People who have too strong an internal locus of control are psychologically blinded to sociological and economic realities. They are deluded into believing in the phantasm that is the American dream. That it is, if you work hard enough, you can attain the socioeconomic status that you strive for. By this view, the world will bend to your ardent perseverance, and to prove it, you can look to exemplars of the American dream having been fulfilled.
In truth, however, the locus of control is more external than many of us like to think. It may be depressing to think that you are not in control of your own destiny, but sometimes we owe our allegiance more to the truth than to false hopes. These success stories that we point to to prove that we can achieve all of our dreams are really outliers. The way our society is structured, it is inevitable that a few will succeed; and if we look at the huge income disparity in the United States, we see that these few succeed beyond any reasonable measure; but those successes are the exceptions, not the rule.
In truth, the American dream is achieved more through a lottery than on merit. The winners of the lottery are born with lucky tickets biologically, historically, geographically, and socially.
Even if the dream were attained more on merit, form whence does merit come anyway? Virtues themselves, it seems to me, are also heavily founded on luck. Genetics and life experiences shape a person’s abilities and character very heavily.
So perhaps Social Darwinism is the right way to go after all, as I sometimes wonder if any of us can help ourselves, and I doubt that enough of us want to help each other, and maybe those who don’t want to help the less fortunate — those who did not the winning socioeconomic lottery — can’t help themselves for not helping others.
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