One way that tragedy often comes around is that people envy those that they can relate to. In the TED Talk, A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success, Alan de Botton says “If you can’t relate to someone you can’t envy them.” No one can relate to the Queen of England, so therefore they don't envy her. Tragedy can often be avoided by not coveting what others have, but society has another idea about individuality. With people being so similar everyone is bound to get jealous at one point or another. Due to the jealousy of others people are always going to try their hardest to be the best of the best, the cream of the crop.
When people fall behind those around them, their failure becomes more impactful. They see those around them succeeding, while they are stationary. This feeling is like when a running race is going on, the gun goes off and instead of you running along with everyone else, you are stuck to the ground. Alan de Botton describes this, saying, “the problem with meritocracy is that failure seems much more crushing.” The similarity of people and meritocracy, is what causes tragedy to enter the world. While the world would be very easy without tragedy it would also be very boring and no one would have any work ethic.
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