 Because this is the great tragedy, a culture in the United States in the 19th century that not only produced inventors, businessmen, popular entertainers, people that could create their own careers, that could create themselves, that could cultivate themselves in the image that they sought was corrupted. And that's why today when we have actual examples, because we still retain at least enough political freedom and economic freedom, although ever decreasing by the day, that people can still do this. And we still retain enough cultural and social freedom that we can still define ourselves. We're not a product only of our religious, racial, ethnic, economic, cultural background. We can break out of that. We can define ourselves. But there's this enormous criticism. And part of that criticism ultimately arises out of what I think are two false views that developed in the 19th century of what self-making is about. Now, on the one hand, one of these false views comes out of the idea of the Christian tradition. America, as many people know, as many people will argue, is, to one degree or another, deeply, deeply influenced by the Christian tradition. And it became so deeply influenced during the 19th century. There's a great book by a historian called The Christianizing of American Culture. And it happened primarily in the 19th century. During the 18th century, the Enlightenment, the pro-reason, pro-life on this or philosophy that adhered at the time that many of Americans, if not the majority of Americans believed in, was a very deistic, God sort of made the world and then went off on his own business. He's not intervening with our lives. He doesn't want us to follow any creed. He wants us to discover the laws of nature and go about our business. Changed from that into the 19th century to a very evangelical Christian-centered culture through conscious intention of the churches at the time. And their idea of self-making was very, very different. Their idea of self-making was premised on the sense that you could make yourself in this world. It was not wholly a spiritual sort of narrative. But that you could make yourself in this world only for one purpose and only because of one particular problem with the self. Now, let me take these in reverse order. The problem with the self the Christian churches said is that human beings, in God's creation, are low base, selfish, materialistic creatures. If you want to make yourself, if you want to make something of yourself, they said, you have to overcome that. You have to overcome your inherent flaws. You have to rise above the way that God created you. You have to somehow make it to prove to him in a sense that you're better than that. You have to deny yourself. You have to deny these things. The curious part, though, was that unlike the earlier Christian narratives about the saints and how they led lives of true faith and ultimately were rewarded in the afterlife, is that in the 19th century, this culture of the Enlightenment had so imbued America with the idea of success in this world that the Christian thinkers actually said, being rich is okay. Russell Conwell, who was the founder of Temple University, a Baptist preacher, gave a speech. He was a public speaker at the time. And he gave the same speech, believe this, that there's no television or internet, so he had to give the same speech over and over, something like 9,000 times in the space of 20 years. And it was called Acres of Diamonds. And this, I think, is the paradigm example of the Christian idea of self-making. Acres of Diamonds was a speech where a Baptist preacher said, God says there is a duty to be rich. Why? Well, because only the rich man can do good works. If you're poor, how can you do charity? How can you do this altruistic service to your fellow man if you're not rich? So this is the purpose, right? Number one, you have to overcome your own base desires and your own materialistic interests. And number two, the Christian self-maker said, you have to do this for a limited purpose. The purpose is basically to deny yourself, right? To build up riches, not for your own enjoyment or for the enjoyment of those that you value, your spouse, your children, etc., but for others. It's only morally good, they said, to make yourself, to make something of yourself, to go from rags to riches, if you do so in the service of others. Now, the consequences of this are incredibly damaging. This is why, for example, people criticize Steve Jobs for not giving away enough of his money. Or for not doing so in as public a way, say, as Bill Gates has done in his family. This is why people say you're only good if, once you rise to the top, you help out those that got you there, those who really built that, right? Whether you've been the one struggling, sweating, working hard, building the business, overcoming the obstacles, filling out the government bureaucrats' forms, all these other things. You're the one that did all that, but when you get to the top, they say, you've gotta pay your pound of flesh. Not only to the government now, but also to everyone beneath you. The Christian view of self-making in the 19th century context, this idea that you have a duty to be rich so that you can do Christian service, is incredibly damaging because it takes the self out of self-making. The self-made man is no longer a self-made man. You're almost a vehicle, a vessel through which society can build up wealth and then transmit it to those who need it or who can claim it. Now, this is very, very damaging. Imagine motivating someone. Imagine yourself saying, well, I could start a business. I've got this great idea, an entrepreneurial idea. Someone on the internet hasn't figured out how to sell blank. I mean, if I knew an actual example, well, I wouldn't share it with you, first of all, because I'd be the one that wanted to do it. But if I knew an actual example, somebody probably would have already tried it. But there's a lot of things, you know, arbitraging debt or selling different things or figuring out ways of using this technology to make money. You look at that and you say, ah, I've got this great idea to make money. But then you realize if the context is, if the culture is, that's only good for you if you do so in the service of others. Well, when you're up against the wall, right? When you're staying up 18 hours a day doing the coding or the programming or making the business deals, what's gonna motivate you? Clearly it's not yourself. And so it detaches the self from that process. And that's incredibly damaging because I think ultimately what that means is that it doesn't work. You can't motivate someone in that extrinsic way in that external way. Because if you're telling them to improve themselves for someone else, they're not getting anything out of it, right? There's a disconnect between the idea of self-making. Why not be one of the recipients, right? Why not let other people be the vessel of spreading the nation's wealth? Well, of course we know, the problem is if you just, everyone turns around and says this, there is no wealth created and we might as well go back to when we all do what our parents did. There's no social mobility in the sense that you have to do it for others. Now the other major flaw,