No, this isn't going to be some impassioned equality rant. However, a brief moment of admiration for this Community star, ex-30 Rock writer is definitely needed, - what better place to insert matter-of-fact truths than a twenty minute standup on Comedy Central? Ever since I joined AIESEC, I've thought a lot about effectively mass-communicating messages. If there's ever a way to make someone pay attention and realise the importance of your message, that it's not when you preach your morals and perspectives till they're suffocating and gasping for propaganda-free air... it's when it's relayed in amongst jokes about midgets and penises of course.
Extreme fallacies heard in the last couple of days:
#1 the case of J's friend
Success at the highest degree is measured by magnitude of the positive impact your contribution has on humanity.
Since the compass, print press, gunpowder and paper, Asians have not invented or innovated anything of note in the past 2000 years.
The lightbulb was invented by a white man, smarter than the smartest member of an Amazonian tribe.
The white man is smarter than that smartest Amazonian tribesman/woman because former invented the lightbulb and the latter did not.
Therefore, smart white people are smarter than the smartest Asians... or Amazonian tribe members.
Conveniently sweeping socio-economic factors under the rug?
Freely interchanging terms of success and intelligence?
Forgetting that some of the most useful innovations were just fluke discoveries.
Assuming that the most intelligent person who may figure out the logistics of getting us to Mars in the future when Earth dies, but may be so busy in doing so that they forget to have a family, will ask themselves at the end of their lonely lives, 'Have I really succeeded'?
According to who's standards?
Even if
IF
Everything above holds true
If we all lived with the exact same opportunities afforded to us
Ignoring nature and trigger of motivations i.e. do we all innately want to save the world, are we only successful 'at the highest level' if we contribute large?
#2 the case of humble arrogance
Society is structured like a pyramid with leaders on top.
Arguer is a 'middle man' who is not interested in the financial review, only the herald sun's thickass sports section
Goes on to talk about how the 'lower ranks' have not the interest because they don't have the intelligence.
People are not born equal but everyone deserves to be afforded equal opportunities, including respect, or at least the chance to earn it. Elitist attitudes, story-changing and double standards when you the self-proclaimed middle man are different from those without the mental capacity to comprehend what you merely find 'boring'.
I will be amazed if any of this makes sense to anyone.
