During a class discussion on the short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., the issue of equality was immediately raised. I'm not going to bore you with the entire discussion, because you were there, but for those of you who were spacing out, I'll give a brief overview of what led up to the point of this post. I think Mr. Lawler said: "Remember when you were 7 and playing in a soccer tournament? Remember how everyone got trophies at the end? Is this total equality? Is this good or bad?" Again, sorry Mr. Lawler for probably butchering the fantastic point you made, but I got the idea through. Anyway, this got me thinking: "Is competition good for America?" I know most of you don't like the opposite of America's Capitalism (Communism), but our society breeds kids to do anything to win. These kids will likely end up leading our nation through businesses and corporations. Think Gordon Bombay in The Mighty Ducks.
I'm not saying that there shouldn't be winners and losers, but I am simply an advocate of giving trophies to all the players participating in the tournament. On a bigger scale, I have to be careful. Yet I still try to keep that mentality when thinking about the stock market crisis that has seemed to disappear from the headlines of newspapers. For instance, I think the Bailout Plan should have been passed. I think the innocent people who invested their money in a "fool-proof" company should not be punished the way they did. I think that everyone deserves a trophy. Even if it is for last place.
2 comments:
I'm sorry but I have to disagree with your point that everyone deserves a trophy. If everyone gets the same reward doesn't that diminish what the winners really accomplished? The winner in every contest deserves to be recognized. I'm not trying to discount the losing teams hard-work, but we have to realize that it is simply not realistic to have everyone be winners. Although I agree that children have to start being competitive at a very young age in society the competitiveness pushes them to pursue areas where they can really flourish. The elimination of winners and losers would also effect the amount of effort people put into their goal. If everyone was going to be considered winners, would you really run yourself to exhaustion in a race? My guess is probably not.
No need to apologize! Thanks for your comment.
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