First off, I want to start out by saying that I don't like this following phrase, but I believe it has been a picture of my life here at UK, and in general.
"It is true now, as it was true one and two and three centuries ago, that success in life depends on being enmeshed in a web of relationships"(p.92).
The reason I don't like this sentence is because it makes it seem as if, in the case that a human being has no social prominency, he or she cannot accomplish anything. I don't believe that. There are many independents who have accomplished great feats without having contacts; some of our founders weren't favored by their home country; there are many college students without social credit due to the fact that they're in a new place that are paying for school out of their own pockets and doing their own laundry and paying their own bills and making their own plans.
Also, I think the definition of the word "success" can have a different meaning for different people. One person's definition may mean learning how to become ambidexterous. But who can help them with that? Someone would have to provide him or her with a pencil to practice with--unless he or she made it by himself or herself out of a tree in the forest. But then, humanity created the pencil, did we not? And it's not that he or she couldn't use his or her surroundings to create a new concept, but the person would have to go of the concepts from before, and since the world is not new, we rely on human concepts.
I don't think that Appiah means one can't be successful by doing things on one's own, I think that he means that we will always be under the influence of humanity.
Now that I've explained the concept, I can tell you why the above sentence relates to my college experience. In the fact that I am new to this university and am trying to do things I've never done before, I have been relying on people that do know to help me get started with my goals. I ask them for information, and they provide it, instructing me on what to do to accomplish my goals and be "successful." I've asked several people for information relating to my goals of achieveing the life I want. An example of this would be providing me with info. on how to change colleges so that I can become a teacher, and helping me to make up missed assignments so that I can get credit for the class and graduate; Also, I have been provided information about different programs that will allow me to go to Japan. Without these knowledgable informants, I would be very lost. And where else would we even know to do "assignents" or become a "teacher" if other people didn't exist?
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2 comments:
Whoa. If I had to describe this post in one word, that word would be Thorough. You have made your thoughts very clear here, and I agree with them. I don't think Appiah ever thought that no one could achieve success without other people.. just that our success will always be related in some way or another to humanity... but, this sort of means something a bit different to me. I think, perhaps, Appiah means that our success wouldn't be success if it weren't for humanity.. in other words, humanity measures what success is.. I'm probably only causing confusion here. Um, I mean that we measure our success by what humanity (other people) think of it. i.e.-We're successful because people think what we're succeeding.
I agree with the above poster, this is a very indepth blog, and I like how you're thinking!
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