Thursday, June 21, 2007

Vickie Oddino, who looks like someone I know,

has an article in The Atlasphere comparing The Fountainhead to Amadeus. [If you want to compare apples to apples, The Fountainhead is a movie too.]
I wonder about the fate of the generation of children brought up in a world where the contrast between the superior and the average, the mediocre if you will, is deliberately suppressed. A world with no valedictorians for fear of hurting the feelings of those who did not earn the highest grades. A world where no one keeps score and where all baseball players on all teams receive trophies. A world of social promotion in education to save a student from the embarrassment of being held back.

What does this teach our children about the best and the brightest? Only that it is the presence of the best that makes us feel badly about ourselves. And the only way to feel better is to keep them suppressed.

Excellent! You should read it.

But it pricks at my conscience a bit.

There was a guy in my high school who was stronger than I was. I benched 320, he benched 330. Not only that, he was three inches taller, stunningly good-looking, affable, built like a bodybuilder and lazy as the day is long.

I think, though, that what bothered me most was that all he did was keep just barely ahead of me. "330? Is that enough for you? The school record's 385! Come on!"

At our twenty year reunion, he looked like he could bench 530. Still single and virile.

What's he doing with his life? He didn't say. He didn't say anything important. I don't think he can.

Or, maybe it's classified.

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