This is such a fascinating discussion.
I definitely see how a person could develop a point of view where their perspective is "if something is hard, that means I can't do it because I'm not smart / talented / creative / whatever enough and failure is TERRIBLE... so better not try" and that this point of view is fundamentally unhelpful. A person could also develop a point of view that has a perspective like "effort is good, failure is a part of learning, I can get better by trying" and that this is a more useful way of approaching challenge.
People are not the same but everyone has challenges and the way we handle those challenges (whether it's learning to dress yourself or learning calculus) is important. And the way we communicate to kids has a huge impact on the perspectives and opinions they develop.
Now as for Dweck, her book is in the pop-psychology / self-help genre that necessarily oversimplifies and is more about the soundbite and the slogan rather than any thoughtful nuanced analysis. It's also going to be targeted primarily to the middle of the intelligence curve -- where most of her audience is.
For high LOG kids, the problem is somewhat different -- getting them challenged in the first place so that you can then demonstrate to them what learning (effort, failure, continued effort, improvement) really looks like. Replacing intellectual challenge with work volume in order to demonstrate the importance of effort completely backfires (the reward for all that work? you still didn't learn anything!).
The ideas in the book have been directly helpful for us in dealing with DD (we consciously shifted to praising effort and embracing failure). But these same good ideas can absolutely be misused by a school system -- and society -- more interested in pretending that everyone is the same than helping individuals reach their individual potentials.
