puede afectar nuestra autoestima y bienestar.
- 🤖 La sociedad tiende a dehumanizar a aquellos que no cumplen con los estándares de rendimiento, etiquetándolos como 'perdedores' o 'fracasados'.
- 💼 La identidad y el valor de una persona están ligados a su desempeño y logros, no a su ser inherente como seres humanos.
- 💼 La pregunta '¿Qué haces?' refleja la importancia que se le da a la posición laboral y al éxito profesional en la sociedad.
- 🏁 La cultura del 'rat race' y el 'hustle culture' promueven un ciclo continuo de comparación y competencia por el éxito y el estatus.
- 🧩 El teorema de la comparación social de Leon Festinger explica cómo compararnos con otros afecta nuestra autoevaluación y valoración de nosotros mismos.
- 🌐 La sociedad del logro promueve la autoexpresión y la competencia por la admiración, lo que puede fomentar el narcisismo.
- 💡 El filósofo Byung-Chul Han describe cómo la sociedad del logro ha evolucionado desde una sociedad disciplinaria, enfocándose en lo que las personas pueden lograr.
- 🚫 La sociedad del logro puede tener efectos negativos en la autoestima y el bienestar psicológico de las personas que no alcanzan los ideales de éxito.
- 💔 La falta de logro en una sociedad del logro se considera una ofensa, y aquellos que no se adaptan son vistos como 'pecadores'.
- 🌟 La sociedad celebra a aquellos que se comportan de manera narcisista, ya que se ajustan a las expectativas del éxito y el estatus.
- 🚫 La autovaloración basada en el logro puede ser inestable y problemática, ya que depende de circunstancias fuera de nuestro control.
- 💭 La búsqueda de la autoestima y el valor propio debería basarse en algo más estable y accesible, como nuestra inherente humanidad y los valores personales.
Q & A
¿Qué revela la información en las redes sociales sobre una persona?
-Las redes sociales como Facebook, Instagram y LinkedIn revelan información sobre logros, títulos laborales, antecedentes educativos y el número de personas que conoce alguien. También pueden mostrar fotos de lugares cool que han visitado, con la persona generalmente desproporcionadamente en primer plano.
¿Qué sugiere el guionista sobre las selfies tecnológicamente mejoradas?
-El guionista sugiere que las selfies mejoradas pueden revelar algo sobre los niveles de narcisismo de las personas, pero más allá de eso, proporcionan poco conocimiento sobre la persona con la que realmente nos enfrentamos.
¿Qué refleja la obsesión con el estatus y los logros en lugar de las personas y su bienestar?
-La obsesión con el estatus y los logros en lugar de las personas y su bienestar refleja lo que valoramos como sociedad, donde estamos obsesionados con el logro y atrapados en un ciclo donde el último éxito mide el valor personal.
¿Por qué la sociedad a menudo dehumaniza a quienes no cumplen con los estándares de desempeño esperados?
-La sociedad a menudo dehumaniza a quienes no cumplen con los estándares de desempeño esperados porque valora más el rendimiento y la conformidad que la humanidad en sí misma, etiquetándolos como 'perdedores' o 'fracasados'.
¿Qué es un 'hacer humano' según el guionista?
-Un 'hacer humano' es alguien cuyo valor depende de lo que logra y no de su ser. No obtiene su identidad de ser, sino de hacer, o mejor dicho, de conformarse a lo que su entorno considera digno de hacer.
¿Cómo se ve afectado el valor de una persona en la sociedad actual basada en el logro?
-En una sociedad basada en el logro, el valor de una persona se ve afectado por su éxito y logros materiales, y se juzga a otros y a uno mismo en función de lo que logran, lo que lleva a una constante estimación de la valía de los demás.
¿Qué es la teoría de la comparación social de Leon Festinger?
-La teoría de la comparación social de Leon Festinger explica que los individuos se comparan con otros como una forma de medición y autoevaluación para determinar dónde se encuentran en la sociedad.
¿Cómo describe Byung-Chul Han la transición de una sociedad disciplinaria a una sociedad de logro?
-Byung-Chul Han describe que la sociedad del siglo XXI ya no es una sociedad disciplinaria, sino una sociedad de logro, donde los habitantes son 'sujetos de logro' en lugar de 'sujetos de obediencia', y son empresarios de sí mismos.
¿Qué dice Han sobre los efectos perjudiciales de la sociedad de logro?
-Han señala que los efectos perjudiciales de la sociedad de logro incluyen estrés psicológico, agotamiento y la creación de depresivos y perdedores, quienes son vistos como los pecadores finales en una sociedad de logro.
¿Cómo se relaciona el narcisismo con la sociedad de logro según el guionista?
-El guionista sugiere que el narcisismo es la enfermedad de nuestra era y que es comprensible que surja una amplia difusión de narcisismo en un entorno que impulsa a las personas a convertirse en 'marcas personales' y a competir por la admiración.
¿Qué sugiere el guionista como una alternativa a basar nuestro valor en los logros?
-El guionista sugiere que podríamos encontrar una fuente de valoración en algo más estable y alcanzable, como un sentido inherente de valor basado en ser seres humanos y no solo 'hacer humano', o un valor propio basado en perseguir lo que nosotros (no otros) consideramos importante en la vida.
Outlines
🧐 La valoración de las personas basada en logros
El primer párrafo explora cómo las redes sociales como Facebook, Instagram y LinkedIn nos muestran la vida de las personas basada en logros y éxitos, pero no revelan su verdadera personalidad o bienestar. Se cuestiona si la sociedad ha dejado de reconocer el valor inherente de las personas, viendo solo sus logros y éxitos. Se destaca la obsesión con el éxito y cómo esto puede afectar el comportamiento y el bienestar de las personas, y se plantea la idea de que las personas son vistas más como 'hacer humano' que como 'ser humano'.
🤔 La sociedad de logros y sus efectos
El segundo párrafo examina la ironía de que la sociedad nos alienta a gastar dinero en cursos que nos enseñan a trabajar sin fin y a ser esclavos de nuestro propio éxito. Se discute cómo la filosofía de 'Burnout Society' de Byung-Chul Han describe la transición de una sociedad de disciplina a una sociedad de logros, donde las personas se convierten en emprendedores de sí mismas. Se menciona cómo la sociedad de logros promueve una motivación intrínseca que nos lleva a trabajar duro hasta el agotamiento. Además, se aborda el impacto negativo que esto puede tener en la autoestima y el valoración de las personas que no logran cumplir con estas expectativas.
😕 El narcisismo y la sociedad de logros
El tercer párrafo explora cómo la sociedad de logros fomenta el narcisismo, donde las personas se ven obligadas a convertirse en 'marcas personales' y a destacar constantemente en las redes sociales. Se discute la diferencia entre tendencias narcisistas y el Trastorno de la Personalidad Narcisista (NPD). Se argumenta que el narcisista es el héroe perfecto de una sociedad de logros, ya que su valoración de sí mismo depende de cómo los demás lo perciben en términos de estatus y logros. Finalmente, se cuestiona si es posible encontrar un sentido de valoración personal más estable y duradero basado en ser seres humanos y no solo en nuestros logros.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Autovaloración
💡Realizaciones
💡Comparación social
💡Cultura del esfuerzo
💡Autoengaño
💡Sociedad de logros
💡Narcisismo
💡Estatus
💡Redes sociales
💡Humanidad
💡Valor inherente
Highlights
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn often reveal achievements, job titles, and educational backgrounds but provide little insight into a person's character.
The focus on status and accomplishments rather than on people's characters reflects societal values.
The societal obsession with achievement can lead to a cycle where personal worth is measured by success.
The concept of 'human doings' suggests that value is derived from achievements rather than inherent humanity.
Social comparison theory by Leon Festinger explains how individuals measure their worth by comparing themselves to others.
Hustle culture and the rat race are modern manifestations of the relentless pursuit of status and material success.
The achievement society breeds narcissism by rewarding behaviors that align with narcissistic traits.
The transition from a disciplinary to an achievement society has profound psychological and societal implications.
The achievement society's relentless positivity can undermine self-worth for those who do not conform to its ideals.
The negative consequences of an achievement society include psychological strain, burnout, and a sense of failure for those who do not achieve.
The societal shift from viewing people as 'human beings' to 'human doings' devalues inherent human worth.
The question 'So, what do you do?' often reflects a societal focus on professional achievements rather than personal qualities.
The material success and career achievements are often used as a measure of a person's value in society.
The constant drive for self-optimization and showcasing on social media is indicative of our age's narcissistic tendencies.
Narcissism is not only tolerated but often celebrated in today's achievement-oriented culture.
The inherent value of being a human being should be recognized beyond achievements and performance.
Finding fulfillment in sources other than societal achievements requires strength and courage to defy conventional expectations.
Transcripts
When Googling someone’s name, you’re often directed to social media platforms like Facebook,
Instagram, and LinkedIn for more information about this individual. But what do these platforms
actually tell you? They reveal plenty about achievements, job titles, educational backgrounds,
and the number of people they know. They showcase numerous photos of the cool places they visited,
with the individual usually disproportionally in the foreground. Let’s also consider the carefully
curated collection of technologically enhanced selfies. These might reveal
something about the levels of narcissism in these individuals; however, beyond that,
they provide little insight into the kind of person we’re actually dealing with. Our focus,
and sometimes obsession, with status, accomplishments, and work—rather than
with people and their characters and actual well-being—reflects what we value as a society.
We’re obsessed with achievement, trapped in a cycle where one’s latest success measures
personal worth. This fixation raises a crucial question: Have we stopped recognizing each
other’s inherent value, seeing ourselves merely as products of our accomplishments? And if so,
how does this impact our behavior and well-being? This video explores the predicament of basing our
self-worth on our achievements and if there’s anything we can do to escape this cycle.
We are all human beings, aren’t we? We’re humans because we are, meaning our innate
humanness makes us human. So why does society often dehumanize those who don’t meet expected
performance standards, labeling them as ‘losers’ or ‘failures’? Why does it seem that human value
is based not on our humanity but on how well we meet society’s expectations? To be human,
being human isn’t enough these days. To be human, we have to achieve, conform, and display
ourselves doing so. Thus, we could say that we’ve stopped seeing each other as human beings and
started regarding each other as ‘human doings.’ A ‘human doing’ has little or no inherent worth.
Its value depends on what it achieves. It doesn’t derive its identity from being but from doing, or
better, from conforming to what its surroundings deem worthy of doing. Current society is very much
geared toward achievement, especially in the material sense. We tend to admire people who
make a lot of money, are successful in their careers, and have fancy job titles attached to
their LinkedIn profiles. We judge others and ourselves based on what we achieve. Hence,
when meeting someone, the cardinal question is: “So, what do you do?” Of course,
this question doesn’t refer to what we do in our leisure time, our spiritual development,
our social life, and how we treat others. No, this question almost always points to what we do
for a living: our position among the working, our rank within the career-pursuing masses.
Funnily enough, as this question is often asked, most people have their elevator pitches ready as
if they are regurgitating their own personal product summaries, concisely demonstrating
their usefulness. The asker of the question must view one’s position as valuable or,
at least, interesting, as one’s estimation in the asker’s eyes depends on it. So,
you’re cleaning toilets? Okay, your rank is somewhere between the unemployed and a
McDonald’s cook. I’m sure you’ll get along well. Ah, you’re a product manager? Now, we’re talking.
You can sit at the cool kid’s table between the senior marketing employee and the startup
entrepreneur. So, you’re a YouTuber? How’s that going for you? Oh, do you mean full-time? Wait,
two million followers? Ahh, I’m not sure which table I should assign you to. How much money do
you make a month? And is YouTube an actual career? We’re constantly estimating each other’s worth.
And the common denominator is achievement. In a society like this, which bases one’s
value so heavily on one’s accomplishments, many start to base their self-worth on them.
American psychologist Leon Festinger proposed the ‘Social comparison theory,’ which explains that
individuals compare themselves to others as a form of measurement and self-assessment to determine
where they stand. We can see this happen on social media, for example, when it comes to beauty
standards, the ongoing cycle of comparison, and the effects of this on self-esteem and self-worth.
We can also apply this to achievement. The so-called ‘rat race’ is an example; it’s a
glorified pursuit of status, money, and material objects. Today’s hustle culture is a rat race on
steroids: always achieving, never enough, always being on one’s ‘purpose,’ which often refers to
someone earning a fortune by dropshipping or selling overpriced courses on YouTube.
And those who promote this hustle culture the loudest often profit just by selling that idea:
their hustle is selling you the dream of hustling. As a culture, we don’t seem to understand the
irony of all this madness: that we’re willing to spend our already hard-earned money on courses
teaching us a lifestyle of endless, self-defeating toil. We’re eager to become slaves and even
willing to pay for it. And so, many young men and women desperately seek out some internet guru
who’s making bank just by dictating them to work their asses off and constantly ‘crush it.’ But for
what? For the ‘clacking of tongues’ as the ancient Romans would say. We do it because society then
perceives us as valuable, and our worth in other people’s eyes increases as our achievements surge.
In his book ‘Burnout Society,’ South Korean-born German philosopher Byung-Chul Han describes
how we’ve transitioned from a disciplinary society to an achievement society, saying:
Twenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society,
but rather an achievement society. Also, its inhabitants are no longer “obedience-subjects”
but “achievement-subjects.” They are entrepreneurs of themselves. End quote.
According to Han,
a disciplinary society mainly tells people what they cannot do, while an achievement society
emphasizes what people can do. Therefore, the disciplinary society has a negative orientation,
while the achievement society has a positive orientation. The affirmation “Yes, we can”
is the central tenet of this society. It tells us about all the things we can do and achieve,
the great things we can become, all the material stuff we can have, the status we can attain and
the praise we can get from that. It’s the dream of ‘unlimited can’ that we can become everything
we want if we work hard. While a disciplinary society imposes work ethic on the people by
means of force and penalties, an achievement society does it by selling a dream and incentives.
Surprisingly, perhaps, the positive approach is more effective and efficient. We not only
work harder, but we’re also intrinsically motivated to work ourselves into an early
grave. We’re more effective slaves that don’t need masters, as we’re constantly
whipping ourselves. At most, we hand the whips to these motivational gurus and let
them whip some ‘grinding’ and ‘hustling’ in us. The harmful effects of the achievement society are
also apparent. Aside from the psychological strain and, eventually, burnout, this ongoing pursuit of
achievement leads to (according to Han) could also undermine one’s self-worth. When society’s
relentless positivity tells us we should all constantly strive to be happy and successful,
when people measure each other based on productivity and success, what does that mean
for those who don’t conform to these ideals?
Let’s quote another passage from Han’s book, saying:
Disciplinary society is still governed by no. Its negativity produces madmen and criminals.
In contrast, achievement society creates depressives and losers.
End quote. Not achieving in an achievement
society is akin to societal blasphemy. The losers and failures are the ultimate sinners. Of course,
you’ll feel bad about yourself when considered a modern-day untouchable. And so, it’s not just
the dream that motivates us to achieve; it’s also the nightmare of being perceived as less,
for example, the neck-bearded loser living in his mom’s basement playing video games,
being the meme representing more or less the bottom you can reach as a man.
The desire to outshine others, the emphasis on self-optimization, and the constant showcasing
of ourselves on social media align with the sickness of our age: narcissism.
‘Narcissism’ is today’s buzzword for a reason: it’s because people across the board have indeed
been becoming increasingly narcissistic. We often demonize these people for being narcissists, but
to what extent can we blame them? In environments that push people into becoming personal ‘brands,’
always busy spotlighting themselves and competing for admiration, isn’t the emergence
of widespread narcissism understandable? There’s a difference between narcissistic
tendencies and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (or NPD). I’ll focus on narcissistic tendencies,
such as a grandiose sense of self-importance, self-absorption, and the need for excessive
admiration. So, with ‘narcissist,’ I refer to someone with such tendencies. That said, I think
we can consider the narcissist the ultimate hero of the achievement society. After all,
his (or her) self almost entirely depends on how others perceive them in terms of status,
importance, value, et cetera. Their estimation in the eyes of others (or at least, how they
think others see them) is their sense of self. And so, the only way for this sense of self to
survive is by fully engaging in the achievement society: to be the fastest rat in the rat race,
outshine all in terms of beauty, or simply put, achieve the most in any chosen area. And they
don’t shun exploiting others without remorse, as the goal is what counts, regardless of the means.
The narcissist lives in a bubble: they’re the absolute centers of their microcosms,
and others serve mainly to admire or to be used. Sadly enough, our current culture hardly
penalizes the behavior of these people. On the contrary, we tend to celebrate the braggadocious,
pompous go-getter who often lacks morals or the self-obsessed Instagram model amassing likes
and comments. Today, being a narcissist pays. According to Han, it’s not that these narcissists
have created the achievement society; it’s the achievement society that breeds narcissists,
as it rewards behaviors that align with narcissistic traits.
When your self-worth depends on what you achieve, you’ll feel worthy when you accomplish what you
think you need to but unworthy when you don’t. We love ourselves based on our
performance because the world loves us based on our performance. And so, maintaining our
self-worth requires constant striving for success. Achievement isn’t a bad thing in itself. Humanity
enjoys many of its past achievements today. But the “positivity” of constant success and
achievement is only one side of life. We can’t be successful all the time. We
can’t be constantly achieving. If we try, we’ll eventually pay the price.
Life also consists of failure, achieving nothing, and basically anything else that
doesn’t entail success and accomplishment. Also, for a significant part, achievement
and success lie outside of our control, meaning that our ‘worth’ largely depends
on circumstances not up to us. But basing our self-worth
on circumstances we have such limited control over puts us in an unreliable position. After all,
as long as circumstances allow us to attain societal standards and people acknowledge our
achievements, we feel good about ourselves. But if we cannot comply for reasons not in our control,
people see us as losers nonetheless, and our self-worth goes down the drain as well.
But what’s ‘worth’ anyway? Isn’t someone’s or something’s value subjective? Don’t we consider
something valuable because we deem it so? Of course, it’s challenging not to chase what society
demands. And it’s probably even more difficult to deal with the consequences of doing so.
However, won’t generating self-worth from something more stable and attainable make
it more healthy and robust? What about an inherent sense of value based on the fact
we’re human beings, not just ‘human doings?’ What about self-worth based on pursuing what
we (not others) deem important in life? We could find fulfillment in other sources.
However, tapping into these sources requires the strength and courage to
deviate from the world’s opinion. And for most of us, that’s easier said than done.
Thank you for watching.
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