As humans, we often do not judge things based on what they are.\u00a0 Instead, we judge them based on how they compare to other things.\u00a0 \u201cHow smart is this man?\u00a0 Well, let\u2019s consider how he compares to other people.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHow special is this person\u2019s talent?\u00a0 Well, let\u2019s compare it to other people\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHow good was that movie?\u00a0 Eh, I\u2019ve seen better.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Say there\u2019s a business owner who hires people to package and ship books.\u00a0 He finds that an employee can, on average, package and ship 250 books a day.\u00a0 So he gathers the workers who consistently ship less than average and fires them, hiring faster workers in their place.\u00a0 But then the average obviously rises as the sample set changes; now the average is 270 books a day.\u00a0 The employer continues to go through the same process, firing the \u201cbelow average\u201d workers and hiring faster workers.\u00a0 From his point of view, he\u2019s maximizing profits.\u00a0 The more books he can ship, the better, so what does he care?\u00a0 But the workers are the ones who will suffer; they will be forced to worry about not making ever increasing quotas.<\/p>\n
The same principle goes with any system of judgment which measures \u201csuccess\u201d in numbers and values people by relating them to others.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a moment in the Pixar film The Incredibles<\/em> in which a mother with super powers tells her son with super powers: \u201cEveryone\u2019s special, Dash.\u201d\u00a0 To which her son pouts: \u201cWhich is another way of saying no one is.\u201d\u00a0 The movie leaves it there.\u00a0 Unfortunately many stories and movies glorify the \u201cspecialness\u201d of the main characters, the talents and gifts they have that nobody else get to have as if that\u2019s something to be celebrated in and of itself, inviting audiences to daydream the satisfaction of knowing they\u2019re in some way better than everyone else.<\/p>\n That\u2019s right, Dash, you\u2019re not special<\/em>, and how dare you base your self-worth on the worth you place on others!<\/p>\n Now, who else is looking forward to the Olympics 2012?!\u00a0 Yeah!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As humans, we often do not judge things based on what they are.\u00a0 Instead, we judge them based on how they compare to other things.\u00a0 \u201cHow smart is this man?\u00a0 Well, let\u2019s consider how he compares to other people.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHow special is this person\u2019s talent?\u00a0 Well, let\u2019s compare it to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[53,101],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s7gI4B-average","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}