I dunno, I think you had the right of it when you mentioned that the myth of the myth is politically convenient. Like, you see this everywhere. “You didn’t build that”, etc.
If you grant that anyone, anywhere, did anything, then you are, in the Laws of Jante style, insulting other people by implying that they, for not doing that thing, are lesser. That’s a vote/support loser. So instead you get ‘Hidden Figures’ style conspiratorial thinking, where any achievement ascribed to a person is really the work of other exploited people, ideally nameless ones onto whom the people you are trying to grift can project themselves.
Depending on the politics of the person in question, sometimes you get a backhanded admission that maybe they had something to do with their achievements, but it will always be presented as being dwarfed by the contributions of the nameless anonymous audience standins.
I dunno, I think you had the right of it when you mentioned that the myth of the myth is politically convenient. Like, you see this everywhere. “You didn’t build that”, etc.
If you grant that anyone, anywhere, did anything, then you are, in the Laws of Jante style, insulting other people by implying that they, for not doing that thing, are lesser. That’s a vote/support loser. So instead you get ‘Hidden Figures’ style conspiratorial thinking, where any achievement ascribed to a person is really the work of other exploited people, ideally nameless ones onto whom the people you are trying to grift can project themselves.
Depending on the politics of the person in question, sometimes you get a backhanded admission that maybe they had something to do with their achievements, but it will always be presented as being dwarfed by the contributions of the nameless anonymous audience standins.
Well said, the Hidden Figures example is a really good one.