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Business English: Are you a striver, slacker or fantasist?
In truth, real people are usually a mix of the three archetypes, but most people tend towards one particular typeIt may be the defining London sight: people walking up escalators at Tube stations. In this city only tourists stand goggling blankly into space. That's because London - like Manhattan, Hong Kong and other great cities - has fallen into the hands of strivers. They are driving everyone else out of town.
Philosophers and pop psychologists spent centuries trying to explain humankind, but only in 1996 did the South African novelist Jo-Anne Richards and I finally identify the three basic human types: strivers, slackers and fantasists.
Strivers are restless overachievers who walk up escalators. Their habitats include the City of London and Davos. Almost all political leaders are strivers, except ones who inherited their position, such as George W. Bush. As Richards explains in a now-dead book proposal: "Strivers start companies, build skyscrapers and finish marathons. But not all strivers rule the world. They also make the trains run on time, and organise charities." A working-class female striver might become a head nurse. If the job market sidelines women altogether, she will strive vicariously, through her children. "Strivers," writes Richards, "have the energy and discipline to make other people's dreams come true." Strivers make every minute count, and devote their leisure-time to self-improvement. Their drugs of choice are accelerators: coffee and cocaine.
By contrast, slackers do nothing. "They prefer to avoid effort rather than pursue pleasure," writes Richards. "This in itself can be exhausting." It's hard to name any well-known slackers, because by definition slackers rarely become famous, except by accident. Sometimes a slacker will get an idea for a novel or for creating world peace, but then she sinks back into the sofa and the moment passes. Whereas business newspapers celebrate strivers, slacker newspapers celebrate lottery winners. Andrew Lamprecht, in his seminal article on slackers, writes that although they have "no idea what they want from life" they often compensate with "a catholic knowledge of television".
If slackers devote their leisure time to anything, it's extended adolescent hobbies such as surfing or collecting comics. Their drugs of choice are anaesthetics: vodka or cigarettes.
The third human type, the fantasist, lives inside his imagination. Fantasists have little desire to impose themselves on the world. A fantasist might spend years writing a short story, then discard it. Fantasists are never efficient and always miss deadlines. They are suckers for new age fads such as crystals. They do create a lot of art, which strivers buy. Fantasist drugs of choice stimulate fantasy: marijuana or ecstasy. When people are presented with the three human archetypes, most claim to be fantasists.
In truth, real people are usually a mix of the three archetypes. For instance, successful artists such as Steven Spielberg or Damien Hirst are generally striver-fantasists. However, most people tend towards one particular type: for instance, someone might be slacker-dominant, with fantasist streaks.
Naturally the three types irritate each other. A fantasist friend once told me an idea he had for a book. Being a striver, I began to strategise about finding a publisher. The more I talked, the less enthusiastic my friend became. Eventually, he changed the subject. He never intended to write the book. He just liked imagining it.
We strivers are even more at odds with slackers. Our force fields clash with theirs: our very presence makes them stressed, as if we were human deadlines. You see this clash in politics, where striver rulers are always exhorting slacker populations to pull their socks up: in Nicolas Sarkozy's formulation: "Work harder to earn more." Rulers hate the notion that someone somewhere might be slacking. Soviet leaders were forever promoting brick-laying contests or rationing vodka, unaware that they were fighting human nature. But slackers rarely revolt against striver rule. Instead, they dream up conspiracy theories.
No wonder the three archetypes have tended to segregate themselves. In big cities, strivers gravitate to financial districts, whereas fantasists establish enclaves such as Greenwich Village in 1950s New York or Belleville in today's Paris. When strivers discover these enclaves and drive up prices, fantasists create more distant enclaves. Slackers generally avoid big cities, often preferring the parental home, writes Richards.
In the US, with its great geographic mobility, the separation of the three types was always marked. Strivers headed for Manhattan and Washington, whereas slackers preferred places such as Miami. You sense each city's dominant mode the minute you arrive: at JFK airport in New York, the lady running the cab rank bellows, "Move it along, people! You, sir, take this cab." She's on her way up. At Miami airport, you can't even find cabs.
However, segregation of the three human types is now proceeding faster than ever before. Rising house prices and growing inequality are driving non-strivers out of big cities, and even out of previously fantasist coastal towns such as Cape Town and San Francisco. Slackers and fantasists must be upset, but unless you read blogs their voices go unheard, and they certainly won't do anything about it.
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The Financial Times, 27.02.2012
© 2012 The Financial Times,
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© 1999 - 2012 Financial Times Deutschland
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