Opressively articulated though it is, there is a point in William James’ dictum about the false ethical values of his, and our, century: ‘The moral flabbiness born of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That — with the squalid interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease’. [William James to H.G. Wells, Sept. 11, 1906]
Oppressively articulated though it is, there is a point in William James’ dictum about the false ethical values of his, and our, century: ‘The moral flabbiness born of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That —with the squalid interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease’. [William James to H.G. Wells, Sept. 11, 1906]
When Scott Fitzgerald exmined the vulgar sense of what ‘success meant in his time, he invented The Great Gatsby. Is success being offered champagne or accepting it, is what it appears to be about on the surface. However, I was not aware of the words of the great liberal-thinking proto-psychologist and intellectual, William James, before I looked up the etymology of the word success in the Online Etymological Dictionary but it certainly illustrates the point – of how slowing progression from any action on a task gets bifurcated into the acceptable and the unacceptable, ‘good success’ (as we ought to say and ‘bad success’, to the definining binary antymony as used now, success or failure) anf the wishful transformation of a word referring to any result or outcome – to good or ill effect – into only the results and outcomes we consider good. The sense that anyone who makes the grade in the conditions and critieria of hierarchical state of what constitutes status – perhaps largely measured by financial wealth but also that will-o-the-wisp ‘fame’ – is ‘success, is precisely what James meant I suppose in writing to Wells, although he might have chosen a metaphor for this aberration in what success means than a ‘bitch-goddess’, a female who gives herself to the highest bidder, had he even thought of the sex/gender stereotypes it evoked. I quote below the immediate source for me of the quotation:
success (n.)
1530s, “result, outcome, termination of an affair or enterprise” for good or ill, from Latin successus “an advance, a coming up; a good result, happy outcome,” noun use of past participle of succedere “come after, follow after; go near to; come under; take the place of,” also “go from under, mount up, ascend,” hence “get on well, prosper, be victorious.” This is from sub “next to, after” (see sub-) + cedere “go, move” (reconstructed in Watkins to be from PIE root *ked- “to go, yield”).
The meaning “accomplishment of desired end, favorable or propitious termination of anything attempted” is attested in English by 1580s, with ellipsis of an adjective (as in good success). The original neutral sense is still in Milton but was obsolete from 18c. In 16c.-17c. success also could mean “succession, order of sequence.”
The meaning “thing or person which succeeds,” especially in public, is from 1882.
The moral flabbiness born of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That — with the squalid interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease. [William James to H.G. Wells, Sept. 11, 1906]
Success story “an account of a success” is attested from 1902. Among the French phrases reported by OED as in use in English late 19c. were succès d’estime “cordial reception given to a literary work out of respect rather than admiration” and succès de scandale “success (especially of a work of art) dependent upon its scandalous character.”
Of course the etymology of the word stopping in the 1530s in the progression chart above has a continuing progression. When Satan confronts Gabriel on his arrival alone on Earth to seek to tempt humankind, he uses the word qualified by ill, to show that success is all the outcomes that follow on endeavour:
Not that I less endure, or shrink from pain, Insulting Angel, well thou knowst I stood Thy fiercest, when in Battel to thy aide The blasting volied Thunder made all speed And seconded thy else not dreaded Spear. But still thy words at random, as before, Argue thy inexperience what behooves From hard assaies and ill successes past A faithful Leader, not to hazard all Through wayes of danger by himself untri'd.
In brief in every trial (‘wayes of danger tri’d or untri’d) considers its outcome – its success as being good or ill. But modernity, even as James reports as if a new usage of the word, bring success as a meaningful concept to the point that no-one consults the Latin root of the word (as indeed they need not – language change is not usually to beheld back by its past) and thinks instead only of a word that is the opposite of ‘failure’. Of course, as you see, in the older sense failures are forms of success, something that resulted from effort. Instead we look to Edison saying:
Although we might be forgiven for not questioning further to discover that Edison in fact founded great wealth and status on the back of the imagination and hard work of his employees’ inventions, the literal truth, we forget also that most outcomes and results – even failure – are also often, and perhaps in greater number, based on imagination and hard work, regardless of ambition, though ambition linked to present power and ruthless determination often trumps hard work, suffering and inventiveness (how else could the president of The United States of America have gor his name but by much trumping).
Look back at Satan’s’ words as imagined by Milton and I think that is how I define success in life, which is not to assume that I presuppose good success, even though Milton shows Satan achieving that, in pre-Apocalyptic time scales at least, it is the for ever trying through new ways not to give in to those who say there is only way of doing something, however Godly they assume their authority to be.
But still thy words at random, as before, Argue thy inexperience what behooves From hard assaies and ill successes past A faithful Leader, not to hazard all Through wayes of danger by himself untri'd.
Or – it’s just like you, Gabriel, to excuse the fact that you have not sought experience of seeking the better, for had you done so, tou’d see that a leader who stickes to the task leards from past difficult attempts that led to failure, that sometimes you have to risk everything to find a way, howeever dangerous it seems, to try again in ways untried in the past, even without any notion of good success than hope. Do keep on learning, even if its only the Devil that tells you that, for at least, unlike Thomas Edison, he is not an invention from illusions about design and entrepreneurialism and praise of wealth alone:
