From: saleham@cauchy.mcs.clarkson.edu (Anwar M. Saleh)
Subject: Re: Food for thought
Reply-To: saleham@cauchy.mcs.clarkson.edu
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 04:45:41 GMT


Farhad: your article is long and I will try to add some comments
         on installments.

Subject: should we be proud of any thing?


farhad@cwi.nl (Farhad Arbab) writes:
>
> The only things a human being can justifiably be proud of are her
                                    *******************************
> accomplishments.  Feeling proud of the outcomes of accidents and
  ****************

  accomplishment is the outcome of accidents and statistics.
  Look at yourself and some one dying of hunger in the horn of
  Africa. You weren't born in that famine area by accident.

> statistics is vanity and breeds bigotry.  Every one of us was born of a
> pair of parents, in some geographic area, with specific physical
> characteristics, and had our care and rearing entrusted with some
> adults whose behavior and views affected our physical existence and who
> often implicitly affected our views and patterns of behavior.  None of
> us had any way to influence any of this.
>

  so our accomplishments are results of accidents. Why should we be proud
  of them?

> Many people do not hesitate to
> ridicule a person who feels proud of his physical attributes and
> identify it as vanity.  And yet, most still sanction and even
> promote the same feelings about other results of dumb luck, such
> as one's clan, race, citizenship, and culture.  Like her beauty,
> a person's accidental association with a group X may be
> appreciated and even cherished, but it is nothing for her to be
> proud of because she did not do anything to accomplish it.
                                  **************************

  Also intelligence is physical attribute. Some people were born
  intelligent, some were born dum. Why Einestein has the right
  to feel proud of his accomplishment? If he was born in Somalia
  (among those dying of famine), he would not be known.

  Someone born handicapped does not have the same chances to
  contribute, so why who have the chances should be proud?

  It takes some students days and nights to understand one chapter,
  yet, it takes others just few hours (if not minutes).

  There are many in Iran or other 3rd world countries who, for economic
  reasons could not make it and lives a miserable life. They did not
  accomplish or contribute any thing for simple reason, their parents
  are poor or their governments did not help.

  It is unfair to compare the contributions of an American individual
  who was born for a super power and an Iranian or a 3rd world country
  who had to die in a war like Iraq-Iran war.

  accomplishment is a vague concept.

  So please elaborate more about **accomplishments** and contributions.


> What a person should feel proud of is her contributions to the
> group X.  But this puts an onus on most happy-go-lucky people who
> need to feel proud of something and find their citizenship or
> culture an easy target; an onus most of them are unprepared to
> fulfill: that they must first make some contribution.
>
  Anwar Saleh