Hi,
So this is a concept that I've kind of been thinking about on and off for a while. In a nutshell, it's the ideas that "rules are rules for some people but not others".
First, what do I mean by rules? For the most part I don't mean actual laws. Not in developed countries where the law is applied uniformly, anyways. I mainly mean social conventions and the expected cause-and-effect from acting in manner X vs. from acting in manner Y.
So let's look at an example. "Don't tell offensive jokes or it could harm your reputation." Pretty straightforward, right? Even comedians aren't immune to this. Plenty of comedians have suffered because they crossed a line too far.
But suppose that you're highly competent and likable, you know what you're doing, you've calculated your words and delivery with great care, and perhaps you get a little bit lucky. Your joke brings the house down with laughter; your audience likes you more, not less, because of the metaphorical limb you stepped out onto. You are audacious.
But suppose that another comedian, not so talented, not so careful, not so likable, and perhaps not so lucky, makes the same or a similar joke and it flops. He gets booed by the crowd. Word spreads of the offensive thing he said. Depending on its nature, it could be career-ending. This man was not audacious but instead he had audacity.
Other examples abound: the player who solicits random women on the street and gets into one's pants within under an hour, vs the guy who tries to solicit random women on the street and ends up being arrested. The guy who said something risky during a job interview and improved the boss's impression of him, versus the guy who tried the same thing but came across as an antisocial weirdo.
Often it's hard to tell why one guy is successful and the other ends up sabotaging himself. Sometimes it boils down to sheer competency or positive virtue, or even something so mundane as privilege and better access to certain resources But what we can agree on is that the latter person should've followed normal rules and norms whereas the former person benefited from not doing so.
America is a relatively egalitarian society where everyone is encouraged to take bold risks in life. This is how the country hopes to achieve new heights of creativity, productivity, and accomplishment, be it in one's career or personal life. But for one reason or another, some people are more cut out for successfully doing so than others. The less cut out find themselves not protected by rules that used to protect their ancestors, or if their behavior inadvertently results in victims, those victims are not. It's a double-edged sword.
