“Some Animals are More Equal Than Others”
While it is the height of civilization to believe that all should have equal rights -- the thinking that all then have equal abilities, is a denial of realities, and one of the great disservices to the cause of justice and fairness, because then it can be argued that if everyone is born with equal talent and ability, the only reason one performs/achieves better than another, must be due solely to a personal success/failing -- rather than that talent and ability was not equal to begin with. People with exceptional talent are much more likely to be humbled by it and restrained in their own proclamation of greatness -- and recognize how they were gifted and fortunate more than those with mediocre abilities who are overly proud of their much more modest attainments due to their hard work, persistence and other virtues too numerous to mention in such a limited time and space.
But the Mozart’s of the world don’t see it as hard work; that was what they were born to do -- and have to do regardless of whether they are rewarded and recognized for those abilities or not; that is simply the expression, fulfillment and being of who they are. Unlike most people, extreme talent is not motivated in the traditional ways -- as much as it is triggered by the proper stimuli and circumstances.
There are many exceptional abilities for which there are no established competitions or venues for display -- that go mostly undeveloped for that neglect. In another time, under different circumstances, it could be the critical survival skills required for the species to continue and thrive. Those born with exceptional skill sets, in the right time and place, are the people of destiny proclaimed in history. Often, their rise is quite unforeseen by every measure in which we have become accustomed to accepting as the proper and acceptable path to prominence/dominance in that field. Predictably, there will be great resentment, bitterness, envy from those who have followed the formula and path they have been told will guarantee their success -- if they simply persist long enough, believe in the myth strongly enough, etc.
Thus to expect everyone to do equally well in mathematics or writing, is to set up a lot of people for failure -- in the delusion that they have an equal ability and chance for success -- when it is clear to most others, the game is over before the contest has even begun. Then, awakening to that realization, and even more determined to grab victory despite overwhelming odds against that inevitable result, thinks that the only way they can win is to lie, cheat and steal -- and takes that route into a monomaniacal obsession, often in that way, destroying themselves utterly in a battle they cannot win.
One of the great talents of those proficient in an activity, is their superior assessment of their realistic chances for success as well as failure -- because they know their own abilities so intimately. Meanwhile, those less knowledgeable of themselves -- have a greater unrealistic assessment of their own abilities and chances for success. Under such conditions, superior judgment would realize that the best strategy is not challenging the superior talent in their strength, but in allowing the superior to blaze a wide swath for all the others to benefit from because those talents are not consumed with the petty struggles just to determine who is better.
That lesson should be a vital part of contemporary education -- and not exacerbating those struggles, as though that were the proper demonstration and manifestation of “intelligence.”
posted by Mike Hu @ 2:19 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
The most common occurrence of this resentment, bitterness, and envy these days is seen daily in all these ambitious people who think that they ought to be President of the United States -- simply because they have a greater ambition than everybody else, and therefore that is their entitlement. Inevitably, they’re drawn to work in the media in some capacity -- trying mightily and tirelessly to demonstrate their intellectual and moral superiority against that standard.
It used to be that the reason these people got into these professions was to report on the important stories, happenings and persons of the day -- until, recently, they’ve decided they ARE the important stories, happenings and persons of these times. While power corrupts -- it does nothing in comparison to easy fame and fortune in corrupting such people into delusions of woefully unjustified grandeur. It’s really quite an embarrassment to see these non-entities presuming to criticize these duly-elected representatives of the people -- as though that somehow made them worthy, able, and wise.
The real leaders just make it look so easy that it seems that even these people could do it.
The delusion is complete, when actors/actresses hired to pretend to be the President, then tell the President how to act presidential.
Next, moderators will interrupt and harass their guests embarrassingly -- feeling their audience did not want to see and hear their guests -- but only want to hear them, the “stars” of their own shows.
And “bag ladies,” allowed to sit in the front row of Presidential press conferences so as not to hurt their feelings, are demanding that the President answer to them -- first, last and always.
The mass media produces these mass delusions in people, who given the microphone, therefore think they can sing wonderfully, better than has ever been witnessed before.
The genius in one field can recognize the geniuses in other fields more easily and readily than the mediocrities in any field, can recognize the genius in their own field. What they can recognize in each other is the insight obtained in blazing any trail -- while those who only conform and dutifully believe what they are told, are similar no matter what fields they are in.
Because it is one thing to create an entire field of understanding, and quite another, merely to conform to the weight and pressure of other people’s opinions and expectations. The creator can stand alone -- while nobody else can. They merely reference a higher authority -- and actually have never learned to look at the thing itself, freshly, without the prejudice of knowledge and tradition. Only a rare few can do that -- and recognize it when they see it in another.
It is always difficult to keep simple and clear. The world worships success, the bigger the better; the greater the audience the greater the speaker; the colossal super buildings, cars, aeroplanes and people. Simplicity is lost. The successful people are not the ones who are building a new world. To be a real revolutionary requires a complete change of heart and mind, and how few want to free themselves. One cuts the surface roots; but to cut the deep feeding roots of mediocrity, success, needs something more than words, methods, compulsions. There seem to be few, but they are the real builders--the rest labor in vain.
One is everlastingly comparing oneself with another, with what one is, with what one should be, with someone who is more fortunate. This comparison really kills. Comparison is degrading, it perverts one's outlook. And on comparison one is brought up. All our education is based on it and so is our culture. So there is everlasting struggle to be something other than what one is. The understanding of what one is uncovers creativeness, but comparison breeds competitiveness, ruthlessness, ambition, which we think brings about progress. Progress has only led so far to more ruthless wars and misery than the world has ever known. To bring up children without comparison is true education.
J. Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti, A Biography
by Pupul Jayakar, 1986, pp. 255-256
That’s what the writing of Ayn Rand is all about, particularly in Atlas Shrugged, wherein all the creative geniuses of the world realize that they are the productive engines that drive the world, yet have come to be terrorized and demonized by those who only demand more, while producing nothing of any real value. In fact, it is revealed that only a few very productive ones do all the work while the rest sabotage and undermine their every effort -- as their contribution to society. That is, in the thinking that by destroying the productivity of the few, they create increasing demand -- failing to realize that it is the good/service itself that is the wealth -- and not merely the work/demand to produce it.
Thus, they value hard work and increasing demand as the end in itself -- rather than its cessation and reduction, which is the original intent -- the freedom from endless, unrelenting toil and trouble. That is what the great creative geniuses have gifted to the world -- this tremendous savings in time, energy, and resources, while the many, unthinking, that the consumption of as much time, energy nd resources is the whole meaning and purpose of their existence and life.
A lot of the “medieval” conditioning regimens dictated by P.E. instructors in the past (present), are not designed to make the weak, strong. They are designed to eliminate the weak -- and therefore, the new profile for the group, is a higher average. Then wretched scientists and instructors point out that the merit of their elimination process “produces” superior conditioning -- rather than that the inferior performers have been systematically removed in this fashion. And that is why the typical P.E. instructor’s process for determining the superior athletes in their classes (often to direct them into suitable competitive arenas) should not be used as the model for conditioning programs in which the intent is to make the weak, strong. Then something entirely different needs to be constructed in which the strong do not have a competitive advantage over the weak -- but actually the reverse may be true, that the weak, have the advantage.
And actually they do -- as far as the gains that even small increments of well-designed conditioning activities can make because of the relative change it represents to their normal movements and functioning. That is to note, that a weakened person will have an easier time doubling their strength in a short amount of time upon taking up suitable conditioning movements -- than a world champion athlete, who is already much closer to their actualized potential. However, the measure is usually calibrated to the performance of the champion athlete -- in which the greater relative gains of the beginning exerciser appears negligible, and maybe even discouraging.
In other spheres of human activities, this same kind of measure is used -- with equally disastrous and dispiriting effects, as in many educational activities. The calibration is set for this kind of gross measurement rather than relative-to-the-base measurement -- which is highly individualized. So the first thing to be determined is not the generalized ideal performance, but the present actual performance in establishing a base -- upon which one can measure improvement. Under mass condoning activites, such a thing is not possible, but in almost every facet of life in the 21st century now, highly individuated instruction and measurement is now possible -- and meaningful for everyone!
So no longer are just an advantaged few encouraged, recognized and rewarded -- but everyone, at every level -- once they are apprised of the proper parameters for measurement -- and not those that while dramatic and impressive, may actually be arbitrary and not a true measurement of what is claimed to be measured. This is very common in the world of reporting -- that the results claimed for a specific reason, are not the reason for the results -- but something else entirely. The advocate obviously has an interest in promoting his sensational “discovery,” but the so-called “objective” reporter, must at least have a basic grounding in information processing beyond their qualifications of excessive desire to be rich and famous, because then, the researcher’s flaw is compounded and exacerbated by the reporters own desire for the blockbuster discovery.
What results is the common experience of the mediocre being hyped to sensationalistic levels while the truly remarkable, because it doesn’t self-promote and may actually be self-effacing, is overlooked -- in an age of unrelenting media self-promotion.
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