@Tachyon > Conversely, the winners were usually the same few kids.
This is a statement that, when replacing "kids" with the appropriate noun, can be applied to pretty much all competitive events.
If you've ever been in other primary-/secondary-/elementary-/middle-/high-school academic competitions, or even paid attention to class grades, you'll usually note that the same several people usually score at the top of the class, and the same several schools usually dominate any given contest series. For example, the team events in the math competitions in Broward County, about a decade and half ago, usually had Stoneman Douglas winning a bunch, JP Taravella winning some, and I think Nova and Cooper City taking some as well, and the rest of the prizes were scattered between the other names. It depended a little on whether a given school entered a given contest, of course -- for example, these higher-tier schools never entered Geometry, I think, and thus Geometry tended to be swept by the lower-tier schools -- but otherwise you'd see the same patterns.
If you've ever been in the music performance competition circuit, you'll find the same names popping up repeatedly, though oddly it's in those cases where you'd more likely see a somewhat greater assortment of winners.
Still, though, here's the real problem:
@Anonus > "if your whole life isn't about playing this game, you'll never succeed at it"
This doesn't just apply to athletic competitions. It also applies to academic ones. If you don't live and breathe debate and aren't willing to carve out regular chunks of your schedule for debate tourneys, then you're unlikely to get ahead (and the team will probably not want you ahead) in the debate tourney scene. If you don't spend a few hours a day in the practice room and have a somewhat more famous teacher name on your resume, you probably won't win more than a few local music competitions and you probably won't strike it big with the big-name ones that require audition tapes and expensive plane tickets to strange parts of the world.
Many institutions speak of appreciating well-rounded humans, but the way these contests are set up, they're pretty much always going to go to the "spikiest" of the bunch.
i'm not really sure why any of that's a problem, tbh. Nobody can be good at everything, so it's nice to get recognition for the things you're most enthusiastic about, i think.
As for giving everybody a trophy or medal or something, I think I would've just thrown mine away. If people want to play sports and work at it, etc., that's fine, that's their business. But it isn't for everyone and giving me a little token just for participating ain't gonna change my mind on that.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Because that's how it works.
I know I shouldn't expect better from grumpy old white men like the McCoys but god damn
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
I think I finally figured out why this argument bothers me.
Every time I've seen it, it's been framed as "we shouldn't give kids rewards just for participating, because then they won't learn than the real world isn't fair."
But it seems to rely on this unstated idea that we should just ACCEPT "the real world isn't fair" as an immutable fact instead of trying to make the parts we have control over more fair.
And let's be honest, the only people who think that way tend to be people lucky enough to have not been screwed over by "the real world" and its unfairness.
And let's be honest, the only people who think that way tend to be people lucky enough to have not been screwed over by "the real world" and its unfairness.
I've noticed this too. There's almost a sort of Randian conceitedness in this mindset - life's not fair, so let's go out of our way to make it worse for other people, guys!
Also "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is ridiculous because there absolutely is on both a literal and metaphorical level.
Technically there isn't. Even if you receive a free meal, the food has to come from somewhere, with suppliers, cooks, etc. each pitching in a certain amount. Money is involved in every step of the food-preparing process. Someone's paying for your free lunch - it's just not you.
Also "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is ridiculous because there absolutely is on both a literal and metaphorical level.
Technically there isn't. Even if you receive a free meal, the food has to come from somewhere, with suppliers, cooks, etc. each pitching in a certain amount. Money is involved in every step of the food-preparing process. Someone's paying for your free lunch - it's just not you.
the world being fair would imply that you get things according to how much you deserve them
the world not being fair would imply that it's random or arbitrary
if everyone gets the same thing regardless of how much work they put in, it's not on the basis of deservedness, is it?
it's more that the combined message is "the world is fair only when it would work out against you, and is never fair when it would work in your favor". Which is something that many people seem to genuinely believe.
Also "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is ridiculous because there absolutely is on both a literal and metaphorical level.
Technically there isn't. Even if you receive a free meal, the food has to come from somewhere, with suppliers, cooks, etc. each pitching in a certain amount. Money is involved in every step of the food-preparing process. Someone's paying for your free lunch - it's just not you.
The show and its content is often cited as a contributing factor to the perceived sense of "entitlement" seen in the Millennial generation who grew up watching the show as children.[15][16] One specific criticism is:
"His shows do not assist children in learning to deal with negative feelings and emotions. As one commentator puts it, the real danger from Barney is 'denial: the refusal to recognize the existence of unpleasant realities. For along with his steady diet of giggles and unconditional love, Barney offers our children a one-dimensional world where everyone must be happy and everything must be resolved right away.'"[17]
Also "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is ridiculous because there absolutely is on both a literal and metaphorical level.
Technically there isn't. Even if you receive a free meal, the food has to come from somewhere, with suppliers, cooks, etc. each pitching in a certain amount. Money is involved in every step of the food-preparing process. Someone's paying for your free lunch - it's just not you.
/pedant over
There's definitely such thing as "lunch that's considerably less expensive to almost everyone than what we're paying now by all meaningful measures".
Almost because rich people need to pay their fucking taxes.
The above is from the Wikipedia article on Barney.
One of those links goes to a Forbes article called "Entrepreneurship (Or Lack Thereof) In Millennials".
THIS AMUSING BRIGHT PURPLE SHAPE IS NOT INTRODUCING OUR THREE YEAR OLDS TO THE HARSH REALITIES OF THE WORLD
In MY day, George Carlin would come on TV and tell toddlers that he killed Santa Clause and he's coming for their parents next.
we need to put a name to this movement of "everything mush be HARSH AND TRUTHFUL at all times"
Complaining about millennials being coddled or not understanding the "harsh realities" of life seems pretty ridiculous to me, especially when you consider how competitive the job market is today and how common complaints about "kids these days" have been throughout history. I also find the lack of empathy for younger generations kind of disturbing to be honest, particularly given the fact the younger people tend to have less power in society and are often still learning how to function within it.
Going back to the OP, I think the idea of participation trophies is a bit silly, sure. That said, I do believe that teaching young kids that winning is not everything and encouraging them to be active and healthy are both good things. I feel like participation trophies are super overblown at this point too. As Kexruct pointed out, it is not like children are suddenly going to lose their competitive instincts because some kids get token consolation prizes.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
There's actually an article I saw about getting trophies where it's framed that "Children aren't stupid, if you give them trophies for losing, they'll just distrust the trophy system"
Plus, there's a lot to be said about how sports and the like are incentivized through competition and prizes, really digging in and putting that "Us vs. them" mentality that pretty much plagues everything like a stew.
I seriously don't see the problem. Give the winner a bigger trophy, and make the participation trophy small and kinda shitty plastic but still a nice reminder of good times.
I seriously don't see the problem. Give the winner a bigger trophy, and make the participation trophy small and kinda shitty plastic but still a nice reminder of good times.
I seriously don't see the problem. Give the winner a bigger trophy, and make the participation trophy small and kinda shitty plastic but still a nice reminder of good times.
Seriously this like it should not be an issue.
It's the us vs. them attitude.
"Why should they get a trophy when they didn't win."
In particular it's kind of how poverty keeps getting perpetuated. I mean, It's not like we don't have to resources to keep people housed or feed, but the idea that homeless people deserve to be homeless for "failing" even though, our whole world is kind of cracked up. is what keeps people from looking at poverty as a problem that can be solved and more keeps it as a personal letter of failure to each person who "failed"
Comments
@Tachyon > Conversely, the winners were usually the same few kids.
This is a statement that, when replacing "kids" with the appropriate noun, can be applied to pretty much all competitive events.
If you've ever been in other primary-/secondary-/elementary-/middle-/high-school academic competitions, or even paid attention to class grades, you'll usually note that the same several people usually score at the top of the class, and the same several schools usually dominate any given contest series. For example, the team events in the math competitions in Broward County, about a decade and half ago, usually had Stoneman Douglas winning a bunch, JP Taravella winning some, and I think Nova and Cooper City taking some as well, and the rest of the prizes were scattered between the other names. It depended a little on whether a given school entered a given contest, of course -- for example, these higher-tier schools never entered Geometry, I think, and thus Geometry tended to be swept by the lower-tier schools -- but otherwise you'd see the same patterns.
If you've ever been in the music performance competition circuit, you'll find the same names popping up repeatedly, though oddly it's in those cases where you'd more likely see a somewhat greater assortment of winners.
Still, though, here's the real problem:
@Anonus > "if your whole life isn't about playing this game, you'll never succeed at it"
This doesn't just apply to athletic competitions. It also applies to academic ones. If you don't live and breathe debate and aren't willing to carve out regular chunks of your schedule for debate tourneys, then you're unlikely to get ahead (and the team will probably not want you ahead) in the debate tourney scene. If you don't spend a few hours a day in the practice room and have a somewhat more famous teacher name on your resume, you probably won't win more than a few local music competitions and you probably won't strike it big with the big-name ones that require audition tapes and expensive plane tickets to strange parts of the world.
Many institutions speak of appreciating well-rounded humans, but the way these contests are set up, they're pretty much always going to go to the "spikiest" of the bunch.
(The other Jane)
As for giving everybody a trophy or medal or something, I think I would've just thrown mine away. If people want to play sports and work at it, etc., that's fine, that's their business. But it isn't for everyone and giving me a little token just for participating ain't gonna change my mind on that.
Because that's how it works.
I know I shouldn't expect better from grumpy old white men like the McCoys but god damn
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Every time I've seen it, it's been framed as "we shouldn't give kids rewards just for participating, because then they won't learn than the real world isn't fair."
But it seems to rely on this unstated idea that we should just ACCEPT "the real world isn't fair" as an immutable fact instead of trying to make the parts we have control over more fair.
And let's be honest, the only people who think that way tend to be people lucky enough to have not been screwed over by "the real world" and its unfairness.
I've noticed this too. There's almost a sort of Randian conceitedness in this mindset - life's not fair, so let's go out of our way to make it worse for other people, guys!
"there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" seems nearer the mark, surely?
though the validity of that does depend on how far it's a contest of skill and effort, versus how far it comes down to innate ability
the world not being fair would imply that it's random or arbitrary
if everyone gets the same thing regardless of how much work they put in, it's not on the basis of deservedness, is it?
Technically there isn't. Even if you receive a free meal, the food has to come from somewhere, with suppliers, cooks, etc. each pitching in a certain amount. Money is involved in every step of the food-preparing process. Someone's paying for your free lunch - it's just not you.
i stand by what i said: i don't think people who complain about participation trophies think they're promoting unfairness.
if you're gonna pick enough for a lunch, it's gonna take a while
The show and its content is often cited as a contributing factor to the perceived sense of "entitlement" seen in the Millennial generation who grew up watching the show as children.[15][16] One specific criticism is:
Going back to the OP, I think the idea of participation trophies is a bit silly, sure. That said, I do believe that teaching young kids that winning is not everything and encouraging them to be active and healthy are both good things. I feel like participation trophies are super overblown at this point too. As Kexruct pointed out, it is not like children are suddenly going to lose their competitive instincts because some kids get token consolation prizes.