re: Berkeley Students Protest Exam and Demand ‘Take-Home Exam'

quote:

---

I hate to harp on this because it's so cliche and overused, but here it truly is applicable. This is the product of a society that for the last 30 years or so has neglected to teach children about the reality of inequality, winners, losers and the process of self-improvement.

All human beings are not equal. All human beings in certain societies are, in theory, equal under the law. That does not mean that my athletic skills are equivalent to those of Lebron James. He will beat me every time in a pickup game precisely because we are NOT equivalent on a basketball court, and the same realities are why I will beat him every time in a spelling bee.

Some are inherently more intelligent than others. Some people, no matter how hard they study, will never succeed in certain academic settings. Some people can succeed but will never be as good as others in the same setting.

To some degree we can all improve. I can practice basketball long enough that I will be better than I was, but only to a point. I Will still never be an NBA player. Likewise, MOST cognitively intact people can study hard enough to graduate high school but many cannot withstand the rigors of higher education. Among those who can, some will never do as well as others. The process of self-improvement should be encouraged but with the caveat that we all have a ceiling in every area.

However, what we've instead done is attempted to pursued our youth that you can be anything you want to be if you work hard enough...and then remove all incentive for them to work hard by equating everyone and taking measures to ensure those who area in inferior in a given area aren't forced to deal with that reality. So you combine the lie of equality with self-defeating ideologies that don't promote the improvement required to achieve the supposed equality. It's complete and total nonsense.

---