> But there it stops. Once you hit a threshold of "better than pretty much everybody in the world, even those who have dedicated their life to this stuff", you don't really see this sort of elitism anymore.
That's what you want to believe. But really what sort of magical transformation do you suppose will happen once you cross that threshold? Why would a personality change?
No, what I think happens is this: A person with sufficiently high skill, better than anyone else and generally known to be, will get sufficient recognition and awe that they don't need to establish their rank in the pecking order. However, take away the recognition, and also a highly skilled person inclined to jerk-behaviour will again start kicking the lower ranks.
Some people are jerks. In some situations jerk-behaviour is more likely to surface than in others. But being extremely good at something does not necessarily improve one's personality. There's a difference between "I don't want to be a jerk" and "I don't need to be a jerk". The former is the better person.
Unsure if anyone will still read this, but I had another thought on this matter.
It occurs to me that you actually see highly-skilled jerks quite a lot. They piss and moan and kick and often aren't very successful, even if they're highly skilled.
Even if someone's highly skilled in some area, if they're being a jerk we're going to value that skill lower, anyway. Even though, if you'd stop and think about it, social skills are usually not related to being extremely highly skilled in some other area.
Being successful is usually a matter of luck and/or social skills. If you're extremely highly skilled and successful, you're going to be known as one of the positive examples of highly skilled people in this thread. If you're skilled, but either unlucky and/or a jerk, your skill won't be valued for what it really is capable of (unless, again, you're lucky), and you won't be noticed. Confirmation bias does the rest.
That's what you want to believe. But really what sort of magical transformation do you suppose will happen once you cross that threshold? Why would a personality change?
No, what I think happens is this: A person with sufficiently high skill, better than anyone else and generally known to be, will get sufficient recognition and awe that they don't need to establish their rank in the pecking order. However, take away the recognition, and also a highly skilled person inclined to jerk-behaviour will again start kicking the lower ranks.
Some people are jerks. In some situations jerk-behaviour is more likely to surface than in others. But being extremely good at something does not necessarily improve one's personality. There's a difference between "I don't want to be a jerk" and "I don't need to be a jerk". The former is the better person.