In a capitalistic system of civilization, competition is the currency of passage. You’ve gotta be BETTER than the competitors in your chosen field of endeavor!
Unfortunately, some can’t compete, and many do not have a chosen field of endeavor.
Some have no way to access opportunity to become competitive.
Some simply won’t compete.
And more than “reasonable” numbers don’t seem to understand either WHY or HOW.
This combination of factors has contributed to huge problems in the US, including an under-skilled/under-developed workforce, substantial under-employment, significant unemployment, and an under-performing economy.
Bowing to liberal pressure, as well as to a sense of fairness and justice, prodigious “lip service” is given to the ideal of EQUAL OPPORTUNITY. Toward this end, we throw everybody in the same bucket and say “There! We’re all in this EQUALLY together!!”
But equal opportunity and a “competitive advantage” are hard to come by in many quarters.
Madeleine Pape, discussing the Olympics on NPR, expanded the concept of “Competitive Advantage”, saying that she, herself, might have been considered to have a “competitive advantage” due to the advanced level of sports training and development available in her native Australia, compared to that in many other countries. [Compare her situation with that of the Refugee Olympians who have no infrastructure … ] http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-monday-august-15-2016-1.3721048/caster-semenya-endured-gender-witch-hunt-says-former-critic-1.3721076
It turns out that legions of other factors can bestow competitive advantages and disadvantages, no matter how “Equal” the opportunities may appear to be in the ideal scheme of things.
If you are Caucasian and middle-class or better in the US, you have an inborn, culturally biased “competitive advantage”.
If you are male, you have a competitive advantage in highly lucrative finance and heavy industry jobs … despite the fact that women are more disciplined, are more articulate, are less impulsive, have better judgment, are often better educated, are better at multitasking, and are more practiced in overcoming hurdles. (They also have a more functional gender-defining X chromosome!)
Ingrained boundaries are important. A person who believes or has been told he/she doesn’t “belong” is going to be at a considerable competitive DISadvantage.
A person who is primarily exposed to a foreign language in the home is going to be at a competitive disadvantage – at least early in the going. [All other things being more than equal, of course, it could be a competitive advantage in due course.]
When your culture and community is insecure and not geared to skills-building but simply to staying alive, you are at a competitive disadvantage; Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math will be irrelevant.
Self-Positioning/Self-Imaging is important. “I’m not worthy” or “This doesn’t apply to me” or “I’ll never use this” can negate a plethora of efforts to level the playing field.
So cultural setting and Visioning more distant horizons with grander possibilities is critical for many at the bottom, requiring both mentoring and internships/apprenticeships to see much more clearly what they CAN do and become.
Many already know what they DO NOT want to do or become, and all they want or justifiably need is a genuine, real life, honest-to-God opportunity that applies to their personal circumstances.
From Pencils of Promise, helping educate kids in underdeveloped countries, we get the following:
As students get ready for school this fall, we’re setting out to change the fact that 250 million children around the world lack basic reading and writing skills [& tools].
https://pencilsofpromise.org/backtoschool/
From Fayette County, Kentucky:
“ … the gap in reading between students who receive free or reduced-price lunch and others is 37.5 percent. In last year’s report, the gap was 38.7 percent.
In math, the gap between white and black students is 34.3 percent in the 2015 report, down slightly from 35.5 percent in 2014.” http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article44612457.html#storylink=cpy
So we give them breakfast and lunch and throw them into the same classrooms with peers who have culturally higher expectations, momentum and life visioning … plus substantially more support and effective monitoring systems … and declare that they have “equal opportunity”.
From Heifer International we get the following:
“In the communities where we work, the solution isn’t that people need to work harder – they need [access to better opportunity, including] resources and training to increase the productivity of their efforts … We continue to give farmers livestock, training and access to markets. But we are now doing so in a way that will help them close the gap between the [woefully inadequate] income they currently earn and the income they need to thrive.”
From Pakistan:
Malala Yousafzai is known mainly for human rights advocacy for education and for women in her native Swat Valley in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of northwest Pakistan, where the local Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai
Having a SECURE UNDERPINNING, developing a clear VISION of a better world, having a compelling DESIRE or NEED to make the world better, having the INITIATIVE to be a “PLAYER”, attaining ACCESS to education and skills-building tools, and finding ways of CONNECTING with opportunities are the key elements necessary for fostering a COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. Where security is lacking, where vision is not clear and where there is no perceived desire or need, some degree of “nudging” – with boundaries and more tangible/proximal consequences – may be required to facilitate successful passage. It’s all easier SAID than DONE, unless or until we start SAYING and DOING differently. But it’s now pretty well documented that a laissez faire / hands-off / catch-as-catch-can / sink-or-swim approach (“ … and, by the way, have you seen the latest social media and game diversions designed to keep you off the grid?”) aren’t driving a full, participatory, “equal opportunity” advancement of civilization. Quartermaster
