Value Judgement

Do Americans Judge eachother based on the wrong scale?

Today I had a thought, which was that it seems America values not performance, but outcome (unless performance is the outcome lol).

But for example, two people in school are assigned the same things. One works the entire time at doing his best, and through his limitations only manages to do "B" work let's say.

And the other waits till 3 in the morning before its do and due to his lack of limitations manages to do "A" work anyways.

Now...grading isn't the question, but evaluating is.

I say it's all fair to grade someone's product, but when giving merrit I think Americans (not sure about the rest of the world) judges wrongly.

Because let's say you were to give an award to one of those two. Who would you give it to?

I would give it to the B work student because while his work only managed to bring forth 4/5th of the efficiency or perfection, whatever, that the A work student did.

The B work student put forth heart, soul, and dedication into his work. And so while it wasn't as complete, he deserves the recognition because he actually tried.

I think meriting someone simply on what their product is is a big factor to stress, mental health problems and eventual crime in the USA.

Too many people work extremely hard, and watch people who spend no time, no love, and none of their spirit into what they do, get all the promotions and all the recognition.

America is great because of the dedication its people give, but since the 40s it seems that recognizing someone based on dedication has been steadily declining.

Now it is a produce or fail society and history never seems to fail those. Afterall, look at what happend to Communism.

Communism was a produce or fail society to the extreme, who cared about how much you dedicated your life to something, if it eventually proved uneventful, you were useless.

This had drastic effects on Soviet Sciences, because science isn't furthered by product, but by the actual experimentation itself.

In America, in the 60s we made it to the moon, because failure after failure was outweighed by the determination of the people charged with that task. Had they been branded as failures because their rocket blew up the first...second, 400th time, would we ever have gotten to the moon?

What are all your thoughts on if Society is changing to accept only success, or do you feel that determination, perseverance, all the things except the actual final project itself, is getting properly merrited?

[Edited on 30-4-2003 by HKoT]

in your example, i would say for the person who got the B -

probably envying the other person's ease at getting an A is the problem that leads to stress, anger, etc. life isn't a competition unless you make it one.

Stop worrying about the other person and how they do things and what awards they get and worry about yourself. If you're not happy with a B, work harder, do whatever to improve yourself, but who cares about the other person?


To the person who got the A -

He seems talented, so I hope he's doing something useful in life.

Yeah, it's ashame this hasn't gotten more attention. But I want to stress, I'm not advocating that the A person be shoved aside either.

But you must give recognition to effort as much as the product, or competition will lead to disaster.

I agree with you, the B guy deserves an award for trying, but in the end the only importance is the result. What will happen if the B person kept getting B's and the A student getting A's? Easy the A student is the eventual winner.

But I'll give you this, We can't Judge these two people until they both die so we can properly evaluate who is the eventual winner.

The sad thing about this is that the person that was happier with his or her life is the winner. So whether its the A student or the B student, Its not up to us, it's up to them.

As for the American people, We are still a people who try our hardest, its just that with more technology, their is a greater demand to protect ourselves and our discoveries. The US has made great discoveries, its just that the American public cant be told for national security reason. Especially during The Cold War and even now, From our new enemies: Iraq, Afganistan, France, Germany, and the EU

I was just that kind of student...the kind that waits to the last minute, and then hands in an A report. My opinion is rather biased here, but if someone spends a lot of time on something, and then the result is not up to snuff, while another is just good at it, why should the substandard report get more credit? Nope, just can't agree there...the world is driven by results...not mindless toil. Sure, that's the fuel...but it's not the driver...

No not the report...I don't think the product should be involved when giving effort praise.

I think they should simply praise both things.

The person who works extremely hard at his job, even if he's just a low ranking person, should recieve merit and awards for his service.

And the rocket scientist who makes a succesful mars rocket should be praised for his finished product, of course people probably care nothing about how much work that rocket scientist put into it, because the finished product is so amazing.

Does that make a little more sense? It would be foolish not to praise success....or we'd be working hard but accomplishing nothing.

Originally posted by Gazrok
I was just that kind of student...the kind that waits to the last minute, and then hands in an A report. My opinion is rather biased here, but if someone spends a lot of time on something, and then the result is not up to snuff, while another is just good at it, why should the substandard report get more credit? Nope, just can't agree there...the world is driven by results...not mindless toil. Sure, that's the fuel...but it's not the driver...

Gotta agree with you Gaz, I was the same way. I remember in college I had to do a 27 page paper for my eight o'clock class, I knew it would take me about 4 hours, so I put it off untill about 2 a.m. knowing that I would get it done and still have an hour to goof off.
I think that they both deserve credit, but be honest guys... Lets say you had a disease and were going to die, You have 48 hours to live...
Ok Person a can come up with the cure in 22 hours, person b can come up with it in 91 hours...Ok who do you want working on the cure???

_____________________________________________
Be Cool
K_OS

Yeah well let's say K_OS that those same people are working on that "cure".

Person B has worked on it for the past decade, he'll make it in time to save the guy, but by the time he gets to the place Person A already made it in the past 2 hours....and gets all the credit, even though he only beat him by say a day or something.

That happens all too often.

This ideal of the man who works to get what he got is the best man is not right. This is a great point that you have made. It is one point that might stick a hole in the bubble of the capitalist system. A system that has laws but laws run by money. Money is the ruler of all evil. When you have a system running your government that is run by evil, then you have an evil system. That is why the Arabs call us the Great Satan. We are Satan because we sin for the hopes to have good lives and be free, when we have not yet sacrificed. Money is not the leader of men but the ruler of them. Unfortonately in America it is both.

Originally posted by Abraham Virtue
This ideal of the man who works to get what he got is the best man is not right. This is a great point that you have made. It is one point that might stick a hole in the bubble of the capitalist system. A system that has laws but laws run by money. Money is the ruler of all evil. When you have a system running your government that is run by evil, then you have an evil system. That is why the Arabs call us the Great Satan. We are Satan because we sin for the hopes to have good lives and be free, when we have not yet sacrificed. Money is not the leader of men but the ruler of them. Unfortonately in America it is both.

Men!!! this is a nice speech really nice, Money rules the world, rules the law, rules the ppl, rules your way to leave...
Money was created B.C, and before ppl were working for ppl for survive, there wasn�t anything between, now money breaks that link between ppl and makes them think just in the green paper instead of your ppl...