Tall Poppy Syndrome
Definition
From the Wikipedia:
"The tall poppy syndrome is a cultural phenomenon in which people hold back, criticise or sabotage those who have or are believed to have achieved notable success in one or more aspects of life, particularly intellectual or cultural wealth; "cutting down the tall poppy".
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome)
Etymology
"The concept originates from accounts in Herodotus' Histories (Book 5, 92f), Aristotle's Politics (1284a) and Livy's Ab urbe condita libri (Book I, ch.54) with reversed roles, referring to Periander's advice to Thrasybulus of Miletus via a herald.
The specific reference to poppies occurs in Livy's account of the tyrannical Roman king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. He is said to have received a messenger from his son Sextus Tarquinius asking what he should do next in Gabii, since he had become all-powerful there. Rather than answering the messenger verbally, Tarquin went into his garden, took a stick and symbolically swept it across his garden, thus cutting off the heads of the tallest poppies that were growing there. The messenger, tired of waiting for an answer, returned to Gabii and told Sextus what he had seen. Sextus realised that his father wished him to put to death all of the most eminent people of Gabii, which he then did."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome)
Discussion
Erik Torenberg:
"Our 150-person tribes evolved to be egalitarian by design since resources were limited. Since we’re still wired for that zero sum world, we feel excited when others suffer and angry when they thrive because we unconsciously assume that their thriving is at our expense. This, however, is not the case. It’s actually the opposite — people who thrive often have more to offer us.
This results in Tall Poppy Syndrome, or the idea that you don’t want to stand out too much lest people start to resent you. When Tall Poppy Syndrome pervades a culture, it prevents people from reaching their potential, which is perverse. It also explains why successful people are often so vulnerable — they want others to think that they’re just like them, even though they are in fact better. They often don’t have imposter syndrome, but you’d probably hate them if they said that aloud. Instead they wax poetic about how much they doubt themselves so they appear more relatable. This is also why successful people behave vulnerably in the public eye. Vulnerability makes unsuccessful people feel better by implying that the reason they didn’t make it is because of either bad luck or a biased society. It also implies that even if they had become successful, they’d be miserable anyway, since success breeds misery, or something. Which largely isn’t true, of course.
Nietzsche named this envy “Ressentiment”."
(https://eriktorenberg.substack.com/p/status-vulnerability-and-status-vulnerability)