Do you really think that the virtue and competence of individuals do not affect one's standard of living?
Well, yes, of course they do. But--the nub of the issue for me (I think, anyway) is that "virtue" and "competence" are in part individual "choice" and in part conditioned response to circumstances. "Personal choices" are partly illusory--they are not solely personal, even if they seem so to the individual. And while competence can surely be the result of hard work and many individual choices, it is also in part a result of opportunities presented to individuals by circumstances they had nothing to do with. I am not, by saying that, trying to belittle those choices and that work. But we ignore context at the expense of truth, and the easy tendency is ignore context and stop asking why did we/I have this opportunity or why did we/I make this choice when it assuages our ego to do so. Ultimately, IMO, these kinds of things are unknowable at a fundamental level, but since we love to congratulate ourselves when possible, we pretend to know.
Something like that, anyway. |
