The Many Must Fail (Part One)

THE MANY MUST FAIL (PART ONE)

In the film ‘Superman III’, the movie’s villain explains his motives in typical megalomaniacal fashion. “It is not enough that I should succeed, everyone else must fail!”.

This is the sort of comment one might expect of a ‘baddie’ in a superman film, but actually this quote (or at least something very similar) is attributed to a real-life person. That person was the novelist, essayist and playwrite Gore Vidal. His version goes like this: “It is not enough to succeed, others must fail”.

This seems to be rather an unusual attitude to take when it comes to success and failure. Much more common are exclamations that tell us we can all be successful. When Lewis Hamilton became 7 times world champion, a feat equalled only by the legendary Michael Schumacher, he told the world “this is for all the kids out there who dare to dream the impossible. You can do it too, man!”. I have seen no end of Steemit posts that make similar claims. Pursue your dreams, never give up believing you will be a success, and success will surely come your way.

I think, though, that if we set about trying to interpret the meaning of Gore Vidal’s statement, we’ll find it contains a lot more truth than those optimistic ‘we can all be winners’ exclamations.

So, let’s examine what Vidal said. “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail”. Why is success insufficient? One obvious reason is because, without failure, success is meaningless. It is kind of like what Laurie Anderson said about night. “Days. What are days for? To put between the endless night”. If there were no days to bring contrast to ‘the endless night’ it would render ‘nighttime’ a meaningless concept. Similarly, if nobody failed we would have no contrast with which to measure successes.

So, without failure success means nothing. Furthermore, in life there are clearly degrees of achievement. In some sense, we all strive for and accomplish goals in our everyday life. Today, for example, I successfully climbed all the way up a flight of stairs. Strangely enough, though, my accomplishment was not broadcast around the world, giving encouragement to all kids that “you can do it too, man!”. But why not? Why should Hamilton’s achievement be so impressive, while mine was not at all noteworthy?

Well, like I said, the obvious answer is that not all achievements deserve recognition. What makes an accomplishment stand out is the likelihood of failure. I walked up some steps, but so what? Any able-bodied person would be expected to complete such a modest goal. Contrast the lack of admiration due to my achievement, with that which followed the first successful ascent of Everest. In a very basic sense, these goals were the same. We both started at the base of an ascent and got all the way to the top. But when Sherper Tensing and Edmund Hillary made it to the top of Everest, the fact that they were the first people to do so made their achievement one of significant, historical importance.

Now contrast the photograph of Tensing and Hillary standing atop Everest with a contemporary snapshot of the summit. In the former photograph, it was just those two men. No other human had ever set foot on that mountain, and previous climbers had died in the attempt, or been forced to retreat in the face of insurmountable obstacles. So of course, when Tensing and Hillary did reach the top it was considered a great success. But in a modern photo, you would likely see not a lonely mountaintop, but rather a long line of faceless, nameless mountaineers, all queuing to take their turn in standing at the summit before making way for the next group. Why don’t we care to know the names of those climbers? Because, the more people succeed at a goal, the less remarkable that goal becomes. Frankly, the world just does not care if you are the 417th person to reach the summit of Everest.

Having said that, actually reaching the top of the world’s highest mountain is still quite an achievement, mostly because it is something that most of us will never do. The majority of us will never be given the opportunity to even try, and even if we were granted such an opportunity, the sheer immensity of the challenge would be too great and we would fail. For those who do manage to overcome everything the mountain can throw at them and ascend all the way to its summit, it is our failure that makes their achievement something to be proud of.

Similarly, it was not enough for Lewis Hamilton to become 7 times world champion. As is always the case, the size of his achievement was measured by the number of those who failed to match his accomplishments. How many people dream of being Formula 1 drivers? It must surely be millions, of not billions of us. Out of those millions, only a dozen or so get to participate in the Grand Prix. And of those handful of elite sportsmen, only two in the history of the sport have achieved what Hamilton achieved. It was our failure, multiplied billions of times, that made his accomplishment so noteworthy.

Now, your’re probably thinking, “sure, in the case of major, world-famous challenges- climbing Everest, becoming Formula 1 world champ- most of us will never achieve such goals. But Lewis was not referring to such almighty challenges when he said, ‘you can do it too, man’; instead he was referring to everyday challenges like being paid to do what you love”.

However, in the next instalment we will see how, even in this everyday sense, the saying ‘it is not enough to succeed, others must fail’ holds true.