|
I agree with your sentiment, generally speaking. It derives from needing to pull pride from another thing through self-selected association. It's the same thing that sports fans do when their preferred team wins a championship. You see all sorts of weird permutations of this concept in action. When NASA or SpaceX does something, it's said to be an accomplishment for all of humanity, people around the world want a piece of that pride, to be part of a great thing. It's a component of tribalism (and neither inherently positive nor negative), probably deeply wired into humanity. It also happens around race, religion, politics and ideology broadly. Why? Well, the answer is a mixed bag of positives and negatives. It's the same reason people obsess over celebrities (tabloids, fan groups, and so on). Their own lives are not very interesting, they lack/yearn for accomplishment, so they desperately seek to fill voids via the things they take an interest in, trying to grab hold of accomplishment elsewhere, slice off a tiny bit of that for themselves through distant association. It's why nations culturally revel in their historical accomplishments, even if they were 2,000 years ago. On the positive side, it probably helps create bonds between people socially, culturally, and is likely a requirement for the formation and sustainment of civilization (drawing pride from a thing, allocates self-interest in supporting/protecting the thing). |
Therefore I believe it's right for people to pull pride from someone's else work through association. You (would) have no SpaceX without the US capitalist system.
When NASA or SpaceX does something, it's an accomplishment of the very people working there, then of the people who supported them and not least of all the humanity. It'a like winning a war. It's not only the people that fight in the front lines that matter. It's a whole system.