I've been thinking about this a lot recently as an american living abroad.
Tocqueville noticed this idea you're speaking to in the 1830s and was puzzled by it. Europeans from aristocratic cultures tend toward resentment of those above them Americans, mostly felt aspiration.
The american idea was, if success is available to anyone through hard work, then the successful person isn't really above you, they're ahead on the same road. Their success doesn't diminish you; it demonstrates the road exists. The self-made man is proof of concept, not an accusation.
@apralky i don't know man, every time i get in my tesla i'm impressed with the aesthetic consideration that went into every detail. Especially jarring in comparison to any new random gas car
@StarPlatinum_ This feels easier than 2018-'19 when it felt like it could be over forever. And especially easier than last cycle with 3arrows, Luna, Blockfi, Celsius, etc and then the FTX nuke at the very end.
The full passage
"An artist cannot endure reality; he turns away or back from it: his earnest opinion is that the worth of a thing consists in that nebulous residue which one extracts from colors, form, sound, thoughts... he believes that the more subtilized, diluted, vaporized a thing or a man becomes, the more valuable he grows: the less real, the more valuable. This is Platonism...โ
HOT TAKE: Girls aren't raised to be women. They're raised to be defective boys. That's the root of so much misandry. Society doesn't teach girls empathy, emotional honesty, or respect for men as equals, it teaches them to feign vulnerability, dominate with language and law, and fear anything "feminine." They're rewarded for aggression and punished for kindness. And when adulthood hits, these habits don't just vanish, they manifest as entitlement, delusion, and victim playing.