From The Editor |
I had a lot of issues I wanted to comment on this month … but the last one I thought of is the one that’s stuck in my mind right now.
It’s this particular hobbyhorse: a news report this week stated the nursing department at Mesa Community College had decided that, instead of basing admission solely on merit, it would consider people based on their arrival for registration. Which meant some people camped out starting on Sunday morning in order to be a among the first when the office opened Tuesday morning.
I don’t know about you, but it certainly makes me delighted to know a future nurse will be taking care of me based upon his/her ability to stand in line for a long time!
Kind of a warm, fuzzy feeling … not because she’s made the highest scores in chemistry, or he’s top of the line in anatomy. But, by golly, because she can withstand sore feet and boredom, she became a nurse!
The Head of the Nursing department stated on the radio that they switched to this system because it made it more "fair" for the average student. Well, thanks, lady, but I don’t want to be nursed by an average student -- I want the best. I want the one who knows that there shouldn’t be bubbles in the IV; who is an overachiever and who is top of the class.
Face it: life isn’t "fair". We -- despite every denial by certain segments of the population -- are not born equal. My stepson is a gifted performer, and may be signing with a major record company soon. I would love to be a singer, but no amount of training will ever make me more than mediocre. So should the record company suddenly take the first 50 applicants and promote them, just to make it more "fair" to me? How about basketball? I want to make jillions of dollars, too – hey, it’s not "fair" that I can’t play for the Suns!
I grew up in the 60’s and volunteered for McCarthy because I wanted the playing field leveled. It was not right nor honest that people were denied voting rights, jobs, housing, and education because of ethnic background. Everybody should have an opportunity to achieve his/her own potential without artificial fetters.
But have we taken the "fairness" issue too far? It seems nowadays that, instead of acknowledging the differences in each of us, we want everybody to be the same. Instead of honoring -- and encouraging -- the differing skills, abilities, and achievements of each individual, we want a kind of Velveeta population … with a corresponding drop in individual quality.
Jewish wisdom says, "Don’t put a stumbling block in front of the blind man." We should not forbid someone from striving for a goal – but we shouldn’t lower the goalpost just to make him feel better.
And I want my nurse – and my engineer, and my writer, and my pilot – to have achieved their positions by virtue of skill and ability, not because it wasn’t "fair" for them to fail.
The Tao says the value of a cup is not only in its solidity, but in the nothingness inside it. We can’t have achievement without failure. Life that’s totally "fair" is nothing but a vast, empty plain full of meaningless "achievements" and androgynous, vapid, identical feel-good automatons.
When we all can acquire everything, nothing has value.