Eric> This is the right question, Marcus, and I don’t know. I have met, or briefly worked with, a number of people who I think would have no idea what Gladwell is talking about in his parable on David and Goliath. I guess I should be thankful I have not met more. To this set of people, there is no concept of cultivating art or preserving society. There is nothing "bigger" unless they hear it in their Sunday sermon. (This kind of thing is just doublespeak for rich kids in liberal arts schools who waste their parents' tuition dollars when they should be studying for their accounting exam, after all.) I don't think it has anything to do with privilege, it is something one gets from early mentors (I could name them) who could be of any socioeconomic level. It seems to me to be a core building block of personality, perhaps even some hardwired or epigenetic part.
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