Professor Katriona O'Sullivan

Now, I'm not saying that you didn't work hard, Ray, right?

So I use the analogy of the back garden, okay?

So in my back garden, we had pyrite in our back garden.

And the whole neighbourhood had pyrite.

And when they fixed all the houses, they used to ride over my garden because we were the last on the thing.

And they'd drop all the bricks into the ground, right?

And so when we moved in here, we were trying to plant flowers and they wouldn't grow because... But you know what?

Occasionally, one flower would pop up.

One hardy fucking weed would...

who had some further strength, some deeps, because like Ray, we're not all the same.

Some of us do have more strength, just naturally.

But like to compare all of the flowers with that one flower or one or two that worked hard to get through the rubble and reach the light, I think that's a problem.

It's a problem.

But I think also like if we say to people, it's not in your grip, it's not your power that did this, people are like, oh, then what?

Then what?

We're all at sea.

So like, yeah, but I think it's about, it's not about, so hard work isn't really predictive in the model of success, but it's not the biggest predictor.

So it's not to take away from you or anybody else, hard work as being something that contributes to where you're at, but it's to acknowledge the other things that might have been in place that you had, Ray, that maybe that other fella who's the same as you didn't have.

And social class, Ray, working class is completely different to underclass.

So like, and oftentimes you get working class people who've made it, who are the worst actually, but that's because you are the most susceptible to the meritocracy.