Tall Poppy Syndrome (
TPS) is a
pejorativePejoratives are terms which have a negative connotation. Sometimes a term may begin as a pejorative word and eventually be adopted in a non-pejorative sense...
term used in the UK,
IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
,
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
,
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
and
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
to describe a societal phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are criticised or resented because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers. Alternatively someone is said to be a target of tall poppy syndrome when his or her assumption of a higher economic, social, or political position is actually presumptuous, attention seeking, or without merit.
The term originates from accounts in
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
's
PoliticsAristotle's Politics is a work of political philosophy. The end of the Nicomachean Ethics declared that the inquiry into ethics necessarily follows into politics, and the two works are frequently considered to be parts of a larger treatise, or perhaps connected lectures, dealing with the...
(Book 5, Chapter 10) and
LivyTitus Livius , known as Livy in English, was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...
's
History of RomeAb urbe condita libri, often shortened to just Ab urbe condita, is a monumental history of ancient Rome written in the Latin language by Titus Livius, an ancient Roman historian. The work covers the time from the stories of Aeneas, the earliest legendary period from before the city's founding in c....
, Book I.
Tall Poppy Syndrome (
TPS) is a
pejorativePejoratives are terms which have a negative connotation. Sometimes a term may begin as a pejorative word and eventually be adopted in a non-pejorative sense...
term used in the UK,
IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
,
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
,
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
and
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
to describe a societal phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are criticised or resented because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers. Alternatively someone is said to be a target of tall poppy syndrome when his or her assumption of a higher economic, social, or political position is actually presumptuous, attention seeking, or without merit.
Etymology
The term originates from accounts in
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
's
PoliticsAristotle's Politics is a work of political philosophy. The end of the Nicomachean Ethics declared that the inquiry into ethics necessarily follows into politics, and the two works are frequently considered to be parts of a larger treatise, or perhaps connected lectures, dealing with the...
(Book 5, Chapter 10) and
LivyTitus Livius , known as Livy in English, was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...
's
History of RomeAb urbe condita libri, often shortened to just Ab urbe condita, is a monumental history of ancient Rome written in the Latin language by Titus Livius, an ancient Roman historian. The work covers the time from the stories of Aeneas, the earliest legendary period from before the city's founding in c....
, Book I. Aristotle wrote: "
PerianderPeriander was the second tyrant of Corinth, Greece in the 7th century BC. He was the son of the first tyrant, Cypselus. Periander succeeded his father in 627 BC....
advised
ThrasybulusThrasybulus was the tyrant of Miletus in the 7th century BC. Under his rule, Miletus fought a lengthy war against Lydia. This war ended without a decisive victor . Following the war, Miletus and Lydia concluded an alliance.Thrasybulus was an ally of Periander, the tyrant of Corinth...
by cutting the tops of the tallest ears of corn, meaning that he must always put out of the way the citizens who overtop the rest." In Livy's account, the tyrannical
Roman KingThe Roman Kingdom was the monarchical government of the city of Rome and its territories. Little is certain about the history of the Roman Kingdom, as no written records from that time survive, and the histories about it were written during the Republic and Empire and are largely based on legend...
,
Tarquin the ProudLucius Tarquinius Superbus was the seventh King of Rome, reigning from 535 until the Roman revolt in 509 B.C. which would lead to the establishment of the Roman Republic. He is more commonly known by his cognomen Tarquinius Superbus and was a member of the Etruscan dynasty of Rome...
, received a messenger from his son
Sextus TarquiniusSextus Tarquinius was the son of the last legendary king of the Etruscans, L. Tarquinius Superbus . He is mostly known for his rape of Lucretia, wife of Collatinus and sister of Lucius Junius Brutus....
asking what he should do next in
GabiiGabii was an ancient city of Latium, located due east of Rome along the Via Praenestina, which was in early times known as the Via Gabina....
, 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
poppiesA poppy is any of a number of colorful flowers, typically withone per stem, belonging to the poppy family. They include a number of attractive wildflower species with colorful flowers found growing singularly or in large groups; many species are also grown in gardens...
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.
Explanation
Belief in the strength of this cultural phenomenon, and the degree to which it represents a negative trait, is to some extent influenced by
politicsPolitics is a process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic and religious institutions...
.
ConservativeConservatism is the diverse political and social philosophy that supports tradition and the status quo, or that calls for a return to the values and society of an earlier age, the status quo ante. However, the term has been used by politicians and political commentators with a variety of meanings...
commentators often criticise Australians for their alleged desire to punish the successful. Sometimes, tall poppy syndrome is claimed to be linked to the concept of 'The Politics of Envy'. Critics of the tall poppy syndrome sometimes declare that the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
is relatively free of “tall poppy” attitudes. Americans are thought to appreciate the successful, seeing them as an example to admire and attempt to emulate. In the cultures of the UK and
CommonwealthA Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state within the Commonwealth of Nations that has Elizabeth II as its monarch. The sixteen current realms have a combined land area of 18.8 million km² , and a population of 132 million; all but about two million live in the six most populous states, the United...
nations, such commentators assert, many resent success of their fellows.
Some commentators have argued that tall poppy syndrome is a universal phenomenon, that is more common in some cultures. The concepts of
jantelovenThe Jante Law is a concept created by the Norwegian/Danish author Aksel Sandemose in his novel A fugitive crosses his tracks , where he portrays the small...
, or "Jante law", in
ScandinaviaScandinavia is a geographical region in northern Europe that includes, and is named after, the Scanian Province. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark...
, and
A kent yer faither (English:
I knew your father) in
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, are very similar. Similar phenomena are said to exist in the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
(where it is called 'maaiveldcultuur') and American minority communities. Benjamin Franklin Fairless, president of United States Steel Corporation (1950), criticised such behaviour when he stated: "You cannot strengthen one by weakening another; and you cannot add to the stature of a dwarf by cutting off the leg of a giant."
A related concept is that of a
crab mentalityCrab mentality describes a way of thinking best described by the phrase "if I can't have it, neither can you." The metaphor refers to a pot of crabs...
in which members of a disadvantaged community are seen as undermining the success of community members. The image is drawn from the observation that a crab clawing its way out of a bucket (or barrel in other versions) is pulled back down by his fellows.
See also
- Spite (sentiment)
Spite is to intentionally annoy, hurt, or upset. Spiteful words or actions are delivered in such a way in which it's clear that the person is delivering them just to annoy, hurt, or upset...
- The Jante Law
The Jante Law is a concept created by the Norwegian/Danish author Aksel Sandemose in his novel A fugitive crosses his tracks , where he portrays the small...
- Social model
A social, or socioeconomic, model, is the way in which society functions within a state. There are no set rules that define a social model, only loose definitions characterized by certain attributes.-Taxation:...
- Cultural cringe
Cultural cringe, in cultural studies and social anthropology, is an internalized inferiority complex which causes people in a country to dismiss their own culture as inferior to the cultures of other countries...
- Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism has two distinct definitions in modern English. It is defined either as a political doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights or as a social philosophy advocating the removal of economic...
- Harrison Bergeron
"Harrison Bergeron" is a satirical, dystopian science fiction short story written by Kurt Vonnegut and first published in October, 1961. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the story was re-published in the author's collection, Welcome to the Monkey House in 1968.-...
, a dystopian science fiction short story written by Kurt Vonnegut about a future of enforced equality
- Schadenfreude
Schadenfreude is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. This German word is used as a loanword in English and some other languages, including Dutch, Danish and Swedish. -Spelling and etymology:...
- Crab mentality
Crab mentality describes a way of thinking best described by the phrase "if I can't have it, neither can you." The metaphor refers to a pot of crabs...
Further reading
- Feather, N. T. (1989) "Attitudes towards the high achiever: The Fall of the Tall Poppy," Australian Journal of Psychology, 41," pp. 239-267
External links