There's a lot I feel I want to say, but I don't want this conversation to spiral out of control. At the end of the day, this is more or less a fruitless argument, so I'll keep it short.
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3yardsandacloud said:
2 of the most basic and primal motivations of humans as a species is the need for shelter and food. I fail to see how construction and agriculture have no significance in society, even if it is only the manual labor aspect of each endeavor.
Clearly you have a point. Perhaps 'significance' was the wrong word to choose there.
My point is that all of the truly important advances made throughout history were made by the scholars, the inventors, the military strategists of the world, and not the guys busting their asses to harvest food for the market. Is there nobility in that sort of work? Of course. But people like Socrates, Martin Luther, Johannes Gutenburg, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, Samuel Colt, Gen. George Patton - just to throw a few names out there - didn't have to pluck themselves from the wheat fields to accomplish what they did. They were thinking men. Men of substance. I do not claim to possess anything approaching the amount of talent that these men did, but if you ask me who I admire more, or with whom I identify, I think the answer is clear. To put it in football terms: Yes, everyone on the team is important in their own way. They all serve a purpose. Some players, however, get more done than others, and are therefore clearly
more important than, say, the guy on the practice squad who mimics the next opponent's running back, or the undergrad manager who gets them their water bottle on the sideline. My respect lies with those who have been born with the sort of vision and innate ability that enables them to stand on the backs of those who do not possess it, and truly improve (or at least change) the world.
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3yardsandacloud said:
Maybe you could find alternatives or become a pioneer of change in this area. You seem to have strong opinions on the subject, maybe it is a topic that you could devote your "life's work" to improving. Just a thought.
I certainly hope so.
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Woody1968 said:
I question why you choose Hispanics as your target.
1. Have you ever been to Latin America, other than Tijuana or some other border city?
2. I'll repeat my original question from your first post: What is it that you contribute to society that makes you better than the people you are criticizing?
3. What is it that you propose we do to eliminate this problem?
Valid questions, all. Hispanics are only the target at the moment because the woman in the article is one. Had she been of another nationality notorious for making too many of themselves, my arrows would be aimed thusly.
1. No, I have never been to any Latin American city.
2. At the moment, nothing. However, I would argue that my capacity for greatness far exceeds that of any of the Hispanics in question, including the child from the original article. Whether I achieve any measure of that greatness has yet to be determined.
3. Here's a proposal. It's been touched upon in a number of books and films, so I don't claim it to be an original concept - merely a good one, if at this point in history a little impractical. Find a way to test people at an early age for a variety of faculties. Set the bar at a certain point. Those above it may have children, those below it may not. A myriad of problems exist within this idea, all of which require far more space than this forum provides. My point is that there
are solutions, difficult as they may be to enact.
I
am young, I
am inexperienced, and I currently
do not consider myself to be an important member of society. I hope someday to make strides towards being one, but it's my values that have been called into question, and I feel I have explained them well enough for the moment.
