Ben: The first American Idol

To start, let me say that this weeks goal is coming along swimmingly, pun intended. I have swum 2 times already, and I am going later today as well.

Back to the analyzing of Ben... I was thinking that he was the first celebrety figure. We can learn a lot about a country by who they make to be their heroes, and how they expect their heroes to achieve their status. Through the years of watching shows like American Idol and America's got Talent, I have noticed that the people who win are not always the most talented, but someone with talent and likeability. In my field, we would say that they also had a high E.Q., emotional I.Q., which leads to more success ultimately because people like you, and you are able to manage your own drives to go towards your goals. The notion of Ben just working hard and being a genius, actually may get in the way of ultimate success. Too often Americans think in terms of success as a fast and lucky endeavor, or the other extreme of putting the nose to the grindstone. In some ways this keeps the masses happy, and the very rich safe. What I mean is that it is very difficult to be as successful as Ben, kind of like winning the Powerball Lotto, but as long as it can happen to one person, it gives hope to the rest. How this keeps the wealthy safe, is that they can point to commoners like Ben and say "see, if you work hard, you can be successful like him," and they don't resent the wealthy. It also helps that he was relatively uneducated because this keeps people from striving after education, which is a way for them to make more money as well. Capitalists needed to make Ben an Idol, to legitimize and make "fair" their riches because they could say "you, too can be one of us, if you apply your talents, like Ben." This is my explanation currently on why we protect the rich. We have this notion that they worked harder and should therefore be rewarded more, which is not necessarily the case. Wealth breeds wealth after a certaqin extent. Many people work hard and have a lot of talent, but never become rich. Also, we exult the rich (we have shows like "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and Cribs) because this is the American dream. If you start attacking the rich, you are also attacking the dream. Unfortunately, this if a distortion of who Ben was. I benefit more by seeing Ben as someone who was constantly growing, because that is something I can do, but becoming rich and famous is something that has to have many factors coming together. Next time, I want to use the backdrop of the book Outliers, which talks about success, as a way of looking at how Ben succeeded, how I can succeed more, and how Americans can succeed more individually and as a country.