| Topic Name: |
Tired of all this. |
| Message Name: |
it's the human condition |
| Date Posted: |
02/13/2002 |
| In Reply To: |
Nineteenth century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once remarked that "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics".
I am reminded of this citation (also attributed to Mark Twain) whenever someone needs to include numbers to prove a point, so much that the debate may turn to a war of numbers.
Affordability, for one, is a relative criterion. For someone coming from a high middle-class family, the example you give me would be affordable. However, if you tell that to someone who earns minimum wage, they'll be infuriated at the thought that it's "easy" to shell out $3,200 a year (or 1,600 with the scholarship), not including other expenses such as textbooks. Also, what is your reaction to all these people who claim that we are losers unless we graduate from an Ivy League university?
I would also like to respond to your comment that I should "stop making excuses for [my] lack of achievement." Two questions naturally arise:
1) What exactly do you call "excuses"? Are you talking about my claim that professional jobs emphasized by this website are beyond most people's reach? Are you talking about my opinion of how hollow the so-called "American Dream" truly is? What I see is a society of vested interests and shallow jingoism.
2) What makes you think that I have achieved nothing in my life? The fact that I complain about the situation? Isn't it all rather selfish to think that the only things worth complaining about are those which affect me personally? I may care about the ban of land mines, the political situation in Argentina, or the fate of Indonesian factory workers, even though these events do not affect me personally.
I am a liberal arts graduate, in case you need to know, but of course you're probably snickering now that I'm just another "loser". There are people in a worse situation than mine, but nobody cares for their well-being or even acknowledge their presence, and that is what irritates me most.
There is, finally, no misunderstanding at all. I have my opinion, you have yours, and of course, because I have a loser degree, I must be the one who's wrong.
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| Message: |
You think that America is the only place where people strive to come out on top? Think again, that's humanity. In the Soviet Union before communism, in Afghanistan, everywhere, there is a game playing out in which some people wind up on top and others on the bottom. In America its about having the most money, in Afghanistan it's about being the warlord with the biggest mercenary army, in a communist country it's about being top dog in the communist system and enjoying the same perks through party connections as you could buy with money in a capitalist society.
All you need to live in America is a used Geo Metro and a cheap place to live... hey you don't even need the used car, take the bus.
Everything else is a zero sum game, about who wins and who loses.
The problem with America is it promises is people that if they do things "right", go to college, they will have a piece of the American dream (which is an existence more "comfortable" then a hovel and a cheap used car). But it's a LIE, and THAT is why so many posters on the vault are so upset. People go to college under the illusion that the college degree will buy something, but it buys nothing unless it's a graduate degree from Harvard.
That's why people are mad, not because their car doesn't have leather seats and they are allergic to fabric. It's because they though that if they followed the path they were following they'd move up in the system, and they discovered they were wasting their time, doing things the wrong way, and they only had one chance to do it the right way and they blew it.
This is why everyone is so mad.
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