People Are the Problem

I don't know about college, having never attended one. When I say "school", I mean elementary and high school. Nowadays they also have middle school, which used to called junior high, but I have no reason to believe it's any different there.

School, the military, and large corporations all have three things in common. They are hierarchal, classist, and they are full of people who care more about their social crap than they do about their jobs. I don't have a problem with the hierarchal part, as long as it's based on the job and not some social crap. I have never liked the concept of class, but I can live with it if it's based on some practical consideration instead of some social crap. In school it makes sense that the teachers and the students be in two different classes because the teachers are older and know more than the kids, which is why they are teachers in the first place. Military classism is based on tradition more than anything else. The officer class evolved from the days of old when knights were bold. The knights were professional soldiers that rode horses, while the peons carried their spears on foot. Incidentally, that's why they call minor players in a theatrical production "spear carriers", but I digress. The Great White Father in Cincinnati tried for years to break down the class system in our paper mill, with limited success. He efforts were resisted by the hourly as well as by the lower and middle managers. I think classism is programmed into human nature, it can be deprogrammed, but it's not easy.

Then there's the social crap. It's not enough to have more skill and experience than the average guy, you have to be cool to be a social leader. I asked a kid on my school but once what it takes to be considered cool. He thought about it for a moment and replied, "If you have to ask, then you probably wouldn't understand it." I have heard it said that life is not fair and I disagree. Life, be it school life, military life, or corporate life is fair, at least on paper, it's the people that aren't fair. All organizational structures have a certain amount of fairness programmed into them, but people are always trying to subvert, circumvent, and manipulate the system to their own advantage. Funny thing is, the fairness that is built into the system was put there by people too, but apparently not the same people.

The thing I saw on TV about the bathroom wars said that the Michigan State Board of Education has published non-compulsory guidelines about how schools should deal with LGBTQ students. I thought the "Q" stood for "queer" but, come to find out, it stands for "questioning". I think this means that, if a kid has any doubts about his gender, you have to cater to him just as much as if he was diagnosed by a physician to be a true hermaphrodite. True hermaphrodites are exceedingly rare, but a lot of kids might entertain doubts about their gender at some point in their lives, and that number can only increase with all this publicity. I think we should be trying to help them resolve those doubts, not cater to them, but that's just me.

A for boycotts, I've got nothing against them, as long as they're voluntary. If the Beaglsonian Institute was going to hold a convention, and the vast majority of the multitude of members voted to not have it in North Carolina, then so be it. If you don't like it, don't go to the convention. If you really don't like it, quit the Institute, start one of your own, and hold your convention anywhere you want.