Excellence. Excellence is a great thing. But it seems that our society wants to under emphasize excellence. We see this in the concern of many that having a winner in a game will make us feel bad because "we're all winners" and we don't want people to feel bad. Or that grades are not important because they could hurt self esteem.
Sometimes I fear that the constant worry about not hurting our self esteem makes us erase the value of excelling in life.
One of my favorite quotes from the movie The Incredibles is:
Bob Parr: It's not a graduation. He's moving from the 4th grade to the 5th grade.
Helen Parr: It's a ceremony.
Bob Parr: It's psychotic! They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity.
I have been thinking of excellence lately also with the discussion on the "universal healthcare" plan (which is misleading in the name itself since the name indicates that we do not all have healthcare. That is a lie- we don't all have health insurance (only 15% of us don't- including illegals)- but we all have health care. ) This bill will eliminate the need for doctors and health care professionals to excel. It will eliminate any reward for being better- as we use reward to often motivate us. I work hard in school because I know I will be rewarded with better grades. If I excel in my job, I am rewarded with higher pay, etc. Excellence is a good value in our society and rewarding excellence is good also. Society telling us that it does not matter is a lie.
"Reward is an incentive to excellence. That is a good thing." - Dennis Prager
Monday, July 27, 2009
one of society's great lies
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
Unfortunately, people don't always reward excellence so society is realising they can get by without excelling. It comes down to the: "its not what you know, its who you know." I wish I had been privvy to this big lie before loading 30 years of student loan repayments on me in a pursuit to become "excellent".
On the universal health care - they all manipulate it, and any other policy, to make it sound how they want it to fit the bill. Republicans will make it sound like it will ruin society and Democats will make it sound like it will solve all our problems. Neither are true. My main issues with it is that I really don't think it can be pulled off in an effective manner. And the reason why there are such excellent doctors and medical advancements and research in the US is because of the high medical costs. I am definitely a fan of my universal healthcare here in Australia, but I get free benefits because Americans pick up the bill. Withouth the high costs, how can expensive medical research be done?
That's my two cents anyway to raise my hand for excellence! :)
Post a Comment