From: farhad@cwi.nl (Farhad Arbab)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian
Subject: Re: Food for thought
Date: 21 Aug 92 20:14:00 GMT
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam

I am afraid I have already consumed my share of the bandwidth on SCI
with my previous comments.  Nevertheless, I ask you to bear with me one
more time, because I feel obligated to clarify some misunderstandings
reflected in the followup to my posting, sent by Mr. Saleh, again.  I
use his message as the basis for my comments hereunder.  But, once
more, I am really not responding to Mr. Saleh as an individual, and
would not have reacted on it (certainly not in public), had it not been
for the fact that the misunderstandings reflected in his message are
unfortunately very common.  I thank Mr. Saleh for providing an
opportunity for me to share some more of my personal views, and hope
that this will help to clear up certain misunderstandings for many.

Cheers,

Farhad Arbab
Interactive Systems
Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science
Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Email: farhad@cwi.nl                    Fax:   +31 20 592-4199
Phone: +31 20 592-4056                  Telex: 12571 mactr nl

In article <1992Aug21.044541.23568@news.clarkson.edu>, saleham@cauchy.mcs.clarkson.edu (Anwar M. Saleh) writes:
|> 
|> 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.

There seems to be a misunderstanding here on the
semantics of "accomplishments."  The more common meaning of
accomplishment, and certainly the one I intended in this context, is
"the outcome of work".  I think you are confusing "possessions" with
"what one achieves by investing effort."  Possessions (physical
attributes, material objects, abilities, skills, etc.) are a
combination of the outcomes of accidents and statistics, and
accomplishments.  You do not accomplish anything without investing your
effort.  The significance of an accomplishment is not judged by its
resulting increase of your possessions, but the effort you invest to
bring about those results.

I was lucky enough to be born in a relatively affluent environment,
with enough physical and emotional support to grow, and enough stimulus
for my mind to function.  Compared to many (but not all) less fortunate
than me, I have more possessions, but I am humbled by the
accomplishments of those multitudes for whom mere survival has been a
struggle since birth.

The competency of an average high-school student in algebra may exceed
that of Khayyam and Kharazmi combined.  But, somehow, we all recognize
that their accomplishments in this area is untainted by this fact, and
remain unsurpassed by even the accomplishments of many great
mathematicians to date.

It is not what you have, nor that which it brings, that counts as
accomplishments -- it is what you make out of it.

|> 
|> > 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?

Our possessions have a lot to do with accidents and statistics, but not
our accomplishments.  Earning a $1000-a-month income for a single
mother in south central Los Angeles is an accomplishment.  That she
manages to sustain her family of 5 is an accomplishment a tad short of
a miracle.  Earning the same $1000-a-month increase in possessions on
interest for someone else is not an accomplishment at all.

|> 
|> > 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.

There are two issues here, first is the misunderstanding of
accomplishments, which I hope is now clear: Einstein did what he
did with what he had, which is considered an unusual accomplishment
for him (among other things) because he surpassed others in his
environment.  Had he been born among those dying of famine, his
mere survival would perhaps be an accomplishment of the same
magnitude.

It is very difficult to judge how an individual's accomplishments
affect the humanity at large.  The general tendency is to reward
Einsteins (although still not often, properly, and promptly enough) and
ignore the mothers who slave a lifetime, sacrificing their own humanity
as an investment to rear the next generation of humans.  The fact is
that the accomplishments of every one of the multitudes of individuals
who have lived "insignificant" lives throughout the history, have done
more for the humanity at large than what Einsteins, Newtons, and
Khayyams are recognized for.  And this is exactly one of my points:  We
are all brainwashed to submit to, apply, and perpetuate a lopsided
value system that insults and short-changes all of us, and whose
purpose is to sustain all forms of oppression that keep the structure
of our societies together.  We under-value our own accomplishments and
are often even less generous with others.

The second point you bring up in your comment has to do with
intelligence.  This subject is the real reason I bothered to reply.
This subject has nothing to do with the accomplishment issue, but it is
incomparably more important.

You state "Some people were born intelligent, some were born dum." This
is no more than a hurtful, vicious lie, but it is not your fault.  We
have all heard this nonsense so frequently since childhood in various
forms, and have had its message reinforced repeatedly by so many hurtful
experiences, that most of us go around repeating it and perpetuate it
by inflicting it on our next generation. Worse yet, most of us actually
surrender to believe it.

There is no factual basis for this nonsense.  On the contrary, there is
plenty of evidence to support that every single one of us (barring
severe physical damage to the brain) is bestowed with an immense amount
of intelligence, far beyond what has been demonstrated by the
accomplishments of greatest geniuses in the history.  In fact, experts
believe that the greatest geniuses have barely used 10% of the
intelligence of a human being.  This means that for all practical
purposes, we must consider every single human being just as intelligent
as any other, and roughly 10 times more intelligent that the greatest
geniuses of the history.

Puzzled?  I am not surprised, because what you observe is not
what *is*, only how it behaves.  There is a crucial distinction between 
the intelligence of an individual and the fraction of it that is
functioning.  While people have essentially the same amount of
intelligence, their functioning intelligence varies greatly.
What is the difference, you may ask, this is just terminology.
This distinction would perhaps not have mattered much had it not
been possible for an individual to reclaim what she has and
liberate herself from what limits her functioning intelligence.
However, this is possible, it happens, and it is for real.
There is another important distinction between intelligence and
information.  I will not get into that, nor do I intend to go any
deeper into this topic at this point.

My dear friend, no one is born dumb, if by dumb you mean idiot.
People are trained as they grow up to become idiots.  This is
done at a great cost of investment by the society through often
well-meaning individuals who train younger generations to cripple
and maim their super-genius size inherent intelligence and
buy into the worthless nonsense, vicious lies, wasteful garbage,
and hurtful activities that the society promotes in the name of
culture, religion, or morality.  Next time you find an idiot,
appreciate him a lot; you see, vast resources have been invested
to make a full-fledged genius -- just like *you* truly are -- to
behave like the idiot that you find.  Idiots are very expensive
commodities.  The oppressive society would have never made such
investments to train all of us to behave within the narrow spectrum
of idiocy that we observe, had it not been to exploit us in the end.

One of the most effective devices used to yolk the inherent
intelligence of people is the same nonsense you mention above, and the
behavior it induces.  Without it, masses would not willingly
submit to oppression; castrate themselves of the ability, and the
responsibility, to think for themselves; or relinquish their right
and their power to control their own lives and well-being to
others who subjugate them for exploitation.  But you and I can
change that, starting with ourselves.  When this happens,
not the hell, but only the fabric of the existing oppressive,
exploiting societies will break loose.  Masses will see the
distinction between leadership and the fresh thinking that it requires,
and the dogma that persists to impose on them the relics
of historic structures that evolution of humanity has rendered
devoid of useful substance.

Less importantly, but more specifically, SCI would take on a
different character if we trusted and valued our own
intelligence, and recognized that everyone else is just as
wonderful and as intelligent as we are, no matter how they
behave.  Perhaps then people would find it easier to refrain from 
personal attacks, vicious sarcasm, derogatory remarks, and
hurtful comments that emanate from and breed hate.  And, if it
still happens, perhaps more people will be able to recognize such
behavior as what it truly is: an unfortunate and inappropriate
expression of the legitimate need of one of us to receive
attention for recovery from a hurt he has suffered in the past.

A medium like this forum physically limits the severity of the damage
that a misguided action can cause.  Such a call for help can therefore
cause very little fresh hurt, although, clearly, it often stirs up a
lot of old hurt in others.  Isn't it sad to hurt or even ignore someone
who behaves like an idiot when you can help him realize that he does
not have to?  Some may even find it within their means to actually
engage him, pay him the attention he deserves, and help him to
recover.

|> 
|>   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.

I hope all this is clear now.

|> 
|> 
|> > 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.
     *******

Hummmm ... did I write that (:-)?  You do not "fulfill" an onus, you
accept or undertake it -- Sigh!

|> >
|>   Anwar Saleh
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian