Hypothesis: Children are born to succeed or fail

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  “Children are born to succeed or fail”

Hypothesis:  Children are born to succeed or fail 

Introduction: In today’s world where knowledge is power, we come to realise the activeness of Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. As our quench for knowledge expands into the vastness of the universe and as we yet yearn to know more,  ‘failure’ isn’t a term one would want to be associated with. As the search for reality envelops our very existence, ours is a battle of brains. Each individual as we know has some part or the other to play in the society but what it is, is altogether a different concept.

For generations we have toiled with the question whether a child’s fate is pre-determined, whether he/she does or does not play an important role in the upbringing of his/her society, whether certain factors do or don’t play a part in bringing out his/her success or failure.  Whether certain dependencies put ton him/her at birth determine his life’s successes or failures. On can distinguish some of the pre-set tasks through the society.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              A person’s life revolves around the asking of these important cornerstones, which form the basis of his moral beliefs and also around the rules and regulations of the society in which he lives. Therefore a person who has accomplished both social and moral obligations can be determined as being truly successful.  

The above hypothesis ‘Children are born to succeed or Fail’ suggests that children born in the world today face certain obstacles, that bring about their failure or success in their lives. These can normally relate to the to the society they live in itself.    It is on the accomplishment of these tasks that the society seems to judge them as successes or failures.

With this in hindsight, I will be focusing on the following subjects, which I personally believe as being factors that could prove judgemental in bringing about one’s success or failure for that reason. These are:

Race: I will firstly address the concept of race, which I believe has an important part to play in determining one’s life chances. With the current globalisation going on, our world is becoming a bipolar world day by day. There exist a diverse community within the world in which we live, which after years of isolation have started interacting with each other. In such circumstances microscopic differences give birth to a universe of far fletched discrepancies, which give way to stereotypes and eventually discriminatory acts. Thus affecting the life chances of a person.

Education:  Today’s technological world lies on the strong foundations on hundreds of years of education and our future depends on the value of meritocracy.  It is in such circumstances that education plays an imperative role deciding people’s life chances. The opportunities available on the basis of education and the not very nice side of institutional bigotry can affect person’s lifestyles and with this in mind I consider education to be an important fact.

Gender:  The age-old issue of gender discrimination is the most important when viewed in a social context, as it associates with a majority of the above factors. Biological, social and moral differences when taken in to account can relate to affect a person’s life outcome. It is therefore an important factor and needs to be taken into consideration.

Social-Class:    The word itself relates to the deposition of a class structure, formed as a social hierarchy relating its relevance with the natural world; where the alpha-dominant presides over the rest and in doing so obviously indulges in a practise of partiality. This partiality may be anything from better recourse to opportunities hence better way of life or the attainment of a status not necessarily deserved on the basis other than that of a hierarchical system.  

Nature/Nurture:        Man is a social animal. He has the ability to create for his benefit. For his comfort within a society he creates some codes or rules and ethics, which he preserves. These collection of rules and ethics combine over a period of time to form a culture.

A culture contains within it the way of life, customs and traditions of the people following it.  A culture is formed around three corner stones. These are:

Social Organisation: the family is basic unit of a social organisation. It maintains traditions and beliefs and hence acts as a major component in balancing social structure.

Geography and natural resources:  these give rise to values and beliefs. They also play an important role in the forming of traditions.

Beliefs and Values: They provide us with the general framework of our understanding about the world. One general belief is that human life is sacred

Values are the ideas about correct form of behaviour, which stress on how we   ought to behave in general terms.

I also believe these factors as having a role in bringing about the success or failure of an individual.

This assignment will indulge in focusing on how and why these factors affect an individuals life chances. I will do so by asking myself the following questions related to the above topics:

  1. On what basis will race affect a persons life chances?
  2. Will an educated person be more successful than a non-educated person? Why?
  3. Does being a certain gender affect someone’s life? Why?
  4. Does being in the upper class suggest more privileges than others and how does this affect a persons life chances in the bottom group who is considered less privileged?

By firstly defining the words under examination I will layout objectives of what to seek for in my research and thus by doing so determine whether a person is successful or whether he is a failure.

The dictionary states the definitions of success and failure to be as follows:

Success in the dictionary is defined as:

‘Attainment of an object, wealth, fame or position’ (Ref 1)

Failure in the dictionary is described as:

‘Non-occurrence, non-performance, running short, ill success, insolvency’ (Ref 1)

This cannot itself be accepted for all circumstances. While some people would view success as materialistic gains and failure as not having enough money, other will view success as attainments of set goals, happiness and failure as not having happiness etc.

For this assignment I will define success as ‘the accomplishment of ones personal dreams alongside with their moral obligations and failure as not having done the above.’

To accomplish the task of proving the hypothesis I will need to collect information for the study. I will do this by collecting primary evidence in the form of questionnaires and also collecting information from various secondary resources to back up my results.

I will now start discussing on the issues I have briefly described on the top as having potential in affecting someone’s life, making them successful or a failure.

Race/Religion:

A race is determined as a group, population, breed, or variety within a species. The term 'race' is sometimes used to divide humanity into different groups according to real or imagined common descent. Such divisions are usually based on physical characteristics such as skin and hair color, and shape of eyes and nose, which are related to the geographical origins of a particular group. It is often these characteristics that pose a judgmental imposition on the reliability of that individual and thus affecting his chances of success or failure.  (Ref 6) 

The origin of racism:

In the 19th century, it was believed that human beings could be unambiguously classed as members of particular races, and that social and cultural differences could be explained on racial grounds. The human race was divided into three classes on these grounds namely Caucasian, Negroid and Mongoloid.

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The growth of imperialism and colonialism furthered these beliefs with the ideologies of superior and inferior races. One of these was the ideology of slavery, where the Negroid class was considered as an uncivilized and inferior class. The fact that being a Negro in the later half of the 19th century meant having no rights as an individual at all. (Ref 11)

This obviously aroused from the prejudiced views, which led to discriminatory acts, which curbed the opportunities of a Negro ever being successful in a social context. It was impossible to imagine a Negro rich and owning land in ...

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