The Illusion of Hard Work and How It Fails

By Swara Aman

Student Number: 74521774

Final Exam SOCI 101

 If you work hard, you can achieve anything you set your mind to. This statement, passed

on as a message of encouragement, is one of the defining values of our meritocratic society,

where we are all equal and have equal opportunity to succeed and flourish. But how true is this

statement? In that case, why are all of us not C.E.O.s or rich and successful, with fancy

technology and luxurious homes? Is it our fault and a lack of effort on our parts, or is it because

of social forces beyond our control? In an essay titled the Sociological Imagination, C. Wright

Mills provides an answer to this question: it is not in fact our qualities as an individual that

prevent us from attaining lives of luxury and in fact broader social structures that are the root of

our struggles in obtaining this desire. It is not, in fact, that we do not work hard enough to

achieve our goals, or a personal failing on our part, but the result of a system with many barriers

that no individual can surmount, such as social class, age, and gender.

In addition to merit, a core truth of our society is the existence of an upper class, middle

class, and a lower class. Class impacts almost every dimension of our lives, and while often

thought of as a matter of hard work and individual effort, those who are born to the upper-class

are granted access to resources and privileges that, to be put quite frankly, are unearned by any

effort of their own. Rather, the only way to gain these privileges is to be born into an upper-class

family, which is a matter of luck rather than individual skill or talent. These advantages are

incredibly apparent in education, where children from upper-class families are much more likely

to attend prestigious schools and are able to engage in a larger range of activities (arts, sciences,

sports, clubs, etc.) than lower-class schools are able to provide. Prestigious schools often receive

much funding from the rich parents whose children attend, and they are able to utilize this
funding to provide better teachers and better materials for classrooms, which combine to form a

high-quality education. According to an analysis done by Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, in

children with equal IQ scores, "those with rich, well-educated, high-status parents could expect a

much higher level of schooling than those with less-favored origins", an observation that

succinctly captures the connection between social class and education. Though a child may be

academically talented and intelligent, their social class allows them to afford the high tuition of a

better school and to gain resources that would allow them to develop their talents and flourish in

an academic environment, such as tutoring or textbooks. Whereas a child from a lower-class

would not have been able to develop their own skills due to the fact that they would not have

been able to access this kind of environment. This demonstrates that high-quality education,

specifically the obtaining of it, is not because of an individual’s academic talent but because of

their social class and the resources it allows them to obtain.

Another aspect of our lives that the illusion of merit fails to explain is aging. Commonly

embedded in our collective consciousness is the idea that by the time we have reached old age,

we should have done everything we set out to do, including career goals or raising a family, and

that we should have built a happy life for ourselves. The reality of old age in our industrial

society is that older people often experience ageism, a form of discrimination based on age, and

are socially isolated from their families as well as bored and lacking a sense of self-worth after

leaving their jobs. During middle adulthood, the period leading up to old age, many women often

undergo divorce or their children growing up, which leads to both financial struggles and creates

a void in their lives that is difficult to fill after spending the majority of their adult lives caring

for their children. Men realize that they may never achieve certain career goals they wished to
obtain, or that doing so led to neglecting other aspects of their lives like families and personal

well-being. Both sexes in addition to experiencing the trademark physical decline of aging, live

apart from their families and understand less and less about the world as it is changing. The

wealth, power, and social standing that older people might have expected to obtain has been

passed down to younger adults, and instead they are left with ageist assumptions about their lack

of capabilities and intelligence, which makes it more difficult for them to obtain jobs or have

fulfilling activities after retirement. This lack of happiness in their old age is then less related to

their own hard work or merit, and more about the nature of the society they live in; thereby

disproving the assumption a meritocracy makes.

While human culture is vast and expansive, it can be systematically broken down into

specific elements like values and beliefs. Values are culturally defined standards of what is

prized as good in a society, and this is an aspect of culture that that those in high-income

countries often take for granted: the fact that their culture is allowed to revolve around values of

happiness and individualism as opposed to survival and security. We are allowed to focus on

prioritizing ways to improve our societies and creating an environment that fosters acceptance

for all kinds of people, which is a privilege in itself because we don't have to focus as much on

making sure we are able to survive, whereas other societies do. This can be seen with societal

views towards homosexuality. In higher-income, more egalitarian aspiring societies,

homosexuality is accepted or at least accommodated as a natural phenomenon, whereas in a

society that is more focused on survival and reproduction, homosexuality would be seen as

something to be prevented or criminalized because men and women would need to focus on

procreating as a means to raise families. Being able to express ones alternative sexual
orientations or gender identity can either be a matter of luck or a brave choice, depending on the

environment you’re in. If you’re lucky enough to be born in a society where you are accepted,

expressing your sexuality can be met with support instead of homophobia or prejudice, and this

is not a matter of expressing it in a more digestible way as some might say (a personal choice or

merit).

In conclusion, the central belief of merit in Canadian society fails to capture the struggles

and benefits that we have as a result of the system we live in. With social class, those who are

upper-class gain the privilege of a better education that those with the same level of talent in

lower classes cannot access. In age, the idea of working hard to achieve a happy retirement does

not often live up to the reality of old age, with its struggles of social isolation and financial or

emotional issues. The value of acceptance and the ability to express sexuality freely is a result of

culture, and in other kinds of societies may not be afforded to some. The illusion of hard work

being the solution to everything often results in us feeling like our failure to solve our own

struggles is a flaw or personal failing; but acknowledging the reality of our situations being

dictated by societal barriers is the first step to improving and finding solutions. As the popular

saying goes, awareness is the first step to admitting you have a problem. With this increased

awareness, we can put our efforts into improving these issues, and turning our aspiration of an

equal society to a reality.