> It might be okay that I was self-taught, because I'm special; but we can't let regular people be doing that sort of thing.

That's an interesting theory. It definitely explains a lot of what we see. I don't know if anyone self-describing as progressive would sign off on it as their own thinking.

Phrased the way you put it, it also seems like a kind of cognitive bias almost like the gambler's fallacy. Assuming that the concrete data you have is not representative, and instead the opposite is more likely to occur. The correct reasoning would be "this definitely worked for me, assume I'm not special and try to make the same path easier for others".

The reason I think it might be a strawman is that the ideology your talking about does want to help others, and that thinking would make them less effective at that goal.